Israel President, Jewish Agency Mourn Death of Dr. Greenberg

The office of the Jewish Agency executive here was flooded today with messages from outstanding Jewish leaders in many conutries mourning the death of Dr. Hayim Greenberg. Israel President Isaac Ben Zvi and Premier David Ben Gurion, who are close friends of Dr. Greenberg, led the Israeli leaders in their messages of sympathy.

The message from the President of Israel and his wife reads: “We are at one with you in this hour of misfortune. Our colleague Hayim Greenberg, a man of the rarest quality, was steadfast in the struggle for the establishment of Israel and the renaissance of the Jewish people.” Mrs. Golda Myerson, Minister of Labor, Dr. Dov Joseph, Minister without portfolio, and Ambassador Abba Eban will represent the Government of Israel as Honorary Pallbearers at the funeral services tomorrow.

Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency, who is now in Paris, cabled the following message: “Dr. Hayim Greenberg was one of the great moral and intellectual Jewish leaders of our generation. He combined in the fullest measure the richness of Jewish tradition and modern culture, and was the very embodiment of Zionism at its most qualitative. His idealism, integrity, intellectual brilliance and versatile talents as a writer and speaker, and, above all, his moral authority made him one of the most respected and beloved educators and spiritual leaders of contemporary Jewry. Dr. Greenberg’s demise has a tragic significance for Jews every where, because he is truly irreplaceable. He will be enshrined in the pantheon of Jewish immortals as one of the noblest figures of this decisive period in Jewish history.”

Mrs. Rose L. Halprin, acting chairman of the Jewish Agency, issued a statement on behalf of the Agency’s executive reading: “The passing of Hayim Greenberg deprives his colleagues on the Jewish Agency executive of a wise kind and deeply understanding counsellor, and deprives Zionism and world Jewry of one of its great contemporary moral leaders and cultural guides. In a career which spanned several continents he was witness to severe crises for his people from which he emerged with increased faith in the ethical verities of Jewish history. The American Jewish community, amidst whom he has lived for a major part of his life, the people of Israel whose state and society he has helped to shape, and Jewish communities throughout the world stand bowed in grief at the passing of a great teacher.”

Israel Ambassador Abba Eban said in a statement: “In the death of Hayim Greenberg, the Jewish people have lost a son who was infused with the loftiest sense of duty to his people and to mankind. His liberal and steadfast faith was coupled with a penetrating and constructive mind, a wide scholarship and a mastery of the art of exposition. He helped to broaden and enrich the understanding of the cause of Zionism, the central passion of his life, not only in the travails and the needs of the Jewish people, but in a great, continuing and universal historic process. In the inner circle of those who gave unstintingly of their rich qualities to the rebirth of Israel, the tragic passing of Chaim Greenberg leaves a deep void.”

The list of Honorary Pallbearers includes Louis Lipsky, chairman of the American Zionist Council; Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz and Edward M. Warburg for the United Jewish Appeal; Dr. Abraham Granott, World President of the Jewish National Fund; Dr. Pinchas Churgin, of Yeshiva University; Dr. Louis Finkelstein, Dr. Moshe Davis, and Dr. Robert S. Gordis of the Jewish Theological Seminary; Dr. Nelson Glueck, of the Hebrew Union Cellege Jewish Institute of Religion; General Yaakov Dori, retired Chief of the Israel Army; for the Jewish Agency – Morris M. Bouk – stein, Benjamin G. Browdy, Gottlieb Hammer, Zvi Lurie, Dr. Nathan Morris; for the Labor Zionist movement – Louis Segal, general secretary; Meyer L. Brown, Benjamin Teller, and S. Bonchek of the Farband Labor Zionist Order; Dr. James G. Heller, president of the Labor Zionist Organization.