2008
Prof. Zeev Sternhell Awarded 2008 Israel Prize For Research in Political Science
Prof. Zeev Sternhell of the Hebrew University's department of politics will be awarded the 2008 Israel Prize in political science.
The judges, who included Professors Shlomo Avineri, Ella Balfer and Avraham Brichta, described Sternhell as ''one of the leading scholars in the field of political thought in Israel and the world.'' His research, which has been translated into many languages have led to a significant change in the scientific community in the concept of ideological movements in general and radical movements in particular.
| Professor Zeev Sternhell |  |
Prof. Sternhell was born in 1935 in Galicia. After World War II broke out, he was smuggled to Lvov by an uncle who was allowed to work outside the Przemysl ghetto.
After the war he left Poland for France, where he lived with an aunt. As a boy who experienced Nazism and Stalinism and also got to know religious fanaticism in its Catholic-Polish version, he suddenly discovered freedom, human rights, freedom of speech and secularism.
In 1951 he immigrated to Israel, and was sent to the Magdiel agricultural institution. He served as a commander in the Golani Unit. In October 1957, he began studying political science and history, while simultaneously working as a librarian.
''The Hebrew University, then the only university in Israel, was the center of intense intellectual activity, and being part of that was a real experience,'' he relates. ''I was lucky to have had great teachers, but saw that the role of an intellectual was not only to understand the world, but to change it.'' In this respect, everyone was a student of Marx, but also liberals who believed in the importance of the scientific and public discourse.''
Completing his B.A. in 1960, he started studying in the department of political science that was still in its early stages. Completing his M.A. in 1964, he went on to study his doctorate at the Institute of Political Science in Paris.
In the 1970's, Prof. Sternhell began contributing to the Haaretz newspaper, which he continues until today. He says, ''In actively participating in public life, I give expression to the personal responsibility that we have to the future of society and the future of Zionism. I always thought that the greatest service to society that a man can do whose profession is research, writing and studying, is to say what he thinks with no reservation or fear.
The Israel Prize was announced by the Minister of Education Prof. Yuli Tamir and will be awarded on Independence Day.
Two HU Researchers Awarded 2008 Wolf Prize
Two Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers, Prof. Howard Cedar and Prof. Aharon Razin, have been awarded the 2008 Wolf Prize in Medicine for their fundamental contributions to the control of gene expression and cancer research.
Minister of Education Prof. Yuli Tamir, chairperson of the Wolf Foundation Council, announced that the $100,000 prize, often referred to as Israel’s “Nobel Prize,” will be awarded to Professors Cedar and Razin of the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School ''for their fundamental contributions to our understanding of the role of DNA methylation in the biological function of higher organisms, with widespread impact on studies of development, control of gene expression and cancer research.''
DNA methylation (chemical changes in the DNA molecule) is a very basic aspect of animal cell biology involved in the regulation of a large number of physiological, developmental and pathological processes. The foundations of this field were laid, almost exclusively, through the work of Cedar and Razin.
Born in the US in 1943, Howard Cedar received his Ph.D. from New York University in 1970. From 1971 to 1973, he was a research associate at the National Institutes of Health in the US. Prof. Cedar has been associated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1973 in the Department of Cellular Biochemistry and Human Genetics at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School. He is the incumbent of the Harry and Helen L. Brenner Chair in Molecular Biology and is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
| Professor Howard Cedar |  |
Born in Israel in 1935, Aharon Razin received his Ph.D. in 1967, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology in 1969/70. Since 1962, Prof. Razin has been affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1980 to 1984, he was head of the Department of Cellular Biochemistry and has been the Jacob Grunbaum Professor of Medical Sciences.
Cedar and Razin have both received the Israel Prize and are members of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and the Human Genome Organization (HUGO).
The Israel-based Wolf Foundation was established by the late German-born inventor, diplomat and philanthropist, Dr. Ricardo Wolf. Five annual Wolf Prizes, of $100,000 in each area, have been awarded since 1978 to outstanding scientists and artists ''for achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among peoples, irrespective of nationality, race, color, religion, sex or political view.'' To date, a total of 241 scientists and artists from 22 countries have been honored.
The prize will be presented by the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, at a special ceremony at the Knesset in Jerusalem on Sunday, May 25.
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