Opening Doors, In City and in Israel
Putting aside the extravagance of a dessert buffet offering mini pecan pies, fresh kiwi, blackberries, and cherries, lemon sorbet, profiteroles, Florentine cookies, and chocolate-colored strawberries, the American Friends of the Open University of Israel exhibited good judgment at its annual fund-raiser on Monday night.
The organization chose an appropriate venue: the Plaza Hotel, owned and newly restored by an Israeli businessman, Isaac Tshuva. For the students of the Open University, many of whom are newly arrived immigrants who have jobs and come from impoverished families, Mr. Tshuva is a symbol of success. It was fitting that 400 or so New Yorkers came to his hotel to raise $200,000.
The honoree was also selected wisely. The president of the American Friends of the Open University, Ingeborg Rennert, presented the Yigal Allon Award to the president of the New York Public Library, Paul LeClerc. As Mr. LeClerc noted, the library shares the ideals of the Open University: to open doors to people of all backgrounds and means.
To me, the spirit of the university was best captured not in remarks but in a book presented to me by a guest, artist Wendy Mark. On its surface, the book is unrelated. It pairs Ms. Mark's monotypes, depicting trees and blots, with a poem by Paul Muldoon, "I Might Make Out With You." However, Adam Gopnik's introductory essay presents a take on Ms. Mark's blurry but evocative illustrations that is, when extrapolated into the context of the event, an appropriate description of a student striving for better: "We look at blots, and see beauty, look at things vaguely formed and see in them the shape of dreams of visions," Mr. Gopnik wrote. The most successful students of Open University, like the most successful users of the New York Public Library, have the imagination to do just that with their own lives.
agordon@nysun.com
