In this photograph Lord Balfour can be seen addressing the audience at the official opening of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. Balfour, dressed in academic robes, is standing on the platform in the centre of the picture, facing a large audience. Behind him are official dignitaries such as Rabbi Hertz (chief rabbi of Britain), Rabbi Kook (chief rabbi of Israel), General Allenby, Chaim Weitzman, Chaim Nachman Bialik, and Lord James de Rothschild. The members of the audience are dressed in the formal clothes that befit such a ceremony. There is a white tent in the background adorned with a Magen David—possibly a first aid tent with a red Magen David to replace the usual red cross.
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The Opening of The Hebrew University - This photograph was taken at the opening of the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University in 1925. There were numerous discussions at the end of the nineteenth century regarding the establishment of an academic centre in Jerusalem. The first concrete plans for a Jewish university were presented by the Russian mathematician Zvi Hermann Shapira in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress. In 1902, Chaim Weizmann, Martin Buber, and Berthold Feivel published a pamphlet outlining the principles for establishing a university of the Jewish people. Eventually, in 1913, the Eleventh Zionist Congress decided to establish a university in Jerusalem with Hebrew as its language of instruction.
In 1918, the World Zionist Organization received permission from the British to lay the cornerstone for the university. It was decided to place twelve stones, one for each of the tribes of Israel, but in reality even more stones were placed in a ceremony at the Gray Hill Estate on Mount Scopus. In 1923, Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein, enthusiastic about the establishment of a university in the Land of Israel, visited Mount Scopus and delivered a lecture on the theory of relativity; the first scientific lecture to be delivered at the young Hebrew University.
The formal opening of the university in 1925 was a grand affair, and a number of visitors made the journey to Palestine in order to participate. In addition to Lord Balfour the audience was also addressed by Rabbi Kook, whose passionate comments about the place of secular study within the lexicon of Jewish ideas caused many ultra-orthodox rabbis to shun him and publicly criticise his views.
In addition to the ceremony at the Hebrew University, Lord Balfour visited many other places during his visit to Israel, including Tel Aviv, the Galilee and Balfouriyya, a moshav that had been established five years earlier.
