{"id":48447,"date":"2021-05-12T11:57:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T08:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vanleer.org.il\/?p=48447"},"modified":"2022-04-20T21:02:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T18:02:00","slug":"about-the-establishment-of-the-van-leer-jerusalem-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanleer.org.il\/en\/articles-en\/about-the-establishment-of-the-van-leer-jerusalem-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"About the establishment of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMr. Ben-Gurion, you must come see my building,\u201d said Polly Van Leer about the new Institute she built in the Talbiyah neighborhood of Jerusalem. Ben-Gurion replied: \u201cPolly, leave me alone. You know I don't care about buildings.\u201d After he succumbed and came to see what all the fuss was about, Polly said to him: \u201cThis is my baby.\u201d And he shook his head and said: \u201cWe must develop the Negev...\u201d (\u201cKol Ha\u2019Ir\u201d<\/a> newspaper, March 27, 1981)<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor out of Zion shall go forth Torah\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cMs. van Leer fell in love with Jerusalem at first sight,\u201d the \u201cMa\u2019ariv\u201d<\/a> newspaper wrote on December 16, 1955. At the end of the 1940s, Ms. Van Leer came to Jerusalem with the vision of \u201cFor out of Zion shall go forth Torah,\u201d and the budget to make it come true. After founding the newspaper \u201cChronicles \u2013 News of the Past,\u201d Ms. Van Leer turned to her main goal: turning Israel into a world center of humanistic values and science.<\/p>\n

The conversation between Polly Van Leer and David Ben-Gurion in the late 1950s about her new \u201cbaby\u201d was the product of serious negotiations they had held a few years earlier: the van Leer family would fund and build the Academy of Sciences in Jerusalem, in exchange for 30 dunums (3 hectares) of land for building an adjacent center for the advancement of human culture. And so it was: In December 1955 Ms. van Leer submitted a plan to the government for building the center for the promotion of human culture. But the van Leer family also demanded passing a special law in the Knesset to give it \u201clegislative, public and official authorization, allowing the Institute to be built as a completely private institution,\u201d according to then-Minister of Justice Pinhas Rosen. In December 1958 the law was passed by the Knesset and Polly Van Leer attended to the construction of the building that would carry her \u201cquasi-philosophical, quasi-mystical message of the need for \u2018unity of man, the universe and religions\u2019\u201d (\u201cKol Ha\u2019Ir\u201d, March 27, 1981).<\/p>\n

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Installing the steel skeleton of the VLJI auditorium, 1961. Photo: Yitzak Baraz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u201cThe temple of the spirit of Israel\u201d \u2013 why Jerusalem?<\/h2>\n

The Institute's architects, David Resnick and Shimon Povzner, drew up the plan consisting of two buildings, together creating the letter L. The higher building, the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, symbolizes wisdom; the lower building, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, symbolizes science. The two buildings are connected by a staircase.<\/p>\n

Polly Van Leer believed that the Jewish people, the new State of Israel, and the entire world, were suffering from a spiritual malaise, whose solution was a new way of life: \u201cA new synthesis between traditional Jewish wisdom as understood from the biblical text, and scientific knowledge\u201d (from \u201cMeeting Visions,\u201d<\/a> Shaul Katz, 2009). Thus, she believed, building the \u201cTemple of the Spirit of Israel\u201d (the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute), alongside the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities \u2013 in Jerusalem \u2013 would create that synthesis.<\/p>\n

Polly Van Leer\u2019s vision came true, and since her \u201cbaby\u201d was erected, the Institute has held extensive and diverse research activities<\/a>, with an emphasis on promoting human spirit and values.<\/p>\n

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The VLJI and Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities plaza, from the VLJI archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n