SPELLING IT OUT

To the Editors of the Crimson:

Professor Kilson, in his letter in the October 1 Crimson, errs in attempting to turn into an "ethnic" issue what was-cleanly and thoroughly a religious concern of Rabbi Gold's in his sermon on Yom Kippur. He certainly did not "announce his leadership" of any "militant Jewish thrust" of any kind, as Professor Kilson says. Professor Kilson has made that up out of whole cloth.

The issue is religious, and in the last analysis also a sober financial one. By saying that the Church in Harvard Yard is supported by Harvard, Ben-Zion Gold was speaking quite literally. What I am sure most people of good will do not realize is that Protestant religion, representing less than half of the present Harvard population, is the only one supported financially by the University: A large staff, a paid Protestant preacher, heat, lights, janitorial service, the regular use of the building, every week. And as to the church building Jews and Catholics contributed money generously to build this Memorial, which was then dedicated as a Protestant Church, with crosses carved right into the woodwork. The official University service for freshman, to which the Rabbi referred, was a Christian, a Protestant service, in which no Jew could in conscience participate, based as it was upon Trinitarian prayers and readings.

Catholics and Jews at Harvard must beg for charity from outside the University to find space in which to hold regular daily and weekly worship, and to pay a priest or rabbi. When they wish to give religious instruction to their children, Jews, but not Protestants, must pay rent for a room to the University. The paid preacher in Memorial Church is always Protestant.

I am sorry that Ben-Zion Gold was too polite to spell all this out in his sermon. Today, in 1975, thousands of dollars to Harvard's budget go to the support of Protestant religion, and nothing to any other religion. This, then, is not an issue out of the past. It is a serious matter of religion and a sober matter of deep unfairness. H. Epstein   Space Committee   Harvard Hillel