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Correspondence

August-September 1976

Exchange with Haham Gaon about R. Lamm's Appointment to YU Presidency and Sephardic Studies at YU (1976)

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1. Haham Gaon to R. Lamm

1. Haham Gaon to R. Lamm (Aug. 31, 1976)

1. Haham Gaon to R. Lamm (Aug. 31, 1976)

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Exchange with Dr. Salomon about R. Lamm's Appointment to YU Presidency and Sephardic Studies (1976)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I was delighted to hear that you have been designated the new President of Yeshiva University. Congratulations! As you probably know, your Assistant, Rabbi Herbert C. Dobrinsky, and yours truly are right now at work on the next issue of the Yeshiva University publication The American Sephardi, which will be dedicated to the memory of your revered predecessor. As Editor of The American Sephardi, I have a special stake in Yeshiva University, because through it I am trying to help realize the ideals of my late father, Ivan Salomon, who conceived the plan of establishing a Sephardi Program at Yeshiva University.It was my father's hope that Yeshiva University would broaden its outlook and realize the insufficiency of a Jewish culture based exclusively on Eastern European foundations and lifestyle. Dr. Samuel Belkin shared my father's feeling that the Sephardi heritage in all its ramifications—Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, the Dutch, British and, above all, American—should be studied in a respectable academic environment and that Yeshiva University was the place.Thus, for the first time in an institution catering largely to an Ashkenazi student body of Eastern European background, the possibility was created for a Center in the United States of America for the study of the great past of Iberian Jewry on the part of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi young people.In addition, both Dr. Belkin and my father, together with the Reverend the Haham, Dr. Solomon Gaon, foresaw the opening of the gates of Yeshiva University to the American Sephardi community as a Center for the dissemination and revival of Sephardi cultural traditions.Finally, it was their great visionary hope that rabbis and teachers could be trained at Yeshiva University according to the needs which Sephardi survival imposes.Thus, I greet you, Rabbi Lamm, as the new President of the institution on which we of the Sephardi community and of the historic Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portug…
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Exchange with R. Berkovits about R. Lamm's Appointment to YU Presidency (1976)

Dear Norman, Congratulations on your appointment. This was, of course, bound to come: strange that this time the best man available was elected to our important position. I don’t wish you good-bye, not only because I wish you well personally but also, and mainly, because I wish Yeshiva University – and perhaps I ought to say, Judaism at large – well. I believe it is not belittling the achievements of Dr. Belkin if I say that we have reached a stage at which Y.U. needs a new direction, a comprehensively integrated educational philosophy, and an intellectual, devoted confrontation with the problems of the day. You, belonging to another generation, fully involved in the problematics of the contemporary situation, are able to do the job. Speed and mazal tov. I pray that you have the providence that you need for every success. Sincerely, Eliezer Berkovits.
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Exchange with R. Gur about R. Lamm's Appointment to YU Presidency (1976)

לאישי הדגול וידיי הנעלה מאד, הרה״ג ד״ר נחום לאם שליט״א, נשיא ישיבה אוניברסיטה ניו־יורק. רב שלום וברכה וכבוד! ראשית, שטח אני להביע לך ברכת מזל טוב לבבית בתפקידך החשוב והנעלה של נשיא הישיבה אוניברסיטה, שנבחרת באחרונה ושיהיה בהצלחה רבה. אני מברך אותך, כשם שברכו ומברכים אותך רבים מידידיך ומוקיריך, שתצליח להוסיף נדבכים חדשים ולחזק את הישנים במוסד הגדול והמבואר הזה, שחשיבותו ידועה לברכה ולתפארת העולם היהודי הדתי, על ידי כשרונותיך הברוכים וסגולותיך הנעלות, עד כי גם אלה אשר עד כה הסתייגו במעט או המעיטו בערכו הגדול והחשוב של המוסד, יעריכו אותו כעת יותר ויותר ואף יושיטו לו את עזרתם להגדלתו ולהרחבתו – למען להגדיל תורה ולהאדירה. שנית, לקראת השנה החדשה הבעל״ם, אני מתכבד בזה לברך אותך ואת משפחתך הנכבדה בברכת שנה טובה, מבורכת ומאושרת, וחדוות העבודה והיצירה ותפוצות עיוניך יפוצו חוצה וירוו את צמאונם של כל אלה הכמהים לדברי חכמה.
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