| TAU WebFlash - November 2000 |  |
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DECEMBER 4, 2000 NEW PROJECTS LAUNCHED
ON CAMPUS The Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of Arts is offering a new public lecture series entitled "Creators and Researchers of the Faculty." The lecture series will be open to the public. TAU signed cooperation agreements with the following: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia; University of the Reunion, France; Istanbul University, Turkey; Scientific Research Council of Turkey (Tubitak), Turkey; Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela; East China Normal University, China; and Interuniversity Microelectronic Center (IMEC) at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), Belgium. Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai inaugurated the TAU Bicycle Project, which provides free bicycles for use on campus. Greetings were delivered by Vice President and Director-General Niv Ahituv and Chairman of the Student Union Lior Strasberg. CONFERENCES TAU and the Student Union held the memorial assembly for Yitzhak Rabin. Addresses were given by Rector Nili Cohen, author Eli Amir, and Chairman of the Student Union Lior Strasberg. A memorial evening for Yitzhak Rabin entitled "Religions and Violence" was held at TAU. Opening remarks were delivered by the TAU Rector, Prof. Nili Cohen; Director of the Yitzhak Rabin Center for the Study of Israel, Prof. Zev Tadmor; and former Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Executive Council of Bar Ilan University, Prof. Jacob Ne'eman. The Department of Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine held the third symposium on "Human Genetics in the Post-Genomic Age," under the auspices of the Joan and Jaime Constantiner Institute of Molecular Genetics and the Shalom and Varda Yoran Institute for Human Genome Research, organized by Prof. Karen Avraham. Introductory remarks were delivered by Prof. Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, Head of the Yoran Institute, and closing remarks by Prof. Gerald Cohen, Head of the Constantiner Institute. An international symposium on the architect Erich Mendelsohn was held by the Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of Arts, the Goethe Institute, the Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations Stuttgart (ifa), and the Israel Electric Corporation. The Symposium was organized by the Art Gallery Curator Prof. Mordechai Omer. Greetings were delivered by TAU Rector Nili Cohen, Director of the Goethe Institute Dr. Hans Jungen Nagel, Arts Dean Prof. Nurith Kenaan-Kedar, and Chairman of the Board of the Israel Electric Company, Eli Landau. Speakers included Dr. Wolfgang Pehnt of Bochum University. The Buchmann Faculty of Law opened an exhibition of four contemporary Israeli artists. Opening remarks were given by Judge Boaz Okun, the Israel Supreme Court Registrar, and Tali Tamir, an Israeli art historian. The former head of the Israeli secret service, Ami Ayalon, was the guest lecturer at the Chechik Prize Ceremony at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. Prize recipients are Prof. David Menashri of the Department of Middle Eastern and African Studies and TAU graduate students Ehud Levy, Barak Mendelsohn, and Renen Kuperman. The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and the Department of Middle Eastern and African Studies held the annual conference in memory of Avishai Ben-Zvi and Yehoshafat Netzer. Prof. Asher Susser delivered a lecture entitled "Is the Window of Opportunity Still Open in the Middle East?" The Julius Friedrich Cohnheim Minerva Center for Cellular and Molecular Phagocyte Research held the 3rd Cohnheim Lecture. The speaker was Prof. Roos, Head of the Department of Experimental Immunohematology Central Laboratory of the Netherlands Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service and the Laboratory of Experimental and Clinical Immunology at the University of Amsterdam, on "Molecular Analysis of Chronic Granulomatous Disease, an Immunodeficiency Due to a Defect in the Generation of Bactericidal Oxygen Species." The lecture was chaired by Prof. Edgar Pick, Director of the Minerva Center. The first meeting for the 2000-2001 school year of the Information Technology Executive Forum at the Marcel and Annie Adams Institute for Business Management hosted Robert Soran, Senior Vice President and Deputy Director-General for Research of the Giga Information Group, who spoke on "Strategies and Structures for e-Business." Moderator of the event was Dr. Moshe Zviran, Head of the Institute and Chairman of the Forum. The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences held a conference in memory of Prof. Zahir Eyal entitled, "Cereal Biotechnology and Plant Pathogen Interaction," organized and moderated by Prof. Isaac Barash. Addresses were delivered by Dean Eliora Ron and Yigal Eyal. The annual conference in memory of Advocate Yosef Sahar featured Dina Berniker, adviser to the President of Bar Ilan University, and Prof. Zev Segal of TAU's Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences, who presented a lecture on the "Right of the Public for Free Information." The Adams Super-Center for Brain Research held a conference marking the transfer of duties between the outgoing Director Prof. David Horn and the incoming Director Prof. Nava Zisapel. Greetings were delivered by President Itamar Rabinovich and Vice-Rector Shimon Yankielowicz. An interdisciplinary panel discussion was held entitled "Emotions and the Brain," with the participation of Prof. Leon Grunhaus of the Department of Psychiatry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine; Dr. Talma Handler of the Wahl Institute of Imaging, the Ichilov Medical Center; Prof. Yehezkel Yeshurun of the School of Computer Sciences; and Prof. Mati Mintz of the Psychology Department. The Program on Arab Politics in Israel of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation held a conference celebrating five years of the Program, entitled "The Arab Minority - Between Israel and Palestine?" organized by Dr. Elie Rekhess, Program Director. Opening remarks were delivered by Itamar Rabinovich, TAU President; Dr. Johannes Gerster, the Israeli representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation; and Dr. Rasem Khamaisi of Haifa University. The Department of Hebrew Literature held an event in memory of the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai on the lawn in front of the Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center, where academic staff and students read their favorite poems by Amichai. The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lectures in Mathematics, coordinated by Prof. Noga Alon, hosted Prof. Jean-Michel Bismut, Department of Mathematics, University of Paris-Sud, Orsay, France. Prof. Bismut delivered two lectures entitled "Secondary Invariants in Real and Complex Geometry." The Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities held a farewell conference for outgoing Dean Marcelo Dascal, entitled "Controversies." An address was given by incoming Dean Prof. Dan Laor. The TAU Institute for German History and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem held an international conference entitled "Between Politics and Culture - Jews in the GDR," organized by Prof. Moshe Zuckermann, Head of the Institute. Greetings were delivered by Dean of the Entin Faculty of Humanities, Prof. Dan Laor, and Head of the School of History, Prof. Joseph Kostiner. The Department of Political Science and the Program for Security Studies held a conference entitled "The US Elections - After Voting, Before the Decision." Dean of TAU's Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences Prof. Moshe Semyonov delivered opening remarks. The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies held the annual conference in memory of Moshe Dayan, chaired by Prof. Asher Susser. Prof. Israel Efal delivered a lecture entitled "Living with the Bible - Whose Bible? " APPOINTMENTS AND AWARDS Prof. Eli Bar-Navi of the TAU Department of History was appointed Ambassador of Israel in Paris. Prof. Zvi Ben-Avraham of the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences was elected a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Prof. Yossi Loya, Director of the TAU Porter Super-Center for Ecological and Environmental Studies, was awarded the prestigious Darwin Medal for his lifetime contribution to coral reef science. The Medal was awarded by the International Society for Reef Studies (ISRS) at their international symposium held on the island of Bali, Indonesia, where Prof. Loya delivered the keynote "Darwin Lecture." TAU Vice President Avi Primor was elected President of the Israel-Germany Chamber of Commerce. VISITS Ambassador of Romania Valerie Marina Stoic, accompanied by Cultural Attach? Andrea Pastarnac, visited TAU. They met with TAU Rector Nili Cohen; Associate Dean of Engineering Prof. Touvia Miloh; Head of the School of Education Prof. Malka Margalit; and Chairperson of the Division of Foreign Languages Carmen Fedor. Dr. Ofra Bengio of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies hosted the guests for lunch. Lord Mayor of Frankfurt Petra Roth visited TAU. Mrs. Roth was welcomed by Vice President Yehiel Ben-Zvi at a meeting with TAU faculty, and she also met President Itamar Rabinovich. Ambassador of Turkey Ahmet Uzumcu visited TAU. He met with Prof. Nili Cohen, Rector; Prof. Asher Susser, Acting Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies; Emil Knebel, Chairman of the Department of Film and Television; and Prof. Arie Nadler, Director of the Institute for Diplomacy and Regional Cooperation founded by the Peres Center for Peace. ABROAD The Howard Gilman International Conference on "Current Trends in Science Research and High-Technology" took place at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), Belgium, organized by Prof. Yair Aharonowitz, TAU Vice President and Dean of Research and Development, and Dr. Yair Sharan, Special Adviser to the TAU President for European Affairs. The conference included a workshop on emerging technologies in cooperation with the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC), coordinated by Dr. Martin Hinoul of KUL and Prof. Gideon Langholz, Dean of the TAU Fleischman Faculty of Engineering. During the conference TAU signed an agreement of cooperation with IMEC. A workshop on Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics was held at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), coordinated by Prof. Shoshana Wodak of ULB and Prof. Ron Shamir of TAU. A session was held on the "Involvement of a University in High-Tech Entrepreneurship," chaired by TAU Vice President and Director-General Niv Ahituv, and on the Dead Sea Rift Valley Project, chaired by TAU's Prof. Zvi Ben-Avraham. A welcome ceremony entitled "TAU as a High Technology Hub" was chaired by TAU President Itamar Rabinovich. The Dean of TAU's Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences, Prof. Moshe Semyonov, made a presentation on "Labor Migration in a Global Economy" and the Israeli Ambassador to the EU, Harry Kney-Tal, delivered greetings. TAU Vice President Yehiel Ben-Zvi met with Jewish leaders in Hong Kong, where he established new ties between TAU and the Jewish community. President Itamar Rabinovich and Vice President Yehiel Ben-Zvi visited Sydney and Melbourne where they met with community and business leaders. At receptions held by TAU Friends Chapters in both cities, Prof. Rabinovich and Col. (res.) Ben-Zvi met with Committee members, donors, new Friends, and members of the "Second Generation" group. Prof. Rabinovich also met with Australia's Foreign Minister, the Hon. Alexander Downer, and with Israel's Ambassador to Australia, Gabi Levy, in Canberra. The TAU French Friends held a conference at the home of TAU governors Mr. and Mrs. Elmaleh in honor of Prof. Eli Bar-Navi, member of TAU's Department of History and newly appointed Israeli Ambassador to France, on the publication of his book Les Juifs el le 20eme Siecle. Prof. Bar-Navi was also guest of honor together with TAU Honorary Doctor Jean Claude Trichet, Governor of the Bank of France, at a dinner hosted by Hugo Ramniceanu, President of AFAUTA . OBITUARIES TAU mourns the passing of Jacques Chaban-Delmas, former Prime Minister of France and TAU Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa (1988). COMING EVENTS The 10th European Regional Conference of the TAU Board of Governors will take place at the Carlton Hotel, St. Moritz, Switzerland, from 25-29 January 2001. The program will feature Thomas Friedman of the New York Times ("The Foreign Policy of the New US Administration"); TAU visiting professor Eli Kapon ("Nanosystems: A New Frontier of Science and Technology"); Prof. Yossi Shiloh of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine ("From the Patient's Bedside to the Human Genome - And Back"); Isaac T. Kohlberg, CEO, TAU Economic Corporation Ltd. ("Investment Opportunities of the University"); Dr. Astrith Baltsan, musicologist ("Chopin and the Israeli Dream"); Michael Steinhardt, Chairman of the Board of Governors; President Itamar Rabinovich; Rector Nili Cohen; and Benno Gitter, Honorary Chairman of the Board. For registration contact: The 2001 Annual Meeting of the BOG will take place from 11-18 May, 2001. |