AUGUST 1st, 1999

IN ISRAEL

Prof. Niv Ahituv, former Dean of the Faculty of Management – Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration, was elected Vice President and Director-General, replacing David Lanir, who decided to leave the University after five years in office. Prof. Ahituv has been until recently the Director of the Max Perlman Center for Global Business at the University, and Chairman of the Board of Ma'alot, the Israeli Securities Rating Company. Prof. Ahituv will assume office on August 8th.

The Dean of Research, Prof. Yair Aharonowitz, was elected Vice President of Research and Development. He will continue to serve as the Head of the University's Research Authority and Chairman of Ramot – the University Authority for Applied Research and Industrial Development Ltd.

CONFERENCES

Ami Ayalon, Director of Israel's General Security Services, was guest speaker in a rare public appearance. He spoke on the "The Polarization of Israeli Society" at a TAU conference marking the publication of the book Islamic Fundamentalism: The Case of Egypt and Jordan, by Nachman Tal, a Research Associate at TAU's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. Other speakers were Prof. Matti Steinberg of the Hebrew University and Prof. Shai Feldman, Director of the Jaffee Center.

"Prospects for the New Millennium: Changing Attitudes towards Jews and Israel" was the title of the conference of the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism and the Anti-Defamation League in Israel (ADL). Greetings were delivered by

Prof. Arie Nadler, Head of the Peres Institute for Diplomacy and Regional Cooperation, who chaired the Conference; Abraham H. Foxman, International Director of the ADL; Father Dr. David Yager, Jurist of the Delegation of the Holy See; and Dr. Avi Becker, Executive Director of the World Jewish Congress, Israel. Lectures were delivered by Dr. Dina Porat, Head of the Roth Institute, and Rabbi David Rosen, Director of the ADL in Israel.

TAU hosted the 34th world congress of the International Institute of Sociology, which convened for the first time in Israel. The event was chaired by Prof. Eliezer Ben-Rafael of TAU's Department of Sociology and Anthropology, under the auspices of the Israel Society of Sociology, various Israeli institutions of higher education, the French Institute, the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung and the Botschaft der Bundersrepublik Deutchland in Israel, and in cooperation with international research bodies.

TAU's Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities held an international workshop on "The Origins of the Alphabet," organized by Prof. Irad Malkin of the Department of History and Dean of the Faculty Prof. Marcelo Dascal. The Academic Director was Prof. Margalit Finkelberg of the Department of Classics.

Dr. Yossi Beilin, Minister of Justice, was guest speaker at a panel discussion entitled "Diasporas and Transnationalism" of the English Speaking Friends of Tel Aviv University, on the occasion of the publication of Marketing the American Creed Abroad by Prof. Yossi Shain, Chairperson of the Department of Political Science. Other participants included Julie Connor of the US Embassy; Prof. Abraham Ben Zvi, Head of the Security Studies Program at TAU, and Prof. Arnon Gutfeld of the School of History.

The "Animals and Society" project held its 4th conference, under the auspices of the Fund for Animals of the Ministry of the Environment. Opening remarks were delivered by Pro-Rector Prof. Dan Amir and Prof. Yossi Terkel, Director of the Project.

The Buchmann Faculty of Law held the Ariel Rosen-Zvi Prizes awarding ceremony. Justice Meir Shamgar, former President of the Israel Supreme Court, read the jury's decisions.

The TAU Department of Nursing held a ceremony in honor of its founder and first Chairperson Prof. Rebecca Bergman on the occasion of her winning the Israel Prize. Greetings were delivered by Prof. Shimon Yankielowicz, Vice Rector; Prof. Hanan Munitz, Head of the School of Health Professions; and Dr. Mali Ehrenfeld, Chairperson of the Department. The Prof. Bergman Creativity Prize was awarded to Yardena Kol, a graduate of the Department, for her computer program to increase the efficiency of dialysis treatment.

The Israeli Society for Napoleonic Research held the international congress "Napoleon and the French in Egypt and the Holy Land 1798-1801" at TAU, organized by Prof. Emeritus Mordechai Gichon and David Markham, Executive President of INS.

APPOINTMENTS AND AWARDS

Prof. Seev Neumann of the Faculty of Management – Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration was elected the Director of the Max Perlman Center for Global Business.

Prof. Jacob Glazer was elected Associate Dean of the Faculty of Management – Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration.

Prof. Shlomo Rozen, Head of the School of Chemistry, was elected the incumbent of the Josef Kryss Chair in Organic Chemistry.

The film The Friends of Yana directed by Arik Kaplun, a graduate of the TAU Film and Television Department, won the best feature film award of the 1999 Jerusalem Film Festival. The film was also chosen as the best feature film in the Czech Republic's Karlovy Vary Film Festival and was also voted one of the five most loved by the audience.

The film Kinuah (Dessert) by Amit Sakomsky, a student of the Department, won the best short film prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

The graduation film With Rules by Dover Kosashvili won the best short film and best screenplay in the Volgin Competition of the Jerusalem Film Festival and the Jury Award for best fiction film at the Munich International Festival of Film Schools.

The film Babcha by Micky Zilbershtein won the best short film in the Israeli Film Festival in New York and Los Angeles.

VISITS

An Academic Mission of the University of Minnesota, headed by President of the University Mark Yudof, toured TAU. They visited the

Sackler Faculty of Medicine, the Fleischman Faculty of Engineering and the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and were hosted for lunch by TAU President Prof. Itamar Rabinovich. A ceremony establishing the Lieberman-Okinow Foundation's endowment of a Chair at the University of Minnesota's Department of Plant Pathology for research at the TAU Institute for Cereal Crops Improvement was held in the presence of Prof. Adina Breiman, Chairperson of TAU's Department of Plant Sciences, and Dr. Jacob Manisterski, curator of the Institute's Lieberman-Okinow Gene Bank.

A mission of Attorney Generals of US States, sponsored by the American-Israel Friendship League, visited TAU. They met with Prof. Menachem Mautner, Vice Dean of TAU's Buchmann Faculty of Law; with Prof. Shai Feldman, Director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies; and with Dr. Dina Porat, Head of the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism.

OBITUARIES

Accountant Joseph Kasierer, Honorary Doctor of TAU and Honorary Member of the Board, founder of the Joseph Kasierer Institute for Research in Accounting at the Faculty of Management – Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration, passed away in Tel Aviv.

Dr. Sonia Badler, Member of the Board of Governors, passed away in Caracas, Venezuela.

Walter Artzt, Member of the Board of Governors and founder of the Betty and Walter Artzt Chair for History of Poetry and Literature, passed away in Boca Raton, Florida.

ABROAD

The Victoria Chapter of the Australian Friends of TAU held a joint meeting of the Executive and Committee at the home of Mr. and Mrs. R. Krongold. Participants included Prof. Zeevi Dvir of the Department of Physical Therapy at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, and Prof. Geoffrey Bener of the Faculty of Medicine and Director of the Institute for Hypertension and Kidney Diseases at the TAU-affiliated Rabin Medical Center.