Located in Israel's cultural, financial and industrial heartland, Tel Aviv
University is the largest university in Israel and the biggest Jewish
university in the world. It is a major center of teaching and research,
comprising nine faculties, 106 departments,
and 90 research institutes. Its origins go
back to 1956, when three small education units - The Tel Aviv School of
Law and Economics, an Institute of Natural Sciences, and an Institute of
Jewish Studies - joined together to form the University of Tel Aviv.
At first attached to the Tel Aviv municipality, the University was granted
autonomy in 1963, and its campus in the residential section of Ramat Aviv
was established the same year.
Tel Aviv University offers an extensive range of study programs in the arts and sciences, within
its Faculties of Engineering, Exact Sciences, Life Sciences, Medicine, Humanities, Law, Social
Sciences, Arts and Management. The original 170-acre campus has been expanded to include an
additional 50-acre tract, now being developed.
The University also maintains academic supervision over the Center for Technological Design in
Holon, the New Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, and the Tel Aviv Engineering College.
In addition to its basic functions of research and teaching, Tel Aviv
University contributes its expertise to the welfare of society at large;
plays a part in all aspects of national life; and addresses regional and
international issues. Faculty members serve in the Knesset and the
Cabinet, in government agencies, and in professional organizations and
public bodies. Students are encouraged to tutor disadvantaged children,
volunteer services to the elderly, and aid the community through a broad
range of social involvement programs, such as TAU's wide-scale
Price-Brodie Initiative in Jaffa.
Tel Aviv University is a leader in absorbing the scientists and students
who arrived in massive numbers from the former Soviet Union.
Middle Eastern history, strategic studies, and the search for peace are
central concerns for Tel Aviv University researchers. The Institute for
Diplomacy and Regional Cooperation, founded by the Peres Center for Peace,
the Armand Hammer Fund for Economic Cooperation in the Middle East, the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and
African History, the Jaffee Center for Strategic
Studies, the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace
Research and the Morris E. Curiel Center for International Studies are
respected sources of information for government and private institutions,
the press and the public. University scholars are putting their expertise
to work for the peace process, participating in Israel's delegations to
the peace talks, and in joint projects with colleagues from neighboring
countries.
Tel Aviv University's Chaim Rosenberg
School for Jewish Studies conducts research in the Bible, Talmud,
Hebrew language and literature, Jewish philosophy and the history of the
Jewish people. There are research centers for the Jewish media, Diaspora
studies, Zionist
history, and anti-Semitism research, and
courses in Jewish Law. The Wiener
Library, one of the world's largest collections on the Holocaust and
anti-Semitism, offers an extensive store of research materials.
Tel Aviv University has strong links with Jewish communities abroad,
offering programs of Jewish studies to teachers and students from the
United States, France, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. TAU is also involved
in Jewish special education, research and teaching worldwide.
The School for Overseas Students gives young
people from other nations the opportunity to study at Tel Aviv University
for a year, a semester or a summer. The program is in English, includes a
wide choice of courses, and also offers the opportunity to live and study
on kibbutz.
Other study opportunities for students from abroad are a Master's Program
in Middle Eastern Studies; a Master's Program in Biblical Archaeology, a
Summer Law Program co-sponsored by Temple University Law School and the
TAU Buchmann Faculty of Law; the Sackler School
of Medicine New York State/American Program, a four-year MD program
taught in English; the Medical Electives Program; the Wharton-Recanati-INSEAD-York Project
in Management, the International Executive
MBA Program of the Faculty of Management together with the Kellogg
School, Northwestern University; the International MBA Program; and the High-Tech Management School.
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