From Dr. Cyrus Adler
President of the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, Philadelphia
I AM very glad to be able through this first number of your Journal to send a word of greeting to the Menorah men throughout the United States. An Association which has as its object the promotion in American colleges and universities of the study of Jewish history, culture and problems, and the advancement of Jewish ideals, cannot but fail to command my personal and official interest and support.
The Jewish people have a long and honorable record of literary activity. Our Holy Scriptures, our Rabbinical Literature, our contributions to philosophy, to ethics, to law, our poetry, sacred and secular, our share in the world's history, all become part of the program which you have laid out for yourselves as a means of cultivation. In their due proportion they should (although they do not) form a part of the outfit of every educated man. That they should be especially cultivated by Jewish young people is self-evident, and, for several thousand years, they have been.
You Menorah men have taken the modern form of association for the purpose of carrying on these studies, of cherishing your Jewish ideals along with your general culture or with your chosen profession, and it was high time that you should do so. You already count thousands of young people, and as time goes on you will gradually increase in number. From among your group will come the future leaders of the Jewish people in America, and your main body will form our intellectual backbone. It is my hope and belief that your movement will gradually tend toward the maintenance and promotion of Judaism in this land.
We are now a population of nearly three million souls. That such a vast body should be lost to Judaism or should maintain a Judaism ignorant of its language, its literature or its traditions, is almost unthinkable. Conditions abroad may shift the center of gravity of Judaism and of Jewish learning to the American continent. Your movement is one which will aid in training the group that may be expected to measure up to our new responsibilities.
It has been a source of great personal pleasure to me to meet with your Association in your annual convention and to have the privilege of coming in personal contact with some of your Societies,—at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Boston Universities. I hope to have the pleasure of meeting more of you and to derive more of the stimulus which your enthusiasm gives me in my work. Speaking not only in my own name but in behalf of my colleagues on the Board of Governors and the Faculty of The Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, I wish your Association and your Journal success in all of your endeavors.
