About Us
Our History
- Brandeis University was the first Jewish sponsored nonsectarian university in the Western Hemisphere. It was founded in 1948 at a time when higher education at the other universities of longstanding prestige was limited for Jewish students and other minorities. Also faculty positions were denied to Jewish professors at these institutions of higher learning. Brandeis was founded by 8 men, most of whom had little formal education but had all built successful careers. They purchased the defunct Middlesex College campus. Eight influential women in the Boston volunteer community were approached to help build the Brandeis Library. They called their campaign “Old Books for New '' for their organization named Brandeis University Women’s Committee.(BUNWC) They collected used books and sold them at book drives. They created the Book Fund, for a donation you could have a bookplate placed in a book purchased by the Brandeis Library in honor or memory of a loved one.
- The BNC is unique to Brandeis University. There is no other college in the United States with a fundraising group like this. We now have around 21,000 members and 37 chapters nationwide. The organization has contributed more than $200 million to Brandeis University.
- In 1996 the Millionth Book Campaign was announced and at the May National Executive Committee meeting on campus, Boston chapter member Carol Rabinowitz presented it to the library. A million books in 48 years is amazing. The book presented was the original set of The Law of G-d, by Issac Leeser, which is the first English translation of the Bible published in 1853 for the American Jewish Community.
- Over the years the BNC has also raised funds for many other campaigns that the University designated as important for us to help them complete. Among the many ways we have supported Brandeis including, the “Science for Life '' campaign raising money for a science lab in the Carl Shapiro science building on campus. We have supported the “Sustaining the Mind” campaign, raising money for scientific research of neurodegenerative diseases. The “Magnify the Mind” campaign purchased a two-photon res-o-nance microscope capable of observing brain activity in real time. We have also supported student scholarships and we have underwritten the Brandeis University National Women’s Committee Librarian Chair. We raised money to digitize many archive collections in the library during the "Honoring Our History" campaign.
- We are now celebrating our 75th anniversary of supporting the Goldfarb Library. During this special year the "Legacy of Louis; Inspiring Inquiry" campaign is a special nod to the man the university is named for, Louis Brandeis, Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
the bnc mission
Brandeis National Committee is an organization committed to providing philanthropic support to Brandeis University, a distinguished liberal arts and research university, founded by the American Jewish Community. Its membership is connected to the University through fundraising and through activities that reflect the values on which the University was founded: academic excellence, social justice, non-sectarianism, and service to the community.
