CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and American Friends of The Hebrew University’s Mid-Atlantic Region commemorated the university’s 100th anniversary in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 15.
“It was a wonderful evening,” said William (Bill) Kilberg, president of AFHU’s Mid-Atlantic Region and a member of both AFHU’s board and HU’s board of governors. “People were inspired. It was warm, just absolutely delightful. Wolf Blitzer was terrific. He shared with us his experiences in Israel over the years, how he came to Hebrew University when he was a student at the State University in New York.”
With more than 100 attendees, the night featured remarks from Tal Naim Cohen, spokesperson for the Embassy of Israel to the United States, HU Vice President for Advancement and External Relations and Ambassador (Ret.) Yossi Gal and Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center affiliates — who discussed their new collaboration with Hebrew University — in addition to Blitzer.
“I think the thing that most stuck out to me was Wolf Blitzer’s personal story. I think that really made the night. I think it was so warm and inspirational. I think his remarks and Yossi Gal’s remarks were great,” said Kilberg. “It was a homecoming for a lot of people; people who hadn’t seen each other in a while but had common ties to the university came together. There was a lot of opportunity to schmooze, both before the program and after the program, and people took advantage of that. The word I heard most from people after the event was ‘inspirational.’”
During Blitzer’s remarks, he told the story of his connection to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and how it led to a breaking news story that launched his career.
“We knew that he had ties to the university, and that he’s a figure that people in the Jewish community and the university community would know. He was all of that, and then a lot more,” said Kilberg.
Blitzer’s connection with the university started in college. He attended the University of Buffalo, but spent a summer attending classes at Hebrew University. Then, he attended Johns Hopkins University for his master’s in international relations.
“He was interested in international relations, but it was a professor there who suggested he might want to apply to Reuters, to a news agency, and try his hand at international relations through the eyes of a journalist, and that then — because he had been at Hebrew University — that led to an assignment in Tel Aviv,” explained Kilberg. “He talked about a particular journalist who had been with Reuters in Tel Aviv, who became his mentor, who taught him the basics of journalism.”
According to Kilberg, Blitzer’s mentor had told him to always carry coins with him so that he could use a pay phone to call back to the office and report a story.
“When [Chancellor of West Germany Willy] Brandt came to Israel, that was a big story. His first event in coming to Israel was to go to Masada, and his helicopter nearly fell off,” Kilberg said. “This is post-World War II, post-Holocaust, and Wolf went down from the top of Masada to the one phone that was there at the bottom of Masada and called in the story. He was the first one. Reuters then broke the story about the helicopter incident. It became an international story, and the Reuters story with his byline then appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, all the international newspapers, and he said it made his career.”
The night was about more than just Wolf Blitzer.
“It was multi-generational, and it gave people the opportunity to come together. It wasn’t to raise money; it was to raise awareness and to honor people that helped us in the past,” said Kilberg.
“The fact that [Hebrew University] was created in 1925 — long before the State of Israel — that groups such as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, that they came together and understood the importance of having a great university if you were going to create a great country, and if you were going to serve not just that country, the Jewish people, but all the people. If you’re going to play that kind of role in spreading knowledge and innovating for the benefit of mankind, you have to have a great university.”
