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84th Annual Benefit Dinner


Matthew Goldstein, Maggi Sedlis Goldstein, Mark Green, and Jeffrey Wiesenfeld


Matthew Goldstein receiving his Lifetime Achievement Award from Charles Rose


(l to r): Jonathan Brent, Charles Rose, Matthew Goldstein, Alan Dershowitz, Martin Peretz, and Bruce Slovin


Matthew Goldstein and Helen Nash
Telling Our Story: Bridging Continents and Generations
YIVO Benefit Dinner Honors CUNY's Matthew Goldstein
and Harvard's Alan M. Dershowitz


An excited crowd of almost 200 guests gathered on May 26, 2009, for the 84th Annual YIVO Benefit Dinner, which began with a cocktail reception followed by an award ceremony and dinner. It was an unusually festive occasion. Each of the two distinguished honorees has dedicated his life to educating new generations of students while also working hard for justice and fairness in the broader world community.

Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor of The City University of New York (CUNY) since 1999 and the first CUNY graduate (City College, Class of 1963) to lead this most prominent urban public university, and Alan M. Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and world-renowned as a staunch defender of individual rights, each received a personalized YIVO Lifetime Achievement Award.

Martin Peretz, a member of the YIVO Board of Directors, welcomed everyone and thanked them for being a part of celebrating YIVO's 84th year. Jonathan Brent, the newly appointed Executive Director of YIVO, was introduced for the first time. Brent explained his passion for YIVO's history and explored a few of his many ideas for the institution's future.

Accepting his Lifetime Achievement Award, Alan M. Dershowitz reviewed his early years in Brooklyn, his school days at Brooklyn College and Harvard Law School, and the influence of Catskills Yiddish culture on his successful work as an advocate for Israel, his appellate court work, and his opposition to censorship in the arts. He received a framed pre-statehood Jewish National Fund poster from the YIVO archives that promoted agriculture.

YIVO Board member Charles J. Rose introduced Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, who is directly related to the broad Vilner community through his wife, Maggi Sedlis Goldstein. Rose cited Goldstein's dedication to raising academic standards for students entering CUNY system schools, and for his overarching vision of accessible post–high school educational opportunities for all New York City residents. A framed photograph from the YIVO archives of the ceremony for the opening of Hebrew University in Jerusalem on April 1, 1925, was presented to Goldstein as his Lifetime Achievement Award.

The evening was a great success. "Memory, a primary trope in the Jewish community, is a key to our survival . . . our Jewish heritage is in danger of being forgotten," YIVO Chairman Bruce Slovin reflected. "But after tonight's gala, I feel great hope for the future."

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