NOVEMBER 1ST, 1999

IN ISRAEL

TAU and the Student Union held an assembly in memory of Yitzhak Rabin on the anniversary of his assassination. Speakers included Rector Prof. Nili Cohen, Chairperson of the Student Union Lior Tanner, Minister of Regional Development Shimon Peres, poet Nathan Zach, and Mrs. Leah Rabin. Singer Achinoam Nini performed.

TAU's Bob Shapell School of Social Work and the Unit for Social Involvement at the Dean of Students Office initiated a new project that has students lodging in senior citizens' homes. The students get low priced housing and participate in social activities with the residents of the homes.

CONFERENCES

TAU President Prof. Itamar Rabinovich hosted a festive dinner in honor of Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, which was attended by Jordan's Ambassador to Israel Omar Rifai and Israel's Ambassador to Jordan Oded Eran. The dinner followed an international conference held on the TAU campus by the Yitzhak Rabin Center to mark the fifth anniversary of the Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty. Greetings were given by TAU Rector Prof. Nili Cohen and Mrs. Leah Rabin. Keynote addresses at the inaugural session of the conference were delivered by Prince Hassan and Minister of Regional Development Shimon Peres. The conference was chaired by TAU's Prof. Anita Shapira.

The Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities held the unveiling ceremony of the sculpture by Nora and Naomi, "Dropped Wing, 1989" on Frankel Avenue. Greetings were delivered by Curator of the Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, Prof. Mordechai Omer; Humanities Dean Prof. Marcelo Dascal; and artist Naomi Bitter.

IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Uzi Dayan was the keynote speaker at TAU's annual memorial event for Moshe Dayan, entitled "Relations between Society and the Armed Forces in Israel." It was held by the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and the Moshe Dayan Friends Association. Opening remarks were delivered by President of TAU Prof. Itamar Rabinovich.

Dr. Nabeel Ali Shaath, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation of the Palestinian Authority, was the keynote speaker at the Class KRO2 graduation convocation of the Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA Program.

The award ceremony of the Noah Moses Prize for Literature was held at TAU, chaired by Rector Prof. Nili Cohen. Prof. Dan Laor, Chairperson of the Department of Hebrew Literature and chairperson of the jury selecting the prize recipient, awarded the prize for 1999-2000 to Yoav Katz, for his book Multi-System, which is to be published by the daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot, sponsors of the prize. Greetings were delivered by Arnon Moses, publisher of Yediot. Minister of Education Yossi Sarid sent greetings.

The TAU Sackler Faculty of Medicine held the Bathsheva de Rothschild Seminar on Innate Immunity, for the first time in Israel, organized by Prof. Yona Keisari and Prof. Itzhak Ofek, both of the Faculty.

The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences held a memorial evening for Prof. Zahir Eyal, the late Director of the Institute for Cereal Crops Improvement. Opening remarks were delivered by Rector Prof. Nili Cohen and Dean Prof. Isaac Barash. Smadar Pnini-Cohen spoke on behalf of the students. Prof. Moshe Feldman of the Weizmann Institute of Science delivered a lecture on "Milestones in Wheat Research (Chromosomes, Genes and DNA."

The TAU English Speaking Friends held their opening meeting, which featured a lecture by Prof. Arnon Gutfeld of the Department of History at the Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities entitled "The US as a Great Power: Myth and Realities in US-Israel Relations."

Prof. David Katz, incumbent of the Abraham Horodisch Chair in the History of the Book, delivered the first lecture of the Israeli Friends on the topic, "Nuclear Doomsday: A Fundamentalist Utopia for the New Millennium?"

The TAU School of History and the School of Education held a seminar on "The Peace Process and Education toward Conciliation," following the controversy generated by the publication of new history textbooks by TAU's Dr. Eyal Naveh. Opening remarks were delivered by Prof. Itamar Rabinovich and Dean Prof. Marcelo Dascal.

Dr. Kamel Esseghairi, Director of Studies and Planning of the Tunisian Ministry of Health and Head of the Department of Computing and Statistics at the Medical School of Monastir, Tunis, delivered a guest lecture at TAU, "Democracy, Demography and Sustainable Development in the Maghreb," under the auspices of the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.

The first lecture of the Parashat Hashavuah lecture series of the Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center was delivered by Prof. Asa Kasher, who spoke on "The Sacrifice of Isaac - Divine Law and the Dictates of Conscience." TAU President Prof. Itamar Rabinovich delivered greetings.

Prof. Zvi Yavetz delivered the first of the Rector's Lecture Series for 1999-2000, entitled "Nero and the Christians in Novels, Movies and Television."

The MIT-Recanati Forum was held at TAU's Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration. The Forum hosted entrepreneurs who discussed raising funds and founding start-up companies.

Prof. Tsevi Mazeh of the School of Physics and Astronomy delivered the Dror Sadeh Memorial Lecture, entitled "The Search for Extra-Solar Planets." PhD student Eran Toledo of TAU's Abramson Center for Medical Physics won the Dror Sadeh Exceptional Student Prize.

APPOINTMENTS AND AWARDS

The film Dessert by Amit Sakomsky, a student of TAU's Department of Film and Television, won first prize in the category of short feature at the Haifa Film Festival. The film won a gold medal at the international film festival in Breno, the Czech Republic.

Irit Dinur of the School of Mathematical Sciences won the Charles Clore Scholarship.

Students at TAU's Department of Biomedical Engineering won the EMBS - Fleetest Feet Award for best group at the annual meeting of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society held in Atlanta, Georgia. A paper by Prof. David Elad's doctoral student Amit Gefen was cited as one of ten best student works at a special ceremony.

A paper entitled "Multiple Structural Alignment and Core Detection by Geometric Hashing" by TAU's Nathaniel Leibowitz , Zipora Y. Fligelman, Prof. Ruth Nussinov, and Haim J. Wolfson won the outstanding paper prize at the conference, "Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology," held in Heidelberg, Germany, by the International Society for Computational Biology, sponsored by the Genomics and Computational Biology Program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley.

Prof. Gad Keren of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine won the Elizabeth Greibach Research Fellowship of the Jewish National Fund for his contribution to teaching cardiology using simulations.

VISITS

Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister visited TAU accompanied by a delegation. They met with TAU President Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, visited the Wolfson Center for Applied Materials Research, and were hosted for lunch by Prof. Yair Aharonowitz, Vice President and Dean for Research and Development.

ABROAD

France

Prof. George-Elia Sarfati of TAU's Linguistics Department presented a lecture to the TAU Friends entitled "Jewish Identities and Language Similarities" at the home of Claire and Patrick Arfi. Opening remarks: Prof. Ruth Amossy of the TAU French Department.

The French Friends organized a pre-premiere screening of the film Jacob the Liar, featuring Robin Williams and P. Kassovitz, at the Rachi Cultural Center.

Germany

Film producer Artur Brauner hosted the TAU Friends to a screening of his film Witness from Hell, followed by a reception and Yiddish songs at his Hollywood Media Hotel in Berlin. The first meeting of the new committee of the Friends in Berlin followed the event.

Actor and director Klaus Maria Brandauer and pianist Gerhard Opitz gave an evening of "Viennese Coffee House Literature - Viennese Classics" in the White Hall of the New Castle in Stuttgart, sponsored by Daimler-Chrysler and the Schwabische Bank. Opening remarks: Chairman of the Baden Wurttemberg Friends Committee Mayor Dr. Dieter Blessing. Proceeds of the event went to the Karin Brandauer Fund at TAU.

COMING EVENTS

The 9th European Regional Conference of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University will take place at the Carlton Hotel, St. Moritz, Switzerland, on 27-31 January 2000. On the program: Benno Gitter, Chairman of the Board of Governors, will open the first session, which will include lectures by TAU President Prof. Itamar Rabinovich on "TAU on the Threshold of the New Era" and by Rector Prof. Nili Cohen on "The Role of Humanities in a Technological Age."

Two panel discussions will be held, one on "The Unfolding Israeli-Arab Peace Process" with Prof. Rabinovich and Prof. Shimon Shamir of the Moshe Dayan Center, and the other on "High Tech: Israel's Success Story" with Prof. Yosi Y. Shachan-Diamand of the Fleischman Faculty of Engineering; Eli Barkat, Chairman and CEO of BackWeb Technologies and Managing Director, BRM Technologies, USA; and Zohar Zisapel, Director, RAD Data Communications, Israel.

Dr. Norman J. Ornstein, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, DC, will deliver a lecture entitled "US Elections 2000."

The Gertler Quartet of TAU's Samuel Rubin Israeli Academy of Music will give two performances.

Registration: Brigitte Kirchheimer, Swiss Friends of TAU, Tel: 411-211 60 92; Fax: 411-211 78 32

OBITUARIES

TAU mourns the passing away of Josef Burg, former Minister and Member of the Knesset, 1998 Honorary Doctor of TAU.