Helping out the Hebrew U
LOOKING back on his six years as president of Australia’s support group for Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ), Melbourne businessman John Shalit believes the communal organisation is “back on the map”.
LOOKING back on his six years as president of Australia’s support group for Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ), Melbourne businessman John Shalit believes the communal organisation is “back on the map”.
Shalit pointed to an impressive list of speakers, including federal Labor MP Mike Kelly, former Victoria Police deputy commissioner Kieran Walshe, and visitors like HUJ president Menachem Ben-Sasson and former Mossad director Ephraim Halevy, who have responded to the Australian Friends of Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s (AFHUJ’s) call to help raise the Jerusalem institution’s profile locally.
After he handed over the reins to incoming president Larry Gandler at AFHUJ’s annual meeting on October 26, Shalit said that using high-profile speakers to build bridges between Australian and Israeli students and supporters has been the association’s focus.
“We’ve used them to expose guests at our boardroom lunches to HUJ and its academic excellence. Seven Nobel Prize winners have been products of the university,” he told The AJN. “Non-Jewish people reading the papers might think Israel is just a country at war, and from a Jewish perspective that Israel’s a basket case waiting for handouts, [but] it’s a flourishing economy with some of the best brains in the world. HUJ is the cornerstone of all of that.”
Shalit said a milestone of his term was the signing of a memorandum of agreement between the University of Melbourne, Monash University and HUJ for Australian and Israeli students to have their studies accredited to their local universities. In February next year, the first students from Israel will begin their accredited studies at the University of Melbourne.
Additionally, almost 200 Australian tertiary students have taken part in Mishpatim, an English-language seminar on law and conflict resolution at the HUJ’s Rothberg International School, which the AFHUJ helped establish, and through which students also gain credits for their Australian studies. “A lot of kids have gone there and will be better friends of Israel and the university.”
Shalit said Gandler, the new president, has been particularly interested in broadening the Rothberg school’s curricula. A trauma and resilience course had its first group of students in January this year, and a water resources course is under consideration for HUJ’s Rehovot campus.
Shalit is managing director of Construction Engineering. The communal figure was formerly also president of the United Israel Appeal Victoria.
PETER KOHN
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