Making Room
Israeli universities
are committed
to finding work
for the glut
of scientists
coming from
the former
Soviet Union.
GLENN GARELICK
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
el tto do
What —
with so
many scien-
tists? Of
the nearly
400,000 new
to
1111.
Israel since 1989 from the
former Soviet Union, accord-
ing to Israel's Ministry of Ab-
sorption, more than 70,000
are scientists, physicians, en-
gineers, or technicians — a
proportion that by the Minis-
try of Science's reckoning rep-
resents 10 times the ratio in
even the most developed
countries of the world.
According to a survey by
Israel's Center for the
Assessment of Higher Edu-
cation, moreover, fully two-
thirds of new college ap-
plicants from the Soviet ali-
yah expect to enter scientific
fields. At the Technion in
Haifa, Israel's leading aca-
demic center for the applied
sciences, recent immigrants
already make up fully a
Glenn Garelick, a Washington-based
science writer, participated in a recent
science tour of Israel, sponsored by
Israeli universities.
08
Prof Arye Weinreb (seated) and Dr. Mordechal Deutsch alongside the Cytoscan.
quarter of the total of new
graduate students — and
more than three-quarters of
the mathematicians.
Not surprisingly, faced
with figures like these, Is-
raelis have been discovering
that finding satisfying posi-
tions for scientists and sci-
ence students from the for-
mer Soviet Union has be-
come one of their thorniest
problems.
That it has been difficult
for doctors, of which Israel
already has a glut, has been
well publicized, as has the
plight of researchers in the
fields other than mathemat-
ics and theoretical physics
(in which Soviet training has
often proved first-rate). The
difficulty of the situation is
also well known for many of
the immigrant engineers,
whose Soviet training at
best is often too narrowly
focused to be of practical
use.
But the motive to place
these individuals goes be-
yond a humanitarian con-
cern; many Israelis recog-
nize that while some of the
immigrants are poorly
trained, the best of the Sovi-
et influx offer their country
opportunities unequaled
since the first aliyah. In-
deed, says Itamar Ra-
binovich, the rector of Tel
Aviv University, the pool of
new immigrants is
"exploding with new tal-
ent." At his own campus of
20,000, Mr. Rabinovich
says, Soviet immigrants
have already given "a tre-
mendous boost" to the
study of mathematics, phys-
ics, and aeronautical engin-
eering — fields in which the
former Soviet Union was
particularly strong. So far
the university has hired 200
new immigrant faculty and
admitted 2,000 immigrant
students.
To date, in fact, Tel Aviv
University, the Technion,
and Israel's five other in-
stitutions of higher learning
collectively have taken on an
amazing 1,000 professionals
in either faculty positions,
retraining programs, or spe-
cial "incubator" projects
that they have geared to
quickly translate what oth-
erwise might be isolated re-
search into concrete and
commercial technologies.
Along with degreed profes-
sionals, the schools so far
have admitted some 8,000
students.
Though these numbers
may be just a drop in a
bucket of some 70,000, phys-
icist Chaim Harari, the pres-
ident of the Weizmann In-
stitute of Science, points out
that even a few topflight re-
searchers "can have an
enormous impact on Israel
and its standing in the
world." In addition, he says,
such researchers "can be
expected to create the basis
for new science-based in-
dustries, and thus provide
job opportunities for other
immigrants."
Tel Aviv University
mathematician Vitali
Milman, who arrived in Is-
rael in 1973 amid the now
well-settled "Third Wave"
of 160,000 Soviet im-
migrants, agrees. He corn-
pares the possibilities to
those that the U.S. enjoyed
in the years surrounding
World War II. The refuge
that some German Jewish
scientists found in America,
Mr. Milman says — not least
among them physicists like
Albert Einstein — became
an immeasurable boon to
U.S. science.
Mr. Milman's own case
helps prove his point. He
was one of the many scientif-
ic scions of Yuval Ne'eman,
a respected Soviet physicist
who went on to become pres-
ident of Tel Aviv University
and Minister of Science and
Technology. Through those
offices Mr. Ne'eman brought
to Tel Aviv University not
only Mr. Milman but many
other prominent figures in
mathematics and physics.
To this day, in fact, Mr.
Ne'eman remains an influen-
tial emissary to potential
immigrants among Jewish
scientists who are still in
Russia, and he has been in-
strumental in formulating
the landmark Soviet-Israeli
Scientific Agreement that
has led to the establishment
of a Soviet-Israeli Joint
Laboratory for Energy Re-
search, and an historic
agreement on joint space
studies between the Tech-
nion and Moscow's famous
Space Research Institute.
From the Soviet emigra-
tion, too, it is physics and
mathematics that are pro-
fiting most. While Russia's
five or 10 superstar physi-
cists and mathematicians
have chosen to settle in the
U.S., where salaries are
higher and the political fu-
ture more secure, Israel has
nonetheless taken in a num-
ber of world-class experts in
those fields.
Little by little the country
is integrating even many
health professionals into its
economy. Ben Gurion Univ-
ersity of the Negev and the
Hebrew University in Jeru-
salem offer intensive courses
that introduce Russian doc-
tors to modern medical ter-
minology, equipment, drugs,
philosophy, and techniques.