Dec 31, 2005 -- Yeshiva College and The Mendel Gottesman Library at Yeshiva University is featuring an exhibit of rare documents, photographs, and footage demonstrating the special relationship between Yeshiva College and Albert Einstein as the college marks its 75th anniversary. The exhibit “Einstein and Yeshiva University: Love for the Spiritual and the Moral" will run from Nov. 15 – March 31, 2006. The Library is located at 2520 Amsterdam Ave. (185th Street) on the Wilf Campus in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. For a virtual tour of the exhibit click here. The exhibit contains dozens of rare items, most of them illustrating Einstein’s ties to the college. Highlights include footage of the ceremony at which he lent his name to the university’s medical school and an original 1929 manuscript in which Einstein presents one of his attempts at a unified field theory, the most important scientific goal he tried to reach after devising his general theory of relativity. The opening of the exhibit coincided with a Week of Science at Yeshiva College which highlighted students’ scientific achievements. It also coincides with the 50th anniversary of Yeshiva University's medical school, which bears Einstein's name. Albert Einstein was a much sought after celebrity following the confirmation in 1919 of his revolutionary theory of relativity. Institutions the world over pursued Einstein to secure his support for their own purposes. Einstein chose the causes to which he lent his name exceptionally carefully. One of the enduring relationships he formed was with Yeshiva College, the first, and at that point, the only American Jewish undergraduate college. The relationship began in late 1933. After the Nazis began persecuting German Jews, Einstein renounced his citizenship and left his homeland. He took a position at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies and was immediately besieged by requests for speeches and statements of support. Just one month after Einstein’s arrival in America, Mendel Gottesman, treasurer of the college, sent him a gift of the Jewish Year Book published by the Yeshiva Endowment Foundation, which Mr. Gottesman had founded. Einstein expressed his gratitude for the gift in a letter and stated that “the Yeshiva College is of great importance for the preservation of the Jewish tradition and for the deeper spiritualization of the Jewish youth in general.” Correspondence reflecting the growing ties between Einstein and Yeshiva College, especially its founding president, Dr. Bernard Revel, are included in the exhibit. On Oct. 8, 1934, Dr. Revel conferred an honorary degree upon Prof. Albert Einstein, marking a critical stage in the relationship between the fledgling college and the most famous scientist of the 20th century. In his acceptance speech, Einstein noted, “We all know that the Jewish people has sustained itself through 2,000 years of severe hardships because it has regarded a tradition of love for the spiritual and the moral as its highest possession.” The subtitle of the exhibition is taken from that eloquent sentence. During the next five years Einstein expressed his support in words and in deeds, as he wrote various donors on behalf of the College. His efforts helped the college survive the Depression. In 1945, under the leadership of President Samuel Belkin, a change in charter officially transformed Yeshiva College to Yeshiva University. A further change in 1950 allowed the university to offer medical degrees through a proposed new medical school to be named for Albert Einstein. The Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) opened in 1955 as the first medical school in the United States under Jewish auspices. The College of Medicine has been celebrating its own 50th anniversary throughout the past year. On March 15, 1953, in honor of his 74th birthday on March 14, a ceremony in Princeton marked the official adoption of Einstein’s name for the medical school, and Einstein expressed his gratitude during one of his rare public appearances.