The four volume series of the History of the Hebrew University Project is devoted to the development of the idea and of its implementation during the pre-state period. The previous three volumes expanded in a great number of scholarly articles on the complex stories which made up this history from a great variety of aspects – scientific and academic, political and organizational, economic and social. The present volume, the last part of the project, seeks to focus on the individuals, the personalities of the people who made the university become a reality; those who struggled for its foundation, and the pioneering scholars and scientists who laid the basis and shaped the Hebrew University. It opens a window for the wider public to become familiar with the story of the Hebrew University without the need to penetrate into the complexity of scientific and other issues dealt with in previous volumes. The story of the university is the story of the enormous efforts involved in bringing prominent scholars and scientists to Eretz Israel, then a remote and marginal corner in the Middle East. These efforts were accompanied with debates of principle and personal controversies within and outside of the university about academic and national considerations. Despite all difficulties, criticisms and doubts, the founders of the university succeeded in building an institution of intellectual excellence that would become a pillar in the project of Jewish national renaissance and prepared the basis for the Hebrew University academic leadership in Israel and in the Jewish world for many years to come.

A 100 years after the Zionist congress decided to establish the university in Jerusalem (Vienna, 1913), this volume, the 4th in the series, is being published. The first three volumes were dedicated to the roots of the idea to establish a cultural and spiritual infrastructure of a national entity in the state of Israel and the founding of the university and it's progress during the steps towards an Israeli state. The first chapter in the history of this establishment ended when it was brought down from Mt. Scopus in 1948. The first volume of this series revealed to the reader the complexity of establishing this university through detailed and in-depth studies that dealt with the scientific, organizational and political aspects of the process. Only a small part of these studies were dedicated to the people behind the process. This volume lays before us the biographies of the first founders and professors of this university to make their mark on the establishment and development of the university during the mandate years. There are three parts to the book. The first part tells about the founders and designers of this institution and includes the people of action who accompanied it's setting up and enabled it's functioning. The second part is dedicated to the theoretical sciences: Humanities, Jewish Studies and the first researchers in the law and society fields. The third part brings us the biographies of the teachers and researches in the Mathematics and Experimental sciences fields. This book is dedicated to the people who arrived in Jerusalem under different circumstances from around the world. Thanks to their cooperation on Mt. Scopus, they enabled the fulfillment of an idea, first conceived in the second half of the 19th century, and turned into a successful reality during the settlement period.