HARVARD'S PLURALITY OF RELIGIONS

To the Editors of The Crimson:

In The Crimson (The Mail, Nov.5) Professor Martin Kilson attacks me as a "low-profile Jewish militant." I do not wish to trade labels with him, but I hope that I may be allowed, briefly, to straighten out the facts with which he attacks me, since he has just about all of them wrong.

The Establishment at Harvard is NOT always Trinitarian Protestant, as he seems to believe. Harvard supported a Unitarian Church instead, for a significant period in its history, and has in general supported the majority religion of its membership. But at this time, THERE IS NO MAJORITY RELIGION at Harvard. The Protestants who run Memorial Church and who worship in it are a minority religion, just as are the 3000 Jews who make up Harvard's Jewish congregations in the course of a year.

The Harvard Faculty committee chaired by Dean Stendahl of the Divinity School made the recommendation that--since Harvard had collected money for a war memorial from both Jews and Christians and had built a Christian church with the money--it should now collect money to build on Harvard land a suitable place of worship for its thousands of Jewish students, as well. Yale provides such a house. Smith and Brown and many other colleges with traditions similar to those of Harvard, or even more Christian, support a Jewish chaplain.

As to Kilson's remark that Jews ought to raise more money if they wish to worship at Harvard. The Crimson has recently reported that Harvard has launched a special drive to raise 15 million dollars largely from Jewish alumni. The Jewish alumni are working vigorously to raise this money, and yet the University has announced that NONE OF THIS MONEY will be used to provide the desperately needed space and facilities for Jewish worship at Harvard, although the University will continue to provide space for, and support financially, the Protestant church services.

Kilson tries to tell us that Harvard is as Protestant as Brandeis is Jewish. Does he know that there are three specially built chapels at Brandeis, one for Protestant worship, one for Catholic, and one for Jewish? Does he know that there is a Protestant chaplain and a Catholic Chaplain there, both paid by Brandeis University? Professor Kilson says that pluralism is an American ideal, and it is, indeed, my ideal. If Harvard provides a dignified, heated, well-lit and cleaned building for the worship of its minority Protestant community, it ought to do no less for its other minority congregations. H. Epstein