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President of Bar-Ilan University
Ramat-Gan, Israel
When I look back on the past year in Israel, a year of many new beginnings. Last year we launched our major project for the next fifty years - our $500 million campus extension in Ramat Gan - with advanced construction on the first four buildings.
Four historic lead gifts, all from friends of the university in the United States have jump-started construction on the Gonda (Goldschmied) Brain Research Center, the Ann and Marcus Rosenberg Music Building, the Anna & Max Webb & Family Psychology Building, and we shall finish the Jack and Gitta Nagel Family Jewish Heritage House this year.
We have also made significant progress in advancing essential academic goals in a number of key disciplines. The Center for the Study of Dead Sea Scrolls and Jewish Epigraphy was established in partnership with David and Jemima Jeselsohn of Switzerland and a new chemistry library and research wing is being established by dear friends of the University from Australia. I am proud to note that our campaign to establish doctoral fellowships is gaining impressive momentum.
We also made a major decision to open a new School of Hi-Tech Engineering, and we launched our Virtual Jewish University on the Internet (http://bar-ilan.edu).
I can only be grateful for G-d's blessings and the friendship of our supporters around the world. We have achieved so much.
At this time of the year my thoughts also turn from the university to the broader, the Jewish world beyond - and I find cause for concern indeed.
We seek to bridge between Jews and Israelis of all persuasions by teaching Jewish tradition and ethics in an open, critical manner. Bar-Ilan University's more than 45,000 graduates are testament to our success in this regard.
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