Alumni Spotlight

George Alpert ’15: Railroad President and Key Brandeis University Founder

Not too long ago we featured a story about English High grad Lawrence Berk, who founded the now famous Berklee College of Music in Boston.  Another English High grad, George Alpert, class of 1915, played a critical role in the founding and launching of Brandeis University in Waltham.

George Alpert in 1948

George Alpert, like other EHS grads, was the son of immigrant parents. After graduating from English High he joined the US Navy during WWI. He later worked his way through Boston University’s School of Law. After serving as Assistant District Attorney in Suffolk County, he and his brother Herbert opened a law firm,  Alpert & Alpert.

When George Alpert attended EHS the school was located on Montgomery Street in the South End of Boston. Latin High School was directly behind EHS on Warren Street and they shared some facilities.

He was eventually recruited to the Board of the New Haven and Hartford Railroad. In 1958 he was elected its President. The railroad was already beset by operating woes, rider complaints and long-term cost issues. Irked after being stranded for 45 minutes one day while traveling from New Haven to Boston, Alpert paid special attention to improving the railroad’s on-time record and improving its maintenance.

He also campaigned for the then-unheard-of source of revenue—public funds to subsidize the railroad when competing forms of transportation, themselves subsidized, were siphoning riders away according to the NY Times.

Alpert was also a prominent member and fund-raiser of the Jewish community. Throughout his life, he was active in philanthropic and educational organizations. In addition to his eventual work at Brandeis, Alpert was an honorary co-chairman of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a member of the board of trustees of the Franklin (N.H.) Hospital, a member of the Associated Jewish Philanthropies and the Combined Jewish Appeal, a trustee of Temple Ohabei Shalom, and a co-chairman of the United Jewish Appeal.

George Alpert, right, with founding Brandeis President Dr. Abram Sachar, left, and David Ben-Gurion, founding Prime Minister of Israel, center.

Alpert played a major saving role in the founding of  Brandeis University, the only non-sectarian university under Jewish auspices in this country. Alpert was recruited for his organizational and fundraising skills. The founding of Brandeis and its launch did not go smoothly because of early-stage internal disagreements, politics as well as the disagreements with Albert Einstein who was initially involved in the establishment of the school.

According to Wikipedia the school’s trustees offered to name the university after Einstein in the summer of 1946, but Einstein declined. In November of that year the trustees decided the university would be named after Louis Brandeis, Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Einstein threatened to sever ties with the school on September 2, 1946 because of other disagreements.

In early June 1947, Einstein made a final break with Brandeis. According to Alpert, who was then responsible for much of the organizational effort to get the school off the ground, Einstein had wanted to offer the presidency of the school to a supposed left-wing scholar, someone that Alpert had characterized as “a man utterly alien to American principles of democracy, tarred with the Communist brush.” He said, “I can compromise on any subject but one: that one is Americanism.”

Einstein’s withdrawal caused the cancellation of much of the financial support that had been pledged to the fledging school’s fund-raising campaign. Alpert had to build afresh. Although the major donors had deserted the effort Alpert was undaunted. Using all of his skills he enlisted interested parties and donors he had worked with his other fundraising activities.

First luncheon of the Brandeis University Board of Trustees. Left to right: Thelma Sachar, Massachusetts Governor Paul Dever, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abram Sachar, and George Alpert.

On December 26, 1947 Alpert made one last attempt for support by presenting the case for Brandeis at a special meeting of key Boston families at the Somerset Hotel. It was the turning point for Alpert and the launch of Brandeis. Soon after one man pledged $25,000. Within a few minutes more than a quarter million dollars had been raised.  Alpert and his colleagues now had a mandate to go forward to give reality to their dream of a Jewish-founded nonsectarian university.

Alpert become chairman of the university board and in 1953, received its first honorary Doctorate in Laws. He remained on the board until his death.

Alpert had three children with his first wife Gertrude Levin. After her death, he remarried but had no further children. George Alpert died in 1988 at his home in Cohasset.