H-R Hillel Society Opens New Center On Mt. Auburn St.

The Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel Society held a ceremony yesterday to celebrate the commencement of renovations of its new center at 74 Mt. Auburn St.

Speakers at the ceremony included Dean Rosovsky and Isadore Twersky, professor of Near Eastern Languages and head of the Center for Jewish Studies.

Twersky said the focus of the new Hillel center should be "weaving the practice and hope of Judaism into the lives of Jewish students at Harvard."

Henry Morgenthau, chairman of the Hillel development drive, said yesterday that Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, director of the Hillel Society, had planned to move from Hillel's old building on Bryant St. for approximately ten years.

Mt. Pisgah

"It was his dream, his inspiration," Morgenthau added.

Because the building is centrally located, "students will be more willing to come to our events," Ruben G. Perlmutter '79, chairman of the Hillel coordinating council, said yesterday.

Harvard made a lease available to Hillel for the Mt. Auburn St. building, which formerly housed the Iroquois Club, in exchange for use of the Bryant St. building.

The renovations will cost more than $500,000, Liran A.Gordon '81, chairman of the student building committee, said yesterday.

According to Morgenthau, only one-fourth of this sum has been raised so far.

Work on the building begins today, and should be completed by May. Hillel plans a much grander ceremony for that time, Rabbi Gold said.