Hillel Society To Relocate Main Office

The Board of Directors of Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel voted unanimously yesterday to contract for the renovation of a building to be used as Hillel's new central office.

The half-million dollar contract will provide for the re modeling of a building at 71 Mt. Auburn St. which Hillel will lease from the University.

The contract will provide only enough funds for a "bare-bones renovation" of the building, Henry Morgenthau, president of Friends of Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel, said yesterday.

A fund-raising goal of two million dollars has been set for the completion of renovations and for implementation of new Hillel activities to be head quartered in the building, he said.

Dean Rosovsky, Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold of the Hillel, and Isadore Twersky, Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy, will speak at a half-hour ceremony to mark the beginning of the renovations on Monday, December 11 at 2 p.m.

"Finally we are beginning to do what we had hoped to do for so many years. I'm very happy. Hopefully the new building will be a center to Jewish culture and religion at Harvard," Gold said.

"It's been a long time coming," Ruben G. Perlmutter '79, Chairman of Hillel's Coordinating Council, said yesterday. Perlmutter said he hoped the central location of the new facility will create a "more active, attractive and responsive Hillel."

The new building will serve as a religious and cultural center for "both the devout and the casual Jews" of the Harvard and Cambridge communities, Morgenthau said.

The building will be ready for Hillel occupation before the end of this academic year, he added.