The US-Israel Education Foundation concludes the 52nd year of activity of the Fulbright program in Israel

Since its inception, the USA-Israel Education Foundation has awarded approximately 1500 scholarships to Israelis going to study and further education in the USA and approximately 1150 scholarships to Americans who have come to Israel to teach, study and research

The US-Israel Education Foundation, which is responsible for Israel's participation in the US government's prestigious Fulbright program for lecturer and student exchanges, marks the end of the 2007/8 school year as part of the 60th celebration of the State of Israel.

To mark the 60th Independence Day, the foundation and the Israeli graduates of the program initiated a special award that will be awarded for the first time to the Israeli doctoral student who is found to be the most suitable to promote the overarching goal of the Fulbright program - the promotion of understanding between the peoples of America and Israel. The award was funded by contributions from the Fulbright alumni themselves.

The announcement of the winner of the award will be made at the Foundation's end-of-year event, which takes place every year at the American Ambassador's house and will open with a welcome to the guests by the US Ambassador, Mr. Richard Jones and his wife, and by Mr. Dan Wilensky, Chairman of the Foundation's Board of Directors Education and a leading figure in the Israeli high-tech world. The event will be attended by the American Fulbright scholars of the 2007/2008 academic year, who are finishing their visits to Israel, as well as the Israeli scholars, who were recently selected and are about to leave for the US in the coming months. The event will take place on Thursday 22.05.08 starting at 19:00.

Chairman of the US-Israel Education Foundation, Dan Wilensky said: "The scientific-research partnership between Israel and the US, on which major achievements of Israeli academic research are based, rests on three main pillars: the openness of the Israeli scientific system to the world; the leading position of the American research system in the entire world; and a government policy that financially supports Israeli-American scientific cooperation".

"The first policy measure agreed upon by the two governments to establish the scientific ties between the countries was the establishment of an education fund in 1956 and Israel's inclusion in the Fulbright program. Following the achievements of the Fulbright program in strengthening the ties between the Israeli university system with its American counterpart came the decisions to establish the other binational authorities that work to strengthen ties between Israel and the US in basic and applied research and industrial development."

Since its inception, the USA-Israel Education Fund has awarded approximately 1500 scholarships to Israelis going to study in the USA and approximately 1150 scholarships to Americans who have arrived in Israel. In recent years, the scope of the scholarships given to the Israeli and American scholars was about 1.2 million dollars per year, when every year 30-40 Israelis left for the USA and 20-25 Americans arrived in Israel.

During its 52 years of activity, the Fulbright program left its mark on academic science in Israel and on other areas of thought-provoking activity. Graduates of the program include:

• Professor Aharon Barak, former president of the Supreme Court;
• Professor Aharon Chahanover, Technion, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry;
• Professor Yuli Tamir, Member of Knesset and Minister of Education/Labor Party;
• Professor Daniel Friedman, Minister of Justice;
• Dr. Uzi Landau, Knesset member and former minister/Likud;
• Dr. Yoram Torbovich, Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister
• Professor Itamar Rabinovitch, former president, Tel Aviv University; Former ambassador to the USA
• Professor Yair Orgler, former chairman of the Stock Exchange
• Prof. Yehuda Danon, founding director, Schneider Center for Child Health, former chief medical officer;
• A.B. Yehoshua, writer and playwright;

and many other prominent figures.