Gottesman YU New York

The dedication of the Mendel Gottesman Library of Yeshiva University took place on April 20, 1969 by the “People of the Book” will enter the annals of the American Jewish community as an event of profound poetic and historic meaning. Poetically, the ceremony will reaffirm the centrality of learning in our heritage; and historically, it will mark the attainment of a rich resource for study and research in advancing our cherished ideals

Destined to house more than 650,000 volumes in the arts and sciences, and in Hebraica-Judaica and Semitic studies, the Mendel Gottesman Library is a six-story, thirteen-level complex, designed to serve Yeshiva University’s 8,000 students and faculty of 2,500, as well as scholars and researchers from all parts of the nation and from lands abroad.

Architecturally conceived to symbolize stacks of books, the Library has been planned as a steadily accreting repository of human knowledge, combining in its components the treasures on the old and the best of the new.

In the complex will be housed the Pollack Undergraduate Library, an essential resource of Yeshiva University in the education of young men and women in the arts and sciences. New, commodious quarters will be occupied by the existing Mendel Gottesman Library of Hebraica-Judaica. Other components include the University archives; research collections of great value; original manuscripts; and a University museum.

Appropriately named in memory of a scholar, humanitarian and benefactor, who was a founder of Yeshiva College, the Mendel Gottesman Library epitomizes the tradition of the “People of the Book in the life of America.