academic director: michal linial iris avivi smadar …ias.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/annual...

Academic Director:Michal Linial

Administrative Director:Iris Avivi

Production Manager: Smadar Bergman

Editor:Alexa Neville

Administrative Staff:Yossi Assulin Smadar BergmanSarah GabisonInbal Gezehan DeutchMerav Itzhaky GenuthBatia MatlubKeren Rechnitzer Efrat Shivly Shoshana Yazdi Saar Zucker

Photographs:Iris Avivi Smadar BergmanSarit Kattan Gribetz Douglas Guthrie

3IIAS Annual Report 2017/2018

Table of Contents

Director’s Report ....................................................................................................................................4

About the Institute .................................................................................................................................7

Research Groups ....................................................................................................................................8

Countours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures ...................10

Geometric, Topological and Computational Aspects of High-Dimensional Aspects .....18

The Day Unit in Antiquity and the Middle Ages ....................................................................26

Advanced Schools ................................................................................................................................34

Conferences ..........................................................................................................................................42

The Michael Bruno Memorial Awards .............................................................................................52

Academic Calendar ..............................................................................................................................55

Groups in Residence 2018-2019 ........................................................................................................58

Groups in Residence 2019-2020 ........................................................................................................58

Director's Report

T his director’s report is my final after serving for almost six years as Director of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies. As such, it is a unique

opportunity for me to reflect on the past and share my hopes for its future.

IIAS epitomises academia in its pure form; it nurtures and supports new, innovative, and unconventional ideas. We create multidisciplinary diverse learning communities of academics from around the world who engage in collaborative research, with the aim of having a greater impact on human knowledge. Drawing on Israeli natural scepticism/questioning, IIAS’s culture inspires curiosity-driven thinking, trial-and-error approaches and breaking boundaries. Some of my most precious moments have been seeing our scholars revitalise their senses and interact in new ways.

A review for a book published by one of our Research Groups beautifully encapsulates the mission of the IIAS: “one of the primary goals of the research group at the IIAS was to attempt to break free of the intellectual impasse, foster meaningful communication, and permit new knowledge to develop”.

Our Jerusalem location provides our fellows with a two-fold opportunity. Removed from their comfort zone, they can break down intellectual barriers and discover novel mindsets. Furthermore, they are introduced to Jerusalem as a vibrant multi-dimensional city, and to Israel as a place for exploring the interface between culture, religion, and antiquity.

I would like to highlight some milestones of the Institute during my term.

One of my main goals was to improve IIAS’ visibility and transparency. We succeeded in showing our scholars, other academic communities and the general public that the essence of the IIAS is bringing together passionate researchers to advance ideas. My contribution to shaping this environment is deeply fulfilling.

During my term, we were able to establish the first Advanced School in Computer Science and Engineering, in 2015; it is probably one of its kind worldwide. This event has now become seminal, whereby international scientists look forward to IIAS’ forthcoming school.

Another achievement of which I am especially proud is the Israeli Workshop for Women in Mathematics. It has rapidly expanded into a ground-breaking annual conference and a haven for female mathematicians, where their love of mathematics is encouraged. The workshop’s slogan ‘I do math like a girl’ characterises their pride in studying a traditionally ‘male’ subject and the consequent debate thereof on the empowerment of women in academia. This workshop epitomises timely social progress combined with academic excellence, and thus represents the true spirit of the IIAS.

6 Director's Report

I have always been personally inspired by our Research Groups, the Institute’s raison d’etre. Watching experts in different fields interconnect and contribute to a greater understanding of one another’s research has been a unique privilege. Our application process for the Groups in itself enables teamwork and out-of-the-box thinking even before their activity here commences, since the Group model deconstructs their individualistic ivory-towers research and stimulates villages of cooperative research. And following their experiences, many IIAS fellows are welcomed as scholars worldwide and continue their collaboration.

Connecting the personal with the Institute level, one of my transformative occasions was my service as president of the Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study (NetIAS) during 2017/18. This appointment of an Israeli demonstrated acceptance and enabled advancement of Israeli academics in a region where exclusion of Israel is commonplace. Furthermore, at this period, NetIAS absorbed 22 partner institutes and developed alternative models for advanced research bodies, based upon IIAS’ collaborative model. The members learn from one another’s work, networking and promoting cooperative scholarship for the mutual benefit of all, a significant achievement in Europe where free intellectual life is difficult in some places.

Another way in which I promoted the bridge between the IIAS and the Israeli academia was via the talented and inspired researchers who are the Bruno awardees. We were able to extend their activity within the IIAS in many creative formats.

Knowing that together we can achieve more was the basis of my recent efforts to strengthen the interactions among the worldwide University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study (UBIAS) collaboration. With 35 veteran and newer associates, UBIAS is a melting pot for global exchanges of ideas and multi-perspective research. The IIAS, as one of the more established institutes, was able to mentor newer research institutes.

While it is almost impossible to compress my time at the IIAS into specific events, hosting the UBIAS Academia on Human Dignity remains one of the most influential events that I had the honour to lead together with our German partners at Bielefeld University’s Institute for Advanced Study. The scholarship conducted in Jerusalem was but the start of a wave. It led to a sea of further research; first a book and then several ongoing events unified many advanced institutes, from Taiwan to Johannesburg, and in other parts of the world. Discussing the complex aspects of human dignity allowed us to bridge between academia and changing political realities and the future of multicultural societies.

My parting thoughts derive from my professional world which examines how cells cope with conflict. As the evolutionary biologist, Theodosius Dobzhansk, said: “There is nothing in biology that makes sense except in the light of evolution”. Just as cells need to evolve and change in order to adapt to new realities, IIAS and its scholars must continually evolve remain relevant and to make sense.

I wish the Institute’s new Director Yitzhak Hen, its members, staff and supporters great health and success in their endeavours in the years to come.


About the Institute

T he Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, established in 1975, is a national institution dedicated to the advancement of research and learning at

the highest level. It is open to scholars in all academic fields, from both Israel and abroad, and it is the only institution of its kind in Israel.

Each year the Institute hosts approximately 40 fellows as members of Collaborative Research Groups that convene for a period of up to ten months. In any given year the Institute hosts between three to five Research Groups, composed of scholars from Israel and abroad. A wide range of disciplines are represented by the Research Groups hosted at the Institute.

Fellows at the Institute participate in the IIAS programs, free of their normal teaching obligations and administrative duties. The Institute attracts scholars who constitute the vanguard in their various disciplines. By encouraging long-term interaction, the Institute contributes to the interchange of knowledge and the vitality of academic life in Israel and throughout the world.

In addition to Research Groups, the IIAS annually hosts six Advanced Schools representing the following disciplines: Economic Theory, Theoretical Physics, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Humanities and Computer Science and Engineering. The Advanced Schools, each directed by a scholar of international standing, attract doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars from all over the world. These young scholars are given an opportunity to interact with leading scientists involved in pioneering research in their respective fields of research.

Additional programs at the IIAS include conferences that are open to a wide academic audience as well as specialized conferences for scholars in innovative, comprehensive topics, with an opportunity to share and explore the latest research and methodologies. Some conferences are a reunion of past Research Groups convening to supplement their research.

The IIAS also a member of international networks such as SIAS, UBIAS and NetIAS and actively participates in their unique exchange programs for scientists and scholars.

Research Groups

T his year the IIAS hosted three Research Groups. Two of the Research Groups resided for ten months and the third group for five months.

The Subject of Antiquity: Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean CulturesSeptember 1, 2017 – June 30, 2018Organized by: Maren Niehoff (The Hebrew University) and Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Tel Aviv University)

Geometric, Topological and Computational Aspects of High-Dimensional CombinatoricsSeptember 1, 2017 – June 30, 2018Organized by: Alexander Lubotzky (The Hebrew University) and Tali Kaufman (Bar-Ilan University)

The Day Unit in Antiquity and the Middle AgesMarch 1, 2018 - July 31, 2018Organized by: Jonathan Ben-Dov (University of Haifa), Sacha Stern (University College London)

The Research Groups held meetings, seminars, conferences and public lectures during their residencies. In addition to their academic activities, the fellows enjoyed many social gatherings and field trips. The year opened with a tour of the observation points around Jerusalem. For our Purim celebration, we heard a fascinating talk, “Internet Jokes: The Secret Agents of Globalization?” by Limor Shifman (The Hebrew University). The fellows went on several excursions to historical and archaeological sites around the country, under the guidance of Shaya Gafni, including Caesarea, Bet Guvrin National Park, Ha'Ela Valley and Khirbet Qeiyafa. Our end-of-the-year celebration included a flamenco dance performance by Micaela Harari and a joint fellows-staff luncheon.

More details on the groups’ activities can be found in the individual Research Group reports.

The Subject of Antiquity: Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures

Group ReportOrganizers: Maren R. Niehoff (The Hebrew University) and Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Tel Aviv University)

T he emergence of notions of the “Self ” in the ancient world is a field of growing scholarly interest in recent years. These notions have various

expressions in the material and the textual culture of Roman, Jewish, and Christian societies. Our Research Group set out to explore these expressions through a variety of sources and methodologies.

The group consisted of leading experts from different fields, whose team work shed new light on areas and genres which have regularly been studied in isolation. The fellows’ areas of expertise lay in the fields of Greek philosophy (Gretchen Reydams-Schils; Carlos Levy), Late Antiquity history (Edward Watts), early Christianity (Eve-Marie Becker; Alfons Fürst), Hellenistic and early rabbinic Judaism (Maren Niehoff), and rabbinic literature (David Lambert; Joshua Levinson; Ishay Rosen-Zvi). Visiting scholars included Sarit Kattan-Gribetz and Albert Baumgarten. Our goal was to bring these divergent fields into conversation with one another and to reassess each field through a phenomenological and historical comparison to other, contemporaneous corpora. This goal has been achieved beyond all expectations.

We decided to conduct closed group discussions during the first semester, towards clarifying methodological approaches and exchanging expert knowledge in the different fields of Late Antiquity. We started by dedicating four sessions to reading theoretical and methodological approaches to our topic. Two main issues were identified, around which many discussions and debates coalesce:

1) The degree of interiority and self-reflection necessary to speak in a meaningful way about the Self in antiquity. While the philosophers in the group tend to require a strong degree of interiority, the historians tend to accept a great variety of self-expressions;

2) The degree of contacts between the different cultures and religions. While some identify significant contacts between Greco-Roman culture, Judaism, and Christianity, others insist on the uniqueness of Judaism and Christianity respectively.

The debates led us to sharpen our tools and negotiate between the various criteria of the “Self ”: Subjectivity, individuality, exemplarity, and interiority. These issues were then further explored in the weekly presentations of members of the group, each sharing her/his relevant sources and methodological concerns.

12 Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures

During the first semester the group went on a two-day field trip to the Galilee and the Golan Heights, enriching the discussion of texts and theories by first-hand exposure to material culture. Guided by Shaya Gafni, we received an excellent impression of the cultural encounters and their impact on the construction of the Self.

Following the productive interdisciplinary discussions of the first semester, we set out to extend the discussions in the second semester and include a variety of experts from adjacent fields. We invited presentations from leading scholars from Israel and abroad, as well as three Buber Fellows from The Hebrew University. These lectures and stimulating discussions enabled the group to obtain a better understanding of various ancient constructions of the Self that include ethics and religiosity, legal thinking, attitudes towards tradition and authority, the place of the individual in the community, the history of emotions, and many others. The following guest presentations were made during the second semester: Yair Furstenberg , Naly Thaler, Menahem Kister, Yoram Bilu (The Hebrew University); James Kugel, Noam Zohar (Bar-Ilan University); Laura Nasrallah, Karen King (Harvard Divinity School); Jorg Ruepke (University of Erfurt); Hindy Najman (University of Oxford ); Fred Tauber (Boston University); Francesca Calabi (University of Pavia); Reuven Kiperwasser (independent scholar); Yakir Paz, Orly Lewis, Hannelies Koloska (Buber Society of Fellows); Orit Malka (Tel Aviv University).

In addition to the weekly seminars, our group invested special efforts in forging conversations with scholars and graduate students throughout Israel. This was achieved in various ways. We initiated a series of guest lunches, inviting both young and established scholars from other universities, as well as visiting scholars from abroad. These lunches proved exceptionally fruitful and we strongly recommend them as a general feature of the IIAS groups. We also initiated contacts with the Buber Society of Fellows, inviting three fellows to present their relevant work at our weekly seminars. In addition, the group organized workshops at Ben-Gurion University on historical questions and at Tel Aviv University, on philosophical aspects of the Self. Members of the group, along with doctoral and undergraduate students, participated in the discussions and contributed to a lively exchange.

Another group-unique initiative was the series of guest lectures in Memory of Yohanan Lewy, a pioneering classicist from The Hebrew University, who dedicated his life to the encounter

Fellows’ orientation day


between Judaism and Roman society and philosophy. World-leading experts from a variety of institutions and academic fields were invited, including Nicole Belayche (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes; history of religion), Tobias Nicklas (University of Regensburg; theology) Margaret Graver (Dartmouth College; philosophy), Valéry Laurand (University of Bordeaux-Montaigne; philosophy), Irmgard Männlein-Robert (Tübingen University, Classics), and Thomas Schmitz (University of Bonn, Classics). The series was devoted to central themes which the group studied throughout the year, such as notions of individuality in the encounter between Jews, Christians, and “Pagans” in Late Antiquity. Each scholar gave a public lecture as well as a seminar for graduate students. The seminars provided a unique opportunity for advanced students to engage in close discussions with leading scholars of their fields. The students who attended these lectures and seminars have been invited to participate in further activities next year, when Maren Niehoff and Joshua Levinson, together with colleagues, plan to renew the interdisciplinary program in Late Antiquity at The Hebrew University.

In May, we held an international conference titled: “Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures.” The conference was sponsored by the IIAS, as well as the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program; the EU project and the Notre Dame workshop on ancient philosophy. By assembling experts from different fields, such as Roman history, ancient philosophy, religion and others, we asked whether and how new notions of the Self emerged across “pagan,” Jewish, and Christian cultures. The various notions were explored in sessions on the following topics: “Between Center and Periphery: Constructing the Self in the Roman Empire;” “Contours of Interiority;” “Trajectories of Interiority;” “The Self in Action: Society, Law and Liturgy;” and “Philosophical Reflections on the Self.” The conference also featured two keynote lectures; Clifford Ando (University of Chicago) on "Self, Society, Individual and Person in Roman Law" and Catharine Edwards (Birbeck, University of London) on “The Epistolographic Self: Letter-Writing, Empire and Identity”. There were also two excursions during the conference, one to the desert monasteries, guided by Shaya Gafni, and the other to the Israel Museum guided by Dudi Mevorach, senior curator of ancient archeology. Dudi Mevorach took us also to the museum’s basements and showed us new exciting artifacts that are not shown to the public. Both tours provided important material aspects to all textual

Fellows on a day trip to Caesarea


discussions in the conference. The conference was a great success and we have already started to plan the publication of the many fascinating papers.

In addition to the special events, several cooperative research projects have been already been launched. Alfons Fürst and Maren Niehoff will translate Origen’s Letter Collection into German and provide an introduction and annotations. Alfons Fürst has also joined the editorial team of the Handbook of Letter-Writing from Antiquity, headed by Eve-Marie Becker. Edward Watts and Sarit Kattan-Gribetz have decided to co-teach a course on women in Late Antiquity, also exploring the possibility of writing a book together. David Lambert has initiated two conference sessions for the coming year: “Philology of the Self ” at the Society for Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, in which Francoise Mirguet, a guest speaker at our IIAS conference, will also participate; and a session with James Redfield (Saint Louis University) for the annual meeting of the Association of Jewish Studies on “The Biblical Self in Rabbinic Eyes.” Ishay Rosen-Zvi and Gretchen Reydams-Schils won together the Schlindwein Family Tel Aviv University – Notre Dame Research Collaboration Grant on “Interpretive Cultures in Late Antiquity: Hellenistic, Roman, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives.” The grant includes funding for two workshops and additional collaborative initiatives. The collaboration also includes also Sharon Weisser and Vered Noam from Tel Aviv University, and Michael Novick and David Lincicum from the University of Notre Dame.

The combination of our group discussions and the excellent environment at the IIAS has proven exceptionally productive. Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Alfons Fürst, and Edward Watts have each completed a book manuscript. Maren Niehoff submitted four articles for publication and is currently preparing the publication of two lectures, one given at the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the other at the Sorbonne in Paris. She is also formulating a new comprehensive project. Ishay Rosen-Zvi, prompted by his interaction with scholars of early Christianity, undertook a comparative study of notions of self-transformation in Origen and Tannaitic Midrash, which he presented at a seminar at Oxford. He also delivered an outreach lecture just before Passover, which addressed the seder night as a rabbinic form of education. Gretchen Reydams-Schils gave two lectures in Europe, which developed and nuanced her predominantly philosophical approach to the Self. And David Lambert has completed a chapter of his book, on the philology of the Self in early Biblical interpretation.

In conclusion, it the past year has been a highly productive one for all the group’s members. Through the many seminars, lectures, discussions, and special events, we engaged in interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations that broadened the scholarly horizons of each individual’s work. It is the unique atmosphere at the IIAS which made all of this possible.


Eve-Marie BeckerFaculty of Arts, School of Culture and Society, Department of Theology Aarhus UniversityAreas of Research: Pauline studies, especially Philippians, investigation of Paul’s biography and personality; early Christian literary history

Alfons FürstDepartment of Catholic Theology - History of Early Christianity / Origen Research Center University of MünsterAreas of Research: history and theology of early Christianity, the history and rhetoric of monotheism in antiquity, Origen and his legacy up to modern times, and especially the history of human freedom and dignity in western civilization

David Lambert Department of Religious StudiesUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Areas of Research: Hebrew Bible and its history of interpretation, Late Second Temple Judaism, rabbinic Judaism, history of Jewish thought, development of religious concepts and terminology, notions of the self and interiority

Joshua Levinson Department of Hebrew LiteratureThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem Areas of Research: Rabbinic Midrash, literary theory and cultural poetics


Carlos Lévy L’Universite de Paris-Sorbonne Areas of Research: Ancient Philoshopy, the works of Cicero and Philo of Alexandria

Maren NiehoffDepartment of Jewish ThoughtThe Hebrew University of JerusalemAreas of Research: Encounters between Jews, pagans, and Christians in the Greco-Roman world, Philo of Alexandria, rabbinic exegesis in light of the Church Fathers

Gretchen Reydams-Schils Program of Liberal StudiesUniversity of Notre DameAreas of Research: Plato, the traditions of Platonism and Stoicism, also in Philo of Alexandria and the Early Christian tradition

Ishay Rosen-ZviDepartment of Hebrew Culture StudiesTel Aviv UniversityAreas of Research: Talmud, Midrash and Ancient Hermeneutic


Edward Watts Department of HistoryUniversity of California, San DiegoAreas of Research: The cultural and religious history of the later Roman and early Byzantine worlds with particular focus on questions of Roman identity and the role of the self in negotiating between conflicting identities in the Roman imperial and late antique periods

Visiting Scholars

Karen King Harvard Divinity School Harvard University

Laura Nasrallah Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University

Judith Perkins Westar Institute University of St Joseph

Jörge Rüpke Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies University of Erfurt

Research Assistant Avigail Manekin The Hebrew University

Geometric, Topological and Computational Aspects of High-Dimensional Combinatorics

Group ReportOrganizers: Alexander Lubotzky (The Hebrew University) and Tali Kaufman (Bar-Ilan University)

T he group brought together mathematicians from different subfields of mathematics to work on the emerging topic of high-dimensional

combinatorics. The group’s goals were to develop and apply high-dimensional analogues of classical notions in combinatorics, and to expose a wide mathematical audience to the depth, challenges and potential applications of this topic. A major challenge lies in the wide range of fields of expertise required to conduct research in this topic, which requires mathematicians from quite different fields to understand each other and cooperate.

The group was led by Alex Lubotzky, a mathematician whose expertise lies in group theory and the applications of representation theory to combinatorics, and by Tali Kaufman, a computer scientist who is one of the leaders of the study of the high-dimensional theory and its applications to combinatorics and computer science. The fellows and their fields of expertise included: Anna Gundert (combinatorics and topology), Lev Glebsky (group theory and model theory), John Klein (algebraic topology), Leonard Schulman (algorithms, coding theory and combinatorics), Roy Meshulam (combinatorics), Michael Farber (topology and its applications to robotics), and Uli Wagner (topology and combinatorics). Visiting scholars included Ron Adin, Jozef Dodziuk, Zur Luria, Ori Parzanchevski, Ron Rosenthal, Shmuel Weinberger and Gilles Zemor. Other special fellows who visited for shorter periods of time included: Alex Gamburd, Fedor Manin, Joel Friedman, Nikolay Nikolov and Janos Pach.

Many Israeli mathematicians and computer scientists were deeply involved in the program, from the Hebrew University and from outside, such as Nati Linial, Gil Kalai, Karim Adiprasito (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Irit Dinur (Weizmann Institute of Science), Yair Glasner, Izhar Oopenein, (Ben-Gurion University), Uzi Vishne (Bar-Ilan University), David Garber (Holon Institute of Technology), Amnon Ta-Shma (Tel Aviv University), as well as their PhD students and post-doctoral students.

The study of high-dimensional combinatorics revolves mainly but not solely around mathematical objects called “simplicial complexes”. These objects can be viewed from two very different angles. From the point of view of a graph-theorist, a simplicial complex is a high-dimensional analogue of a graph, which in turn is the mathematical model for an interconnected network. So, a simplicial

20 Geometric, Topological and Computational Aspects of High-Dimensional Combinatorics

complex is an “interconnected network in high-dimensions”. On the other hand, for a topologist or geometer, a simplicial complex is a combinatorial discrete model for continuous objects called “manifolds”, such as a sphere. So, a simplicial complex is also a “combinatorial model for continuous objects”. Therefore, the field of high-dimensional combinatorics is a genuine meeting point for quite distinct areas of mathematics, which explains the wide interest and large number of applications of this field.

The research group has held two conferences, each attended by over 80 participants from Israel and abroad. The first conference was held in October 2017 in Sde Boker, and lasted for 5 days. Surrounded by the beautiful landscape of the Negev desert, the conference took the form of an introductory school on the recent developments in high-dimensional combinatorics, and attracted both graduate students and experienced mathematicians. Alongside the five daily lectures, the free time for discussions in the local club proved to be especially fruitful. We also enjoyed a trip in a nearby valley. The second conference was held in April 2018 at the IIAS and lasted for 5 days as well. The program included research talks from over 20 leading mathematicians from various countries on their cutting-edge results related to the research group’s topics of interest. The talks were highly interactive and stimulating, with both the speakers and the audience including world-class mathematicians. We also enjoyed a tour of the old city of Jerusalem and a meal in a restaurant in the city center.

There were a number of achievements during this year to mention a few: High-dimensional expanders were proven to be useful for list decoding of error correcting codes while one dimensional expanders could only imply decoding but not list decoding; a new construction of high-dimensional expanders which is arguably simpler than previous constructions based on Ramanujan complexes was made; there were achievements in understanding high-dimensional

The Group’s conference

21 IIAS Annual Report 2017/2018

random walks and some of their applications; and there was a progress on hyper-trees. Furthermore, the relations between spectral high-dimensional expansion (i.e. high order random walks) and combinatorial high-dimensional expansion (i.e. co-systolic expansion) were clarified, showing in particular that the spectral expansion can hold even in the absence of combinatorial expansion (this is in contrast to the one dimensional case); and a construction of lattices with large minimal distance based on high-dimensional expanders was achieved. A new combinatorial construction of high-dimensional expanders was investigated, while the previous constructions were only algebraic. There was a progress on understanding high-dimensional permutations and designs à la Keevash. A powering method for high-dimensional expanders was developed, and yields high-dimensional expanders. Ramanujan complexes were used to get new "golden gates" in 3-dimensional unitary groups, gates which are of basic importance in quantum computation. The theory of groups stability was developed in two directions: it was shown for the first time that there are groups which are not "approximated" - solving a long-standing problem, and the connection of this problem with high-dimensional expanders was one of the surprising discoveries of this year. A connection was found between stability of amenable groups and invariant random subgroups, and led to the solution of several open problems.

Another major activity of the research group was a series of a full days of seminars, held each Monday throughout the 10 months of the program. A typical Monday consisted of several parts: 4 hours were devoted to an extensive survey of a relevant mathematical topic, at a level accessible to professional mathematicians from very different fields. An additional 2-hour research talk was given. Finally, the last 2 hours were devoted to a year-long course, given by Ori Parzanchevski, on the important and technically difficult topic of Ramanujan complexes. Each day of seminars presented a different angle on the group’s research topic. The seminars provided many guest

From the left to right: Shmuel Weinberger(University of Chicago) with John Klein (Wayne State University) and Leonard Schulman (California Institute of Technology)


speakers from around the world and attracted a large crowd who came to Jerusalem from across the country every Monday.

The group’s goal of enabling research in its highly interdisciplinary topic was achieved through the above-mentioned combination of thorough introductory lectures that came alongside the research activity and research talks. The intense effort made to build a “high-dimensional combinatorics community” will very likely have great impact on mathematical research in the coming years.

In December, the group enjoyed a tour of Herodion, guided by Prof. Shaya Gafni. The tour was followed by a Hanukkah candle lighting at Prof. Lubotzky’s home.

The group organized a screening of the film “The Man who Knew Infinity” in January. The film tells the story of self-taught Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, whose prolific work in number theory eventually led to the “Ramanujan complexes” mentioned above. An introduction to the film was given by a guest of the group, Prof. Ehud de-Shalit, a number theorist at the Hebrew University.

The outreach lecture titled “Sailing into High Dimensions” was given in June by a guest of the group, Prof. Gil Kalai, an expert on combinatorics at the Hebrew University. The lecturer presented the history of the study of high-dimensional objects, including a gentle introduction to the way mathematicians think of them.

In conclusion, it the past year has been a highly productive one for all the group’s members. Through the many seminars, lectures, discussions, and special events we engaged in interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations that broadened the scholarly horizons of each individual’s work.It is the unique atmosphere at the IIAS which made all of this possible.

Conference coffee break


Michael FarberSchool of Mathematical SciencesQueen Mary, University of LondonAreas of Research: Applied topology, stochastic topology, applied mathematics.

Lev Glebsky Faculty of Sciences, Institute of Optical CommunicationUniversidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi Areas of Research: Combinatoric, combinatorial and geometric group theory, approximations

Anna Gundert Department of MathematicsUniversity of Cologne Areas of Research: Combinatorial theory of simplicial complexes, in particular random simplicial complexes, higher-dimensional expansion, and spectral properties of simplicial complexes

Tali KaufmanDepartment of Computer ScienceBar-Ilan UniversityAreas of Research: Sub-linear algorithms and property testing, coding theory, graph theory, randomness in computation, approximation algorithms, combinatorics and additive combinatorics, complexity theory.

John Klein Department of MathematicsWayne State University Areas of Research: Algebraic topology, manifolds, algebraic K-theory


Alexander Lubotzky Einstein Institute of MathematicsThe Hebrew University of JerusalemAreas of Research: Group theory, representation theory and their connections with discrete mathematics, geometry and number theory

Roy Meshulam Department of MathematicsTechnion – Israel Institute of Technology Areas of Research: Applications of topology to combinatorics

Leonard Schulman Department: Engineering & Applied ScienceCalifornia Institute of Technology Areas of Research: Algorithms and communication protocols; combinatorics and probability; coding and information theory; quantum computation

Uli Wagner Institute of Science and Technology Austria Areas of Research: Topological and high-dimensional combinatorics, discrete and computational geometry, and computational topology


Visiting Scholars

Ron AdinDepartment of Mathematics Bar-Ilan University

Eric BabsonDepartment of Mathematics University of California, Davis

Joseph DodziukQueens College / Graduate School City University of New York

Uriya FirstDepartment of Mathematics University of Haifa

Joel FriedmanFaculty of Science University of British Columbia

Alexander GambardGraduate Center City University of New York

Dmitry Feichtner-KozlovFaculty of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Bremen

Imre LeaderThe Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics University of Cambridge

Zur LuriaEinstein Institute of Mathematics The Hebrew University

Fedor Manin Department of Mathematics Ohio State University

Nikolai Nikolov Mathematical Institute University of Oxford

Janos PachInstitute of Mathematics EPFL Lausanne & Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Ori ParzanchevskiEinstein Institute of Mathematics The Hebrew University

Ron Rosenthal Department of Mathematics Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Shmuel WeinbergerDepartment of Mathematics University of Chicago

Guoliang Yu Department of Mathematics Texas A&M University

Gilles Zemor Institute of Mathematics University of Bordeaux

The Day Unit in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Group ReportOrganizers: Jonathan Ben-Dov (University of Haifa), and Sacha Stern (University College London)

T he purpose of this research group was to investigate the day as a unit of time, from a variety of methodological and disciplinary perspectives,

in a historical period ranging from early antiquity to the later Middle Ages, in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Hellenistic world, the Roman Empire, and the medieval Christian and Islamic worlds. A set of research themes such as the definition of the day’s beginning and end, the origins of its 12-hour structure, how it was technically measured, the day’s effect on society and on lived experience, and its religious and philosophical implications, were addressed together by experts in a variety of fields. Members of the research group worked together as a team towards well-defined and integrated objectives, in a way that is rarely achieved in the Humanities. The IIAS provided a unique opportunity and context for such a group to be formed and operate, and for major progress to be achieved on a set of interdisciplinary questions that could only be dealt with by a team of scholars with a range of very different expertises. Our research was driven by sheer curiosity, and the conviction that the investigation of an under-studied, somewhat arcane yet highly important subject, was bound to yield most significant results.

The research group comprised seven members: Wayne Horowitz (Hebrew University), Israel Yuval (Hebrew University), Sarit Kattan Gribetz (Fordham University), Tzvi Langermann (Bar- Ilan University), Barbara Sattler (University of St. Andrews, Scotland), and the two organizers. Three additional guests stayed with the group for periods of 2 – 3 weeks: Sarah Symons (McMaster University, Canada), Joachim Quack (Heidelberg University), and John Steele (Brown University). This wider group thus comprised a combination of Egyptologists, Assyriologists, Bible scholars, rabbinic literature scholars, historians of science and philosophy, Greco-Roman historians, and medieval historians. The project convened at the end of February 2018 and was active March through July. In addition, the group hosted about 4-6 local participants who attended regularly the seminars, including graduate students from the Hebrew University, independent scholars, and local academics, among them notably Prof. Menachem Magidor, former president of the Hebrew University. Personal relations within the research group were excellent, and reinforced through a number of social activities, including day excursions to Bet Guvrin and to Herodion.

The main platform for the group’s activity were the weekly seminars, seventeen

28 The Day Unit in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

of which took place along the group’s term. Besides the seminars on the core questions of the research group, contributions were made by guest speakers in the fields of zoology, sociology, archeology, Indology, and wider approaches to time in the Jewish and Greco-Roman tradition. Our seminars were held as open, informal discussions of the materials and insights presented by our expert speakers. The meetings were highly productive, often exceeding the two hours originally assigned. In addition to the weekly seminars, the group member Wayne Horowitz initiated bi-weekly seminars on Mesopotamian astronomy, taking advantage of a rare opportunity to recruit enough people for regular meetings to be held in this highly specialized field. Two of our members were also regular participants in the research group ‘The Self in Antiquity’.

A conference was held at the IIAS in May 2018, with the participation of additional international speakers. The conference invigorated our research and led to far-reaching results, as detailed below. It was followed consecutively by a conference at the IIAS about ‘Time and Astronomy in the Ancient Near East’, organized by Wayne Horowitz with funding from the Israel Science Foundation. These two conferences together – with some overlap between them – convened the most important scholars worldwide in the study of time in antiquity and the Middle Ages, covering such wide-ranging themes as the history of time-reckoning, technology and astronomy, the uses of time in Greek and Latin literature, papyrology, medicine and magic, religion and cult, law, inter-faith relations, and the transfer of knowledge – with a foray as far as medieval Ethiopic astronomy. For one week, Jerusalem became the world’s center for ancient astronomy and time-reckoning, attracting much external interest. In the weeks following the conferences, some of the participants met by Skype with members of the research group to continue some of the ongoing conversations that the conferences initiated.

One of our key achievements has been a breakthrough in the understanding of the origins and history of the 12-hour structure of the day. As was claimed in our original IIAS application, and

Group trip to Herodion


as was confirmed in our group research, the early history of the 12-hour day is a field which has been very meagerly studied. Little is known on when, where, and under which circumstances the definition of the day as we know it – divided into 12 equinoctial (fixed) hours – or as it was mainly known in antiquity and the Middle Ages – divided into 12 seasonal hours (i.e., hours whose length varies with the seasonal change) – came to be. Curiously, previous studies like Dohrn van Rossum’s book History of the Hour (University of Chicago Press, 1996) did not relate to antiquity. Quite a few pieces of the puzzle were known to experts in their respective fields, but the overarching question was never posed and therefore also never pursued. Recent discoveries about early Egyptian and Greek sundials have had the potential of moving the field significantly forward.

As a result of our research, we are now able to suggest a tentative outline for the history of the 12-hour day. This outline emerged and crystalized through a broad cooperation between the IIAS group members, our invited guests, and our conference participants. The 12-hour day was invented in ancient Egypt around 2000 BCE, where both the day and the night were divided into 12-hours. Egyptian experts developed star-clocks, sundials and water clocks to measure these hours, in liturgical and scientific contexts but also to monitor work schedules. However, this practice remained characteristically Egyptian and did not spread to other parts of the ancient world. Limited evidence of the 12-hour division in 7th-century BCE Assyria was clarified, at the conference, to reflect most probably the activity of secluded Egyptian scholars in the Assyrian court, in a cultural environment where the 12-hour day was otherwise generally not applied. The 12-hour day was adopted in classical Greece from around the 4th century BCE. Here we have new material evidence in the form of the earliest Greek sundials, excavated in the last decade, as well as textual evidence from Greek terminology of the time. By the 3rd-2nd centuries BCE,

From left to right: Jonathan Ben-Dov (University of Haifa), Wayne Horowitz (The Hebrew University) and a conference speaker


the 12-hour division had reached all parts of the Hellenistic world, including Babylon and Judea. A significant leap in the usage and notation of hours came in the first-century BCE Roman Empire, as part of a general interest in Julius Caesar and Augustus in matters of time-reckoning, which became a central part of Roman imperial ideology. The use of hours became ubiquitous in Roman imperial society, as is reflected in the literature (Greco-Roman, Jewish, and so on.), documentary evidence (Egyptian papyri), as well as their material representations in sundials. Thousands of sundials have been discovered throughout the Roman Empire, constituting luxury items and markers of social and economic status.

We are now planning to formulate and integrate these findings into a broad, interdisciplinary scholarly monograph on the origins and history of the 12-hour division of the day. The monograph will be multi-authored, with contributions from all the experts who have been associated with our research group. Towards the achievement of this goal, we are planning follow-up conferences in the coming years.

In addition to our focus on the 12-day hour, group members have made important findings in other aspects of the day unit in antiquity and the Middle Ages. We anticipate this research to be published separately, as an important record of the achievements of our research group.

The main advantage of the group has been the opportunity to bring together experts in very different fields to reflect on the same questions and to formulate together, eventually, something approaching a common outcome. This opportunity is very rare in the Humanities, and could only have been achieved under the auspices of the Israel IAS. We are grateful to the IIAS for choosing this seemingly esoteric research topic, and for supporting it and making it happen.

Our group has been operating in what seems like burgeoning scholarly interest in time and temporality worldwide. In that respect it is a word in season. We have been receiving notes and invitations from scholarly associations who are interested in working on time and temporality, and we deem ourselves lucky to have taken the initiative in this direction.


Jonathan Ben-DovDepartment of Jewish History and Biblical StudiesUniversity of Haifa Areas of Research: Second Temple Jewish literature, biblical literature, ancient Near East, ancient astronomy calendars

Sarit Kattan Gribetz Theology DepartmentFordham UniversityAreas of Research: Second Temple and rabbinic literature, calendars and time, gender, the Roman Empire, and Jewish-Christian relations

Wayne Horowitz Institute of ArchaeologyThe Hebrew University of JerusalemAreas of Research: Ancient Mesopotamian astronomy and science, and al-Yahudu

Tzvi Langermann Department of ArabicBar-Ilan University Areas of Research: The histories of science, philosophy and religion


Barbara Sattler Department of PhilosophyUniversity of St. Andrews Areas of Research: Metaphysics and natural philosophy in the ancient Greek world (especially with the Presocratics, Plato and Aristotle); currently writing on ancient notions of time that connects ancient understandings of time with contemporary debates

Sacha SternDepartment of Hebrew and Jewish StudiesUniversity College London Areas of Research: Calendars in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Israel Yuval Department of HistoryThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem Areas of Research: Jewish communities in Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages; Christian-Jewish Polemics


Visiting Scholars

John Steele Department of Egyptology and Assyriology Brown University

Joachim Friedrich Quack Institute for Egyptology University of Heidelberg

Sarah Symons School of Interdisciplinary Science McMaster University

Michael Jaeckel President, University of Trier

Research Assistant Janet Safford The Hebrew University

Advanced Schools

T he IIAS hosts six Advanced Schools annually. The Advanced Schools are designed to facilitate the mentoring of promising doctoral and postdoctoral

students by experts in their fields, as well as to familiarize the students with the most recent advances in their disciplines.

The Advanced Schools have created some of the longest standing traditions and greatest sources of pride at the IIAS. The very first Advanced School at the IIAS was in Theoretical Physics and took place in 1982. This year we hosted the 35th School in Theoretical Physics.

Each of the Advanced Schools is led by a prominent, award-winning international scholar who serves as its General Director. The Directors appointed over the years have either been Nobel Laureates or received comparable prizes in their respective fields. The General Director plays a very important role in these schools – they impart their vision for the future of the field, and the Advanced School is based on that vision.

The Advanced Schools range in length between 6-14 days. As well as featuring master classes, lectures, and roundtables, opportunities are created for participants to present their own research in an informal manner, either through short oral presentations or in poster sessions.

This year the IIAS hosted five Advanced Schools.

36 Advanced Schools

December 17-22, 2017

The 2nd Winter School in Computer Science and Engineering on Formal VerificationGeneral Director: Michael Rabin (Harvard University and The Hebrew University)

The 2nd Winter School in Computer Science and Engineering was directed by Michael Rabin (Harvard University) and co-organized by Orna Kupferman (The Hebrew University) and Moshe Y. Vardi (Rice University). The school’s topic was Formal Verification. More than 100 participants from over 30 countries attended the conference. The program featured four courses, which introduced participants to the theoretical and practical aspects of formal verification: Algorithmic model checking by Orna Grumberg (Technion), linear-time verification by Javier Esparza (Technical University of Munich), probabilistic verification by Christel Baier (Technical University of Dresden), and temporal synthesis by Bernd Finkbeiner (Saarland University).

The School also included three panel sessions, featuring three or four on-stage speakers, which allowed for greater interaction between students and speakers. Each day ended with student poster exhibitions and spotlights, enabling the students to become acquainted with each other's work and receive feedback on their work from the speakers. The School also included a historical lecture delivered by Moshe Y. Vardi, and the 2nd Rabin Lecture, given by Thomas A. Henzinger (IST), who spoke about ‘A Powerful Paradigm for Modeling and Analysis from Engineering to Biology’. The participants enjoyed an active social program, including tours of Jerusalem and a trip to the Dead Sea.

From left to right: Moshe Vardi (Rice University), Thomas A. Henzinger (IST), Michael Rabin (Harvard University) and Yair Weiss (The Hebrew University)


December 27, 2017 - January 5, 2018

The 35th Jerusalem Winter School in Theoretical Physics on The Physics of Astronomical Transients

General Director: David Gross (UCSB, KITP)

With the explosive growth in observational capabilities to find and characterize astronomical transients, the 35th Jerusalem Winter School in Theoretical Physics was devoted to the physics of such events. Under the leadership of General Director David Gross (University of California, Santa Barbara), the school was organized by Sterl Phinney (California Institute of Technology) and Re'em Sari (The Hebrew University). They recruited additional leading experts: Lars Bildsten (Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics), Avishai Gal-Yam (Weizmann Institute of Science), Dan Kasen (University of California, Berkeley), Ehud Nakar (Tel Aviv University), Tsvi Piran (The Hebrew University), and Elena Maria Rossi (Leiden Observatory).

The lectures addressed the current observational methods for finding transients at all wavelengths, and the diversity of the discoveries. The rest of the lectures addressed the theory.

Approximately 80 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows participated, about 80% of whom were from abroad. In addition to the lectures, there were evening tutorial sessions, and many students presented posters of their own research. Lunches, breaks, and dinners at the School included vigorous discussion of the displayed posters.

While welcome rain prevented a planned trip to Ein Gedi, other social events proceeded smoothly: a tour of the Old City of Jerusalem, a trip to Masada and the Dead Sea, and a New Year’s party at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem.

From the right: Sterl Phinney (CIT) and Re’em Sari (The Hebrew University)

38 Advanced Schools

January 7-12, 2018

The 21st Midrasha Mathematicae on Lie Theory without Groups on Enumerative Geometry and Quantization of Symplectic ResolutionsGeneral Director: Peter Sarnak (IAS Princeton)

Representation theory is a branch of algebra that studies symmetries of linear mathematical objects. Following about a century of active development, it is now a separate field of mathematics – with a wealth of elegant results and comprehensive theories. Moreover, it is a crucial tool in some chapters of quantum physics, number theory, and harmonic analysis. David Kazhdan (The Hebrew University), Andrei Okounkov (Columbia University) and Roman Bezrukavnikov (MIT) organized this conference.

Enumerative geometry is a core part of algebraic geometry, which addresses such questions as how many lines intersect four given lines in a general position? Or how many lines are contained in the set of solutions of a generic third-degree polynomial equation with three variables? (The answers are 2 and 27, respectively.)

Although fruitful interaction between algebraic geometry and representation theory has a long history, the discovery of the former’s connection to enumerative geometry is relatively recent. The goal of the Midrasha was to provide an exposition of the recent progress in understanding the connections, as well as related ideas of mathematical physics and symplectic geometry. It resulted in an active exchange of ideas, benefiting both beginner and expert participants. Importantly, it has provided an additional impetus for further synthesis of the two subjects leading to progress in both. A particularly valuable resource generated by the Midrasha are the video recordings of the lectures, which are helping to disseminate the ideas beyond the event’s participants.

In addition to the rich academic programming, ample time was set aside for socializing and a tour of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Conference participants


May 14-15, 2018

The 3rd Advanced School in the Humanities on Literary Genres and Their Changing Functions Among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

This was the second workshop organized by IIAS and IAS Princeton, under the direction of Sabine Schmidtke (IAS Princeton) and Guy Stroumsa (The Hebrew University and University of Oxford), that convened in Jerusalem (the first was held in Princeton in June 2017). Ten scholars, junior and senior, from Israel, the USA, Germany, and the UK presented papers and texts for discussion, both in the original languages (Greek, Syriac, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew), and in their English translations. Each presentation was allotted 90 minutes, a time frame permitting serious exchange of views between researchers coming from different disciplinary and intellectual horizons. A number of younger scholars (advanced research students and postdoctoral fellows) from the USA and Israel attended and were active participants in the discussions.

The workshop spanned two intensive days of work accomplished in excellent conditions and an atmosphere conducive to fruitful discussions. A broad array of literary genres was explored: Scriptural exegesis; theology; polemics; heresiology; documents such as women’s letters; taxonomies of knowledge; mystical, philosophical, and literary texts; all written by Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the first to the fifteenth centuries CE.

The idea behind these two workshops was to spark a fresh drive into comparative approaches to intellectual history across the boundaries of religious communities in the Mediterranean and Near East in the pre-modern world. This goal is by no means an easy task, and must remain a continuous effort. The fact that a similar workshop is planned for the near future at the Max-Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin, as a sequel to our two workshops, may be considered a positive indication with regards to our success in achieving this goal.

Sabine Schmidtke (IAS Princeton)

40 Advanced Schools

June 26-July 7, 2018

The 29th Jerusalem School in Economic Theory on Industrial OrganizationGeneral Director: Eric Maskin (Harvard University)

The 29th Summer School in Economic Theory, organized by Ariel Pakes (Harvard University) and Elchanan Ben-Porath (The Hebrew University), broke new ground by focusing on the interaction between theory and empirical work. We looked at theory problems that arose in the empirical analysis of markets. The advent of modern computing and associated developments in data generation and econometric analysis has enabled a new generation of industrial organization economists to employ the frameworks generated by theory to empirically analyze the impact of policy and environmental changes on market outcomes.

The School started with a brief review of where theoretical frameworks have been successfully used in empirical work, and then turned to empirical issues where the available theoretical frameworks seemed inadequate. This included; i) the analysis of contracting situations when there are externalities linking the outcomes from the contracts that different couples of agents sign, ii) the analysis of regulatory situations when the regulator might be subject to political, as well as more consumer-based, incentives, iii) detecting collusion and analyzing the effect of collusive outcomes on welfare, iv) analyzing dynamic decision-making when cognitive constraints on participants make it unrealistic to assume a complete forward looking model of behavior, and v) allocation mechanisms that do not involve price (like allocations of students to schools).

It was a productive interchange for both the lecturers and the students, all of whom were grateful for the opportunity to participate.


Front row from left to right: Sergio Hart (The Hebrew University), Eric Maskin (Harvard University), Ariel Pakes (Harvard University) and Elchanan Ben-Porath (The Hebrew University)

Conferences

E ach year the IIAS hosts between 10-15 conferences and workshops. The purpose of the conferences is to expose the IIAS to Israeli and

international academic communities, and to host cutting-edge, interdisciplinary and unique gatherings of scholars. The conferences also present opportunities for the younger generations of Israeli scholars to meet leading academics from around the world and establish professional networks.

The topics of the conferences are extremely diverse. Most of the conferences are attended by scholars from both Israel and abroad, with few exceptions, such as the all-Israeli Workshop for Women in Mathematics.

There are several different types of conferences. Many are collaborations between the IIAS and Israel Science Foundation. Additionally, every Research Group is required to host a conference, so the IIAS hosts several Research Group and Research Group reunion conferences each year.

The conferences and workshops typically range between 2-10 days. They often include activities outside of the IIAS as well, such as tours, social gatherings, and more.

44 Conferences

September 10-14, 2017

The Third Israeli Workshop for Women in MathematicsOrganizers: Tamar Ziegler (The Hebrew University), Shiri Artstein (Tel Aviv University), Chloe Perin (The Hebrew University), and Liat Kessler (Oranim College)

Over 60 Israeli female mathematicians of all stages in their academic career participated in this week-long workshop. Ruth Lawrence (The Hebrew University) and Kate Juschenko (Northwestern University) gave two courses during the conference. The program also included tutorials, short lectures, a panel discussion on women in science and technology, and social events, such as a folk dancing session. This project aims to build a supportive community of female mathematicians, in particular due to the unduly low percentage of women among mathematics academics in Israel. The conference generated overwhelmingly positive responses. Students reported that, though previously, they were not aware of female mathematics academics, this single event has encouraged them to further

pursue graduate studies in this field. Attendees also noted that, for once, they did not hesitate to ask questions publicly, as the atmosphere was both very welcoming and non-judgmental. In other words, this conference has helped rising female mathematicians find their own voices. We hope that the connections formed during this conference will be maintained beyond the sessions and nurtured into lifelong relationships.

October 16-19, 2017

Mechanical Instabilities in Solids and FluidsOrganizers: Eran Sharon (The Hebrew University), Eran Bouchbinder (Weizmann Institute of Science), Shmuel Rubinstein (Harvard University)

One hundred participants – 60 from Israel and 40 from abroad – gathered in Jerusalem in mid-October to attend the Mechanical Instabilities in Solids and Fluids conference. The speakers included seven founding figures in the field of mechanical instabilities, some 15 well established scientists who currently work at the cutting-edge of the field, and about 10 young scientists, most of whom are Israelis in the finishing phases of their postdoctoral research, and who had the opportunity to present their work to this high-level audience. In addition, we held two poster sessions, a conference dinner at the Israel Museum and a half-day tour in the Old City of Jerusalem.The participants expressed great enthusiasm

during and after the conference. The combination of a high level of scientific research, the IIAS-provided facilities, and the unique qualities of Jerusalem created a special atmosphere and, as several participants explicitly told us, an unforgettable scientific experience.

קורס 1:רות לורנס )האוניברסיטה העברית(

נושא: תורת הקשריםהקורס יתקיים בעברית

קורס 2: Kate Juschenko

)Northwestern University(

בנושאים: תורת המידה, אמנביליות, חבורות טופולוגיות

הקורס יתקיים באנגלית

במדע נשים פאנל תכלול התוכנית בנוסף באקדמיה, הצגת פוסטרים של דוקטורנטיות פרטים ראו - פוסטר להציג ]למעוניינות משותפות ארוחות לכנס[, רישום בדף

ופעילויות נוספות.

תכנית הכנס: הכנס הישראלי השלישי

לנשיםבמתמטיקה

Third Israeli Workshop

املؤمتراإلرسائييل الثالث

للنساء يف الرياضيات

For Womenin Mathematics

10-14.9.2017

https://www.iwmmath.com/

The First 60 Yearsof Jay Fineberg

MECHANICAL INSTABILITIES IN SOLIDSAND FLUIDS

המכון הישראלי ללימודים מתקדמים Israel Institute for Advanced Studies

The Clore Center for Biological Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science

Joint conference of the Israel Institutefor Advanced Studies and the Israel Science Foundation

16-19.10.2017

Mokhtar Adda-Bedia, France

Jean-Louis Barrat, France

Yehuda Ben-Zion, US

Rob Carpick, US

Matteo Ciccotti, France

Sergio Ciliberto, France

Michael Falk, US

Lazar Friedland, Israel

David Kessler, Israel

Chris Marone, US

Baruch Meerson, Israel

Jean-François Molinari, Switzerland

Elisha Moses, Israel

Ze’ev Reches, US

Mark Robbins, US

Tom Solomon, US

Laurette Tuckerman, France

Michael Urbakh, Israel

Emmanuel Villermaux, France

Yves Couder, France

Dan Lathrop, US

Michael Marder, US

Alan Needleman, US

Itamar Procaccia, Israel

James Rice, US

Victor Steinberg , Israel

Harry Swinney, US

Eran Bouchbinder, Israel

Shmuel Rubinstein, US

Eran Sharon, Israel

Keynote Speakers:

Organizers:

Invited Speakers:

http://ias.huji.ac.il/mechanicalinstabilities


October 23-25, 2017

German-Israeli Minerva School on Quantum Dipolar Gases in Atomic and Condensed Matter SystemsOrganizers: Ronen Rapaport (The Hebrew University) and Paulo Santos (Paul-Drude-Institut Berlin)

The fundamental physics questions and technological promises of quantum dipolar gases go well beyond the state-of-the-art of the weakly interacting atomic gases, with important consequences for many-body systems, as well as for its applications to quantum information and quantum simulation. This unique interdisciplinary workshop brought together leading international experts, both theorists and experimentalists, on quantum dipolar gases, as well as younger researchers and students from two communities: atomic physics and condensed-matter physics. We expect that enabling the exchange of knowledge and ideas between these groups will lead to new and original research. The school covered the following topics: magnetic dipolar atomic gases, dipolar Rydberg atoms/

polaritons, ultracold polar molecules, dipolar excitons (including Rydberg excitons), dipolar exciton-polaritons, dipolar excitons in bilayers of 2D electron gases, graphene, and emerging 2D materials. 40 participants listened to lectures from established experts, on innovations in their fields, and presentations from the younger scientists, enabling them to expose their work to relevant audiences.

November 29-30, 2017

Introducing Indonesia: History, Politics, and CultureOrganizer: Ronit Ricci (The Hebrew University)

The conference was the first in Israel dedicated to Indonesia. As the world’s third largest democracy, fourth most populous nation, and home to the world’s largest Muslim community, and with its thousands of islands, growing economic importance and rich performative traditions, this country is worthy of study and focus. This groundbreaking event was the launch of Indonesian Studies in Israel, and especially at The Hebrew University and was an important first step in raising awareness of this important country. The conference also aimed to build alternative bridges to those of diplomacy: international ties of friendship, exchange of ideas, and collaborative research between scholars. Cutting-edge research on Indonesian anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies, religion, history,

politics, and media studies was presented by experts from Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Israel.In addition to lectures, the conference offered a glimpse of Indonesia’s vibrant arts: a Javanese dance workshop for conference participants, an Indonesian film, and a gamelan performance, accompanied by song and dance. In line with the goal of making Indonesia more accessible beyond academia, the conference was free and open to the public. Approximately 120 participants took part in the conference over its two days.

History Politics Culture

INTRODUCING INDONESIA

29-30.112017

MUHAMAD ALI University of California, Riverside

GIORA ELIRAZThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

GREG FEALYAustralian National University

JESSE GRAYMAN University of Auckland

MERY KOLIMONArtha Wacana Christian University

MIRJAM LÜCKINGThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

EVA NISAUniversity of Wellington

RONIT RICCI The Hebrew University of Jerusalem LAURIE SEARS University of Washington ROSS TAPSELLAustralian National University PHILIPS VERMONTE Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta

AMRIH WIDODO Australian National University

DANIEL ZIVIndependent filmmaker and writer

The Jerusalem Gamelan

SPEAKERS ORGANIZER: Ronit Ricci

אינדונזיהכאן ועכשיו הסטוריה � פוליטיקה � תרבות

The Conference is free and open to the public. Registartion is required. For registration and program details please go to:The conference will take place at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew University, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem

http://ias.huji.ac.il/introducingindonesia

w

46 Conferences

March 12-15, 2018

Jerusalem Nonadiabatica 2018Organizers: Roi Baer (The Hebrew University), Igor Schapiro (The Hebrew University), Eberhard K.U. Gross (The Hebrew University & MPI Halle), Daniel Neuhauser (UCLA)

The conference Jerusalem Nonadiabatica 2018 gathered experts in theoretical, methodological, and computational approaches of nonadiabatic effects in chemistry, biology, molecular physics, and materials science. Ubiquitous in numerous photochemical, photobiological, and electron induced dynamics, such effects enable efficient transfer of electronic excitation energy to nuclear kinetic energy and vice versa, often causing irreversible transfer of potential energy to heat – or forming a unique mechanism for reactions that are forbidden in the adiabatic framework. 100 participants from the world over attended the conference. The program comprised 45 lectures from established scientists and a poster session, during which young scientists shared their recent results. Some

of the contributions to this session will be published in a special issue of Molecular Physics, as part of the Festschrift honoring Michael Baer’s 80th birthday. The conference demonstrated that, despite continuing progress over the years, a detailed understanding of nonadiabatic processes is still limited due to a lack of generally applicable methodology with which they can be described quantitatively..

March 19-21, 2018

Research in Psychological Processes of Immigration and Integration: Where Are We Now And Where Are We Going?Organizers: Sophie D. Walsh (Bar-Ilan University) and Eugene Tartakovsky (Tel Aviv University)

Due to the recent mass waves of immigration, the study of psychological processes in immigration has catapulted to the forefront of interest in both the scientific and general-public communities. Along with the socio-demographic changes taking place throughout the world in the past thirty years, there has also been significant growth of both theoretical conceptualizations of psychological processes related to immigration and of a rich body of empirical research. Yet no comprehensive international gathering of leading researchers in the area of immigration psychology has been conducted. This conference enabled 40 leading international experts on the psychology of immigration the unique opportunity to

discuss the current state of research and examine perspectives on future goals for research informed by theoretical and practical demands. With the support of IIAS and The Israel Science Foundation, they were able to focus on the psychological processes that take place on both ‘sides:’ the receiving society and different groups of immigrants.

NONADIABATICA

Satrajit Adhikari, IIACS - CalcuttaFederica Agostini, University Paris- SudSalih Al-Jabour , Al Quds UniversityAlexander Alijah, University of ReimsMichael Baer, The Hebrew University Mario Barbatti, Aix Marseille Université Irene Burghardt, Universitat Frankfurt Fabien Gatti, University Paris Sud Eitan Geva, University of Michigan Ann Arbor Hua Guo, University of New Mexico Martin Head-Gordon, UC BerkeleyOded Hod, Tel Aviv University Artur Izmaylov, University of Toronto David Jonas, University of Colorado BoulderDonald Kouri, University of Houston Anna Krylov, University of Southern California

Åsa Larson, University of Stockholm Raphael D. Levine, The Hebrew UniversityCraig Martens, University of California Irvine William Miller, UC Berkeley Nimrod Moiseyev, TechnionAbraham Nitzan, University of PennsylvaniaMassimo Olivucci, Università di Siena Maurizio Persico, Università di PisaUri Peskin, Technion Eli Pollak, Weizmann Institute Oleg Prezhdo, University of Southern California Michael Robb, Imperial College London Gustavo Scuseria, Rice University Toru Shiozaki, Northwestern University Joe Subotnik, University of PennsylvaniaKazuo Takatsuka, The University of Tokyo

Hiroyuki Tamura, Tohoku UniversityDavid Tannor, Weizmann Institute Troy van Voorhis, MITÁgnes Vibók, University of DebrecenAlec Wodtke, MPI GöttingenGraham Worth, University College LondonWeitao Yang, Duke UniversityDavid Yarkony, John Hopkins UniversityJohn Zhang, NYU Shanghai

ORGANIZERS: Roi Baer, Igor Schapiro(The Hebrew University)Eberhard K.U. Gross (HUJI & MPI Halle) Daniel Neuhauser (UCLA)

SPEAKERS:

│Ψ=

𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐!│𝜑𝜑𝜑𝜑!

!

𝐹𝐹𝐹𝐹! 𝒒𝒒𝒒𝒒= Ψ!;𝒒𝒒𝒒𝒒

𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕𝑞𝑞𝑞𝑞!

Ψ!;𝒒𝒒𝒒𝒒

𝐻𝐻𝐻𝐻 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 Ψ 𝑹𝑹𝑹𝑹, 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 = 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖ℏ𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕Ψ 𝑹𝑹𝑹𝑹, 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡

𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕𝜕 2018

A Joint Conference of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studiesand The Israel Science Foundation

12–15 March 2018

For more details: http://fh.huji.ac.il/nonadiabatica2018 Illustrations by Igor Schapiro


April 22-26, 2018

Geometric, Topological and Computational Aspects of High-Dimensional Combinatorics (Research Group Conference)Organizers: Alexander Lubotzky (The Hebrew University), Tali Kaufman (Bar-Ilan University), and Oren Becker (The Hebrew University)

This conference addressed the emerging topic of high-dimensional combinatorics, which combines topology, geometry, computer science, and combinatorics. While this topic is already a fusion of different subfields of mathematics, the additional contributions made by group theory and number theory to high-dimensional combinatorics make it a unique meeting point for mathematicians from disparate disciplines who typically do not attend the same conferences. Indeed, this conference attracted world-class experts from all of these fields. This connection is most clearly embodied in the fact that a certain kind of mathematical object, called “simplicial complexes,” can be thought of both as high-dimensional analogues of interconnected networks (which are the subject

of “graph theory”), and as simple models for topological and geometric objects. We have also seen how the high-dimensional theory helps in solving problems in other fields – such as robotics, algorithms, and the emerging field of stability in group theory. On the non-mathematical side, we enjoyed a reception on the first day, a tour of the Old City of Jerusalem, and a festive dinner at Jerusalem’s Ima restaurant.

April 30-May 3, 2018

Glorious Cities: The Presence of Jerusalem in the Urban European LandscapeOrganizers: Bianca Kühnel, Neta Bodner, and Hila Manor (The Hebrew University)

The goal of this conference was to examine how European cities ‘used’ Jerusalem to promote their own image during different time periods and for various motives. The presentations focused on case studies of cities that adopted Jerusalem, examining various factors in these processes – and, just as importantly – their end results. First and foremost, the conference created a discourse of the similarities of Jerusalem’s presence in different cities and regions, and aimed to establish a comprehensive picture of European cities that functioned – and perhaps still function – as a version of their own of Jerusalem. Gathering – in Jerusalem – scholars from Israel, Europe and the USA was an important step in

extending the fascinating research that deals with the city in Western culture. As well as the rich conference program, participants visited the famous Israel Museum, and sites in Jerusalem manifesting the European presence in the Holy Land. These two trips served to supplement the concepts that were discussed in the conference and emphasized the flip side of the coin: the complex state of relations between Jerusalem and Europe.

Geometric, Topological and Computational Aspectsof High-Dimensional Combinatorics

April 22 - 26, 2018

ORGANIZERSAlexander Lubotzky The Hebrew Universityof Jerusalem

Tali KaufmanBar-Ilan University

Oren BeckerThe Hebrew Universityof Jerusalem

For Program details:http://ias.huji.ac.il/hdc2018

David Conlon University of Oxford Michael Farber Queen Mary, University of London Howard Garland *Yale University Lev GlebskyUASLP Misha Gromov *IHESVenkatesan GuruswamiCarnegie Mellon University Ming-Hsuan KangNational Chiao Tung University Daniela KühnUniversity of Birmingham Winnie LiPennsylvania State University

Shachar LovettUC San Diego Roy MeshulamTechnion Deryk Osthus University of BirminghamJános PachEPFL, Lausanne & Renyi Institute Peter SarnakIAS, PrincetonLeonard SchulmanCaltechLuca TrevisanUC Berkeley Shmuel WeinbergerUniversity of ChicagoAvi WigdersonIAS, Princeton Gilles ZémorUniversité de Bordeaux

Speakers INCLUDE

* TO BE CONFIRMED

Joint Conference of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies and the Israel Science Foundation

The Presence of Jerusalem in the European Urban Space

April 30 - May 3, 2018

Research Workshop of the Israel Science Foundationand the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies

Venue: Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram Feldman Buiding, Conference Hall 130. Website: http://ias.huji.ac.il/gloriouscities

OrganizersBianca Kühnel = Neta Bodner = Hila Manor

Glorious Cities

ParticipantsKristin B. Aavitsland

= Netta Amir = Renana Bartal = Ingrid Baumgärtner

= Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby = Kobi Ben-Meir = Klara Benesovska = Sible de Blaauw = Neta Bodner = Gerardo

Boto Varela = Irina Chernetsky = Maria Dorninger = Christian Freigang =

Yohanan Friedmann = David Ganz = Cynthia Hahn = Claudia Jung

= Lola Kantor-Kazovsky = Anastasia Keshman

Katrin Kogman-

Appel = Justin Kroesen = Ora Limor = Nadine Mai =

Mati Meyer = Galit Noga-Banai = Robert Ousterhout = Alina

Payne = Lotem Pinchover = Assaf Pinkus = Yamit Rachman-Schrire =

Orit Ramon = Alessandro Scafi = Iris Shagrir = Sarit Shalev-Eyni = Vardit

Shotten-Hallel = Shimrit Shriki-Hilber = Marc Sureda i Jubany =

Erik Thunø = Daniel Unger = Hanna Vorholt

48 Conferences

May 6-7, 2018

The Third Rothschild Fellows’ ColloquiumOrganizer: Yad Hanadiv

The Third Colloquium of Rothschild Fellows brought together 45 fellows, most of whom are still completing their postdoctoral fellowship abroad, for two days of meetings at the IIAS. In addition to building connections with one another, the fellows met with leading scholars in their fields and academic leaders and received information on recruitment processes and establishing labs in Israel. The program included a panel of university leaders, with Ron Robin (President, University of Haifa), Barak Medina (Rector, The Hebrew University), Hagit Attiya (Senior Vice-President, Technion), and Shulamit Michaeli (Vice-President for Research, Bar-Ilan University). The fellows also heard a lecture by Hezy Yeshurun (Tel Aviv University), who spoke about academia and start-ups, and Yuval Noah

Harari (The Hebrew University), who spoke about science and politics in the twenty-first century. The feedback from the Colloquium was enthusiastic, with fellows requesting more opportunities for interaction with their peers, and a greater emphasis on practical advice in managing their careers and returning to Israel. The Fourth Colloquium of Rothschild Fellows will be held in 2021.

May 27-31, 2018

Constructions of the Self in Antiquity Organizers: Maren Niehoff (The Hebrew University), Alfons Fürst (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität), Gretchen Reydams-Schils (University of Notre Dame), Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Tel Aviv University), and Joshua Levinson (The Hebrew University) (Research Group Conference)

This international conference was sponsored by the IIAS and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program, the EU Project and the Notre Dame workshop on Ancient Philosophy. Assembling a group of experts from a diversity of fields, including Roman history, ancient philosophy, religion, and others, we set out to explore the questions of whether and how new notions of the self emerged across “pagan,” Jewish, and Christian cultures. These different notions were examined in the conference’s sessions – The conference also featured two keynote lectures: Clifford Ando (University of Chicago) spoke on “Self, Society, Individual, and Person in Roman Law” and Catharine Edwards (Birkbeck, University of London) on “The Epistolographic

Self: Letter-Writing, Empire, and Identity.” The conference also included two excursions, one to the desert monasteries, guided by Shaya Gafni, and the other to the Israel Museum, guided by Dudi Mevorach, senior curator of ancient archeology. Mevorach showed the participants some new and exciting artifacts which are not publicly displayed in the museum. Both tours provided important material aspects to all textual discussions in the conference.

ROTHSCHILD FELLOWS third alumni colloquium

may 6−7, 2018Israel institute for advanced studies, the hebrew university

of jerusalem, edmond j. safra campus at givat ram

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Clifford Ando, University of Chicago | Albert Baumgarten, Bar-Ilan University | Eve-Marie Becker, Aarhus University

| Catharine Edwards, University of London | Paula Fredriksen, The Hebrew University | Alfons Fürst, WWU Münster |

Yair Furstenberg, The Hebrew University | Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Fordham University | Reuven Kiperwasser, The Hebrew

University | Karen King , Harvard University | David Lambert, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Joshua

Levinson, The Hebrew University | Carlos Lévy, Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) | Francoise Mirguet, Arizona

State University | Yonatan Moss, The Hebrew University | Laura Nasrallah, Harvard University | Maren Niehoff, The

Hebrew University | Ilaria Ramelli, Angelicum, Erfurt, Oxford | Gretchen Reydams-Schils, University of Notre Dame |

Matthew Roller, Johns Hopkins University | Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Tel Aviv University | Youval Rotman, Tel Aviv University

| Jörg Rüpke, University of Erfurt | Charles Stang, Harvard University | George Boys Stones, Durham University |

Sharon Weisser, Tel Aviv University

Speakers

Organizer: Maren NiehoffMax Cooper Chair of Jewish Thought

Research Group Conference

For further details link to: http://ias.huji.ac.il/ContoursandExpressions

27-31.5.20189 9

Constructions of the Self in Antiquity


June 10-11, 2018

Day Unit in Antiquity and the Middle AgesOrganizers: Jonathan Ben-Dov (University of Haifa) and Sacha Stern (University College) (Research Group Conference)

The day is the most fundamental unit of time in human experience. This conference investigated the experience of the day in antiquity and the Middle Ages, with a focus on the origins of the 12-hour division, how sundials and other instruments were used to measure hours, what uses were made of hours and other divisions of the day, in literature, in scientific writing, and in daily life. The conference brought together international experts in a broad range of disciplines, including Egyptology, Assyriology, ancient history, the history of science, papyrology, Greek and Latin philosophy and literature, rabbinic literature, medieval philosophy and social history. This broad-based conversation made it possible, perhaps for the first time, to trace a continuous history of the day unit through

the civilizations of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The conference was followed up by further seminars and generated further productive research.

June 12 - 15, 2018

In Time: Astronomy and Calendars in the Ancient Near EastOrganizer: Wayne Horowitz (The Hebrew University)

The “In Time” conference at the IIAS this past June hosted the 5th Regensburg Workshop on Mesopotamian Astral Sciences. This workshop, held every four years, brings together the leading experts in the field of ancient astronomical texts from all over the world, this time from , Europe, the United States, and Japan. The program included a night of astronomical observations at the Mizpe Ramon Crater, with accompanying lectures by local scholars on topics such as an astronomical interpretation of rock drawings in the Negev. The main theme of the lectures in Jerusalem was that of time and calendar, thus sharing a common interest with the IIAS research group ‘The Day Unit in Antiquity and the Middle Ages,’ whose own conference took place

on June 10-11. Many resident and visiting scholars took advantage of this intentional timing to attend, and even present, at both conferences.

THE DAY UNIT IN ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES

10-11.6 2018

IIAS RESEARCH GROUP CONFERENCE

Image : courtsey of Prof. Dr. Chriatian Leitz, Tuebingen

John Steele Brown University Seasonal hours in Babylonia Mathieu Ossendrijver Humboldt University The introduction of the 19-year intercalation cycle revisited Gerd Grasshoff Humboldt-Universität, Berlin The hour as divine sign: ancient sundials for reading time Rita Gautchy University of Basel The daily schedule of workmen in 2nd-millennium Egypt

Sarah Symons McMaster University Lost hours: an ancient Egyptian sundial in Gezer Ido Yavetz Tel Aviv University Possible inferences on the state of 4th-century BCE Greek astronomy from the design of the Oropos sundial Barbara Sattler University of St. Andrews Duration versus point in time. The conceptual complexity of the notion of hour in early Greek thought Anja Wolkenhauer Universität Tübingen Divisio diei: the hour in Latin letters, 100 BCE-500 CE

Sofie Remijsen University of Amsterdam The situational significance of hours. The social contexts of hour notations in Greek papyri Francois de Blois University College London Nights past, nights remaining”: towards a typology of timekeeping

Sacha Stern University College London The hours in early rabbinic literature: from natural time-marking to arithmetic sequence

Sarit Kattan Gribetz Fordham University God’s daily hours in rabbinic sources

Jonathan Ben-Dov University of Haifa The length of daylight in the Book of Enoch and Ethiopic astronomy

Tzvi Langermann Bar-Ilan University The devotional day of the pious Jew in the writings of some medieval authorities Israel Yuval The Hebrew University This night is all matza”: the division of the Passover night among Jews and Christians

For more details see: http://ias.huji.ac.il/dayunit

Venue: the conference will take place at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, Feldman Building, The Hebrew University, Edmond J.Safra Campus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem

50 Conferences

July 9 - July 12, 2018

Moral Development: New Directions in Research on Children's Values and Moral Emotions and Behaviours Organizer: Ariel Knafo-Noam (The Hebrew University)

The conference addressed the development of morality, focusing on its three main components: (1) an affective component, referring to feelings such as empathy; (2) a behavioral component, which refers to how individuals behave towards others, such as prosocial behavior; and (3) a cognitive component, including to the conceptualization of right and wrong, with a special focus on values.

Presenters from Israel, the USA, the UK, Germany, Canada and the Netherlands addressed all three components and their interface from diverse perspectives. We asked when and how empathy, pro-sociality, values and other moral constructs emerge from infancy to adolescence, and how they change with development. In addition, we

attempted to unravel what causes individual differences in these moral constructs. We looked at both socialization factors (such as culture, family and school) and biological contributions (brain, genetics and hormones), as well as their interplay, in order to provide a comprehensive treatment of moral development. The conference finished with a professional training and career development session for graduate students with the participation of local and international experts and journal editors.


July 22 - 27, 2018

Critical Editions of Medieval Philosophic Translation: Challenges and OpportunitiesOrganizer: Yossef Schwartz (Tel Aviv University)

The international workshop, dedicated to critical editions of medieval philosophical translated texts was held in the framework of the GIF Project “Arabic-into-Hebrew-into-Latin" in collaboration between the Thomas-Institut (University of Cologne) and The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas (Tel Aviv University).

The workshop focused on philological and methodological problems raised by critical editions of translated medieval philosophical and scientific texts. It was divided between sessions dedicated to general questions, sessions dealing with technical aspects and digital tools, and finally sessions dedicated to specific figures and test cases.

General questions discussed throughout the workshop involved problems such as the implications of an edition with or without an existing original textual source; possibilities of multi-lingual editions as against concentrating on the philological task peculiar to each language; the improvements that can be achieved by a digital editions; the advantages and the limits of the already existing models for multi-lingual glossaries, etc.

The workshop included 38 participants, 18 visiting scholars and 20 from Israel, senior and junior scholars, as well as graduate and post-graduate students.

The Michael Bruno Memorial Awards

T he Michael Bruno Memorial Award was initiated in 1999 in memory of Professor Michael Bruno. This prestigious award seeks to identify and

honor three outstanding Israeli young scholars every year who symbolize not only the excellence of scholarship but who also possess the leadership that has the potential to impact on academic and communal life in Israel, beyond their specific fields of research. Each laureate is expected to present a proposal that details how, in conjunction with the IIAS, they will continue to pursue new fields of research in order to fulfill their academic goals.

Looking at the achievements of Bruno laureates to date and their integration into the larger IIAS community is the best reflection of the realization of these goals.

One characteristic of Bruno laureates is their ability to move creatively beyond their current fields of research, entering new avenues. It is this creativity which the IIAS seeks to embrace and support. The 2017 Bruno laureates are:

• Ashraf Brik, Chemistry, Technion - Israel Institute of Science

• Nirit Dudovich, Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science

• Galit Yovel, Psychological Sciences and Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University

We thank our loyal nominators, from across Israel, who make our work so rewarding, and who select each year’s laureates from an extremely impressive list of candidates. Thank you as well to the IIAS Board of Directors for their help in selecting the Bruno laureates.

54 The Michael Bruno Memorial Awards

Ashraf BrikAshraf Brik is a world leader in the fields of bioorganic and medicinal chemistry. The revolutionary chemical and biological tools that he developed have enabled the systematic understanding of cellular processes that are core components of several disease types, such as neurological disorders, infectious diseases, and cancer. His ability to identify an important problem in polypeptide synthesis, and to solve it by taking full advantage of his novel chemical tools, has been nothing short of masterful.

Brik is a unique practitioner of chemical protein synthesis. He is boldly pushing the boundaries of the field, while simultaneously contributing to the fundamental chemical innovations needed for the discipline to grow.

Nirit DudovichNirit Dudovich is one of the leading scientists in atomic, molecular, and optical physics in Israel today. Her explorations of electron dynamics have yielded deep insights into the physics of the high harmonic generation – the key technology behind attosecond science – and were coupled with superbly executed experiments of the highest quality. She was the first to demonstrate how the concepts of coherent control and pulse shaping could be used to improve the cells imaging. The key to her success was the creative application of coherent control ideas to attosecond science.

Through her remarkable creativity, flexibility, and a diverse array of interests, Dudovich has shown herself to be one of the best young experimentalists in strong field physics. Where others see problems and drawbacks, she sees challenges and opportunities, an approach that has led to a dramatic impact on the very dynamic field of intense laser-matter interaction and attosecond physics.

Galit YovelGalit Yovel is an outstanding researcher in the field of human vision. She has made important contributions to the scientific understanding of the mechanisms and the neurological basis of human facial recognition.

Yovel combines experimental rigor with inspirational research and technological innovation with depth of thought. Her research spans the low physiological level to higher-level cognitive and social functions, meeting the highest standards of rigor and clarity at all levels. Galit’s work on facial recognition ranks among the best in the world.


Academic Calendar

September 1, 2017 – August 31, 2018

RESEARCH GROUPS The Subject of Antiquity: Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean CulturesSeptember 1, 2017 - June 30, 2018Organizers: Maren Niehoff (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Tel Aviv University)

Geometric, Topological and Computational Aspects of High-Dimensional CombinatoricsSeptember 1, 2017 - June 30, 2018Organizers: Alexander Lubotzky (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Tali Kaufman (Bar-Ilan University)

The Day Unit in Antiquity and the Middle AgesMarch 1, 2018 - July 31, 2018Organizers: Jonathan Ben-Dov (University of Haifa) and Sacha Stern (UCL)

ADVANCED SCHOOLS AND CONFERENCES

German-Israeli Minerva School on Quantum Dipolar Gases in Atomic and Condensed Matter Systems October 23 - 25, 2017 Organizers: Ronen Rapaport (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Paulo Santos (Paul-Drude-Institute for Solid State Electronics)

Introducing Indonesia: History, Politics and Culture November 29 - 30, 2017 Organizer: Ronit Ricci (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

The 2nd Winter School in Engineering and Computer Science on Formal VerificationDecember 17 - 21, 2017General Director: Michael Rabin (Harvard University and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)Co-directors: Orna Kupferman (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Moshe Vardi (Rice University)

56 Academic Calendar

The 35th Jerusalem Winter School in Theoretical PhysicsDecember 27 - January 5, 2018 General Director: David Gross (USCB, KITP) Co-directors: Sterl Phinney (California Institute of Technology) and Re’em Sari (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

The 21st Midrasha in Mathematicae: Lie Theory without Groups: Enumerative Geometry and Quantization of Symplectic ResolutionsJanuary 7 - 12, 2018General Director: Peter Sarnak (IAS Princeton) Co-directors: David Kazhdan (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Andrei Okounkov (Columbia University) and Roman Bezrukavnikov (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Nonadiabatica March 12 - 15, 2018 Organizers: Roi Baer (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Igor Schapiro (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Eberhard K.U Gross (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and MPI Halle) and Daniel Neuhauser (UCLA)

Research in Psychological Processes of Immigration and Integration: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?March 19 - 21, 2018 Organizers: Sophie D. Walsh (Bar-Ilan University) and Eugene Tartakovsky (Tel Aviv University)

Geometric, Topological and Computational Aspects of High-Dimensional Combinatorics(Research Group Conference)April 22 - 26, 2018 Organizers: Alexander Lubotzky (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Tali Kaufman (Bar-Ilan University) and Oren Becker (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Glorious Cities: The Presence of Jerusalem in the Urban European SpaceApril 30 - May 3, 2018Organizers: Bianca Kühnel (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Neta Bodner (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Hila Manor (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

The 3rd Rothschild Fellows Colloquium May 6 - 7, 2018 Organizer: Yad Hanadiv


The 3rd Advanced School in the Humanities: Literary Genres and Their Changing Functions among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages May 14 - 15, 2018 Directors: Sabine Schmidtke (IAS Princeton) andGuy G. Stroumsa (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem & University of Oxford)

Contours and Expressions of the Self in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures (Research Group Conference)May 27 - 31, 2018Organizer: Maren Niehoff (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Co-Organizers: Alfons Fürst (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster), Gretchen Reydams Schils (University of Notre Dame), Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Tel Aviv University) and Joshua Levinson (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

The Day Unit in Antiquity and the Middle Ages(Research Group Conference)June 10 - 11, 2018Organizers: Jonathan Ben-Dov (University of Haifa) and Sacha Stern (University College London)

In Time: Astronomy and Calendars in the Ancient Near EastJune 12 - 15, 2018Organizer: Wayne Horowitz (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

The 29th Jerusalem Summer School of Economics: Industrial OrganizationJune 26 - July 5, 2018Director: Eric Maskin (Harvard University)Co-directors: Ariel Pakes (Harvard University) and Elchanan Ben-Porath (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Moral Development: New Directions in Research on Children's Values and Moral Emotions and Behaviours July 9 - 12, 2018Organizer: Ariel Knafo-Noam (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Critical Editions of Medieval Philosophic Translation: Challenges and OpportunitiesJuly 22 - 27, 2018Organizer: Yossef Schwartz (Tel Aviv University)

58 Research Groups 2018-2020

Research Groups 2018/2019Rethinking Early Modern Jewish Legal Culture: New Sources, Methodologies, and ParadigmsSeptember 1, 2018 - June 30, 2019Organizers: Jay Berkovitz (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Arye Edrei (Tel Aviv University)

New Directions in the Study of Javanese Literature: Reassessing Ideas, Methods and Theories in the Study of the Literature of Java, Indonesia September 1, 2018 - June 30, 2019Organizer: Ronit Ricci (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish CultureSeptember 1, 2018 - June 30, 2019Organizers: Charles Manekin (University of Maryland) and Yehuda Halper (Bar-Ilan University)

Big Data and PlanetsMay 1, 2019 - July 31, 2019Organizer: Tsevi Mazeh (Tel Aviv University)

Research Groups 2019/2020Re-theorizing the Architecture of Housing as Grounds for Research and PracticeSeptember 1, 2019 - June 30, 2020Organizers: Yael Allweil (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology) and Gaia Caramellino (Politecnico di Milano) / Susanne Schindler (ETH Zurich/ Technion)

Deconstructing and Reconstructing Consciousness: An Interdisciplinary Approach to a Perennial Puzzle September 1, 2019 - January 31, 2020 Organizers: Daphna Shohamy (Columbia University) and Leon Deouell (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Constitutional TransplantationsNovember 1, 2019 - January 31, 2020 Organizer: Anat Scolnicov (University of Winchester, UK)

Interrupting Kafka: Research Laboratory for Scholarship and Artistic CreativityNovember 1, 2019 - January 31, 2020 Organizers: Ruth Kanner (Tel Aviv University) and Freddie Rokem (University of Chicago and Tel Aviv University)


Variety and Variability: Mapping the Cultural and Social Diversity of the Southern Levant in the Hellenistic PeriodMarch 1, 2020 - July 31, 2020 Organizers: Adi Erlich (University of Haifa) and Uzi Leibner (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Cosmopolitan Spaces in an Urban Context: A Case Study of Odessa, 1880-1925 March 1, 2020 - July 31, 2020 Organizers: Efraim Sicher (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) and Mirja Lecke (Ruhr University, Bochum)

academic director: michal linial iris avivi smadar …ias.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/annual...

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