The Weizmann Institute awarded honorary doctorates to Gila Almagor, Avraham Ben-Naftali, David Grossman, Solo Doak, Steph Wertheimer, Hilda Lewis, Prof. Michael Ellis Fischer and Shimon Peres
Gila Almagor
Gila Almagor has been enriching Israeli culture for more than 50 years, as an acclaimed actress in theater, film and television, and as a writer of fiction for young people.
She began her artistic career at the age of 17 in the play "By the Skin of Our Teeth". Since then, Almagor has acted in a selection of plays in the leading theaters in Israel, appeared in television series and starred in more than 40 films, including "Munich", the political thriller by the director and producer Steven Spielberg.
Almagor wrote four books for children and teenagers, including "The Summer of Her Father", a semi-autobiography which has been translated into nine languages. The one-man play based on the book won the Robina Award, and the film that followed received the Golden Bear Award in Berlin and the Golden Spike Award in Spain, and was even crowned the best foreign film at the San Remo Festival. His sequel, "Etz Doumim Tafus", was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Volgin Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
Almagor was one of the founders of AM, the organization of Israeli artists, she founded the Gila Almagor's Wish Fund, which helps fulfill the wishes of sick children, and serves as the chairperson of the Tel Aviv branch of the Cancer Society.
Gila Almagor is married to Yaakov Agmon.
Avraham ben-Naftali
Avraham Ben-Naftali, a key figure in the legal establishment in Israel, manages to combine a prosperous legal career with a deep commitment to public service.
He studied law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and studied for a master's degree in law (LL.M) at Tel Aviv University. In 1963 he founded his law firm, today called Ben-Naftali-Erez & Co. The firm, which is considered a leader in its field, specializes in the capital market and provides legal and consulting services to nearly half of Israel's mutual fund managers, provident fund managers, non-bank stock exchange members, insurance companies and others. As an expert in corporate law, he served as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University in the years 1986-1968.
Ben-Naftali, a loyal friend of the Weizmann Institute of Science for many years, served as a member of the board of directors from 1995 and as a member of the executive committee since 1996. In 2002-2008 he served as chairman of the executive committee and the management committee.
In his spare time, he engages in two hobbies: traveling and photography. He combines these two hobbies through artistic photography of the visual impressions he experiences in his travels.
Ben-Naftali and his wife Dina have two daughters: Dr. Orna Ben-Naftali and Dr. Michal Ben-Naftali.
David Grossman
David Grossman, writer, journalist and spiritual man, is also one of the sharpest voices in Israeli society. Grossman was born in Jerusalem in 1954, studied philosophy and theater at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and began working as a reporter and as an actor in Kol Israel.
Grossman's prolific work includes seven novels, a play, short stories and novellas, some of which focus on Arab-Jewish relations or issues related to the Holocaust. Being a peace activist, Grossman sees his ability to use language as "the freedom to think differently, to see things differently. And that includes seeing the enemy differently."
Already in his early works Grossman used modern literary tools, such as the use of stream of consciousness and different viewing angles within the story and mixing reality and fantasy, presented through the eyes of children. Among his well-known books: "Review Value: Love" (1986), "The Internal Grammar Book" (1991), "There Are Children Zig Zag" (1994), "Someone to Run With" (2000), "In the Body I Understand" (2002) , and most recently, "A woman runs away from the gospel" (2008). His works have been translated into more than 25 languages.
David Grossman and his wife Michal have two children: Jonathan and Ruth. Their son Uri fell in the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
Solo Doak
Solo Doak combines a successful career in international finance with a long-standing commitment to Israel and great dedication to philanthropic causes.
Doak was born in Beirut to an old and established Spanish family. He began his high school studies at the American College in Beirut, but when there was a deterioration in the attitude of the Lebanese authorities towards the Jews, during the War of Independence, the family left Lebanon and settled in Lausanne. Together with his brother Solo Doak promoted a wide variety of financial initiatives. These initiatives included joint ventures in the field of export financing with international corporations and institutions.
Solo Doak is an enthusiastic supporter of Israel, and of the Institute's activities in Europe, especially in the joint research program with the Italian Pharmacological Research Institute Mario Negri. In 1999, the Doak brothers financed the construction of the Doak Center building on campus, and founded a large fund for biomedical research in the field of fertility. In 2008, both families contributed to the establishment of a research school in chemical sciences named after Solo Doak and Maurizio Doak.
Solo Doak is married to Janet de Picchuto, born in Beirut, and the couple have two children, born in Japan: Marco and Claudia.
Steph Wertheimer
Steph Wertheimer, industrialist, founder and honorary chairman of Yishkar Ltd., has been working with dedication for years to strengthen Israel's economic independence and promote coexistence with its neighbors.
Wertheimer fled Nazi Germany with his parents when he was ten years old, and grew up in Tel Aviv. At the age of 16, he left school and began working, and at the same time began studying optics with a researcher in the field of imaging technology. In World War II he volunteered to serve in the British Air Force, and then served in the Yiftach Brigade in the Palmach.
In 1952, in the wooden garage behind his house, Wertheimer launched the company Ishkar Ltd., engaged in the production of precise cutting tools made of hard metal, intended for the advanced industries of the automobile, aviation, space and electronics. Iskar expanded rapidly, becoming a multinational company with offices in more than 50 countries. In 2006, businessman Warren Buffett purchased 80% of the company's shares.
Wertheimer believes in education and the use that can be made in industry to promote exports and create jobs, with a high quality of life for workers. In 1982 he founded the Tefen Industrial Park in the Western Galilee, and then four more industrial parks throughout the country.
Hilda Lewis
Out of deep empathy for the weak and needy, and out of true love for Israel and the Jewish people, Hilda Lewis, together with her late husband Cecil, devoted a significant portion of her time, strength and resources to many philanthropic causes in Israel and the UK.
Over the years, the Lewis couple responded to the changing needs of the Weizmann Institute of Science with characteristic generosity. They supported the Shaob-Shemesh laser development laboratory and the experimental physics center, and in the mid-90s, following the great wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union, they donated scholarships that enabled the institute to recruit a large number of talented research students from among the new immigrants. In 2002, the Lewis couple established a professorial chair named after them, which is chaired by Prof. Ben-Zion Shilo from the Department of Molecular Genetics. Especially close to the heart of Hilda Lewis are activities to promote women in science, initiated by the institute and its friend associations in recent decades.
After Cecil's death, in 2005, Hilda Lewis continued her active involvement in the Institute and the Association of Friends of the Institute in Great Britain. It recently undertook a very generous commitment to support the innovative work of Dr. Eran Segal in biometics and cancer research.
Prof. Michael Ellis Fisher
Prof. Michael A. Fischer, a prolific physicist, chemist and mathematician, was known for his original contribution to statistical physics, and especially to the field of research on transitions between aggregation states and phenomena that occur near these transitions (critical phenomena). After receiving his B.Sc and PhD degrees in physics, from King's College London, he was Fisher to the faculty at this institution. In 1966 he moved to Cornell University in the USA, where he served as a professor of chemistry, physics and mathematics and as chairman of the chemistry department (1978-1975). Since 1987 he has served as a senior professor at the Institute of Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland.
Prof. Fisher is credited with the collaboration he created between chemists and physicists, which gave birth to a common research language in solving complicated problems of state transitions - significant changes in the system resulting from a minimal quantitative change in certain factors. Prof. Fisher is considered the main driving force behind the great progress in the field of mechanical statistics, and contributed especially to the development of the renormalization group theory and its application in the study of critical phenomena.
Shimon Peres
From the scroll given to the President of the State, Shimon Peres, at the ceremony in which he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree on behalf of the Weizmann Institute of Science: "In recognition of his dynamic work in the State of Israel from its inception, as an executive, elected official, and statesman; For his controlled diligence in ensuring Israel's readiness for war, as well as for his steadfast adherence, with unreserved optimism, to the request for peace; for the set of demanding public offices, which he assumed over the course of more than six decades, and accomplished with the help of an inexhaustible reservoir of intelligence and other spirit, originality and courage, ability to do and perseverance; on the broad horizons and the inspiring flight of his vision, which raised the profile of the State of Israel in the international arena; and for his enthusiastic support for scientific and technological innovation as the key to establishing an advanced, open and prosperous society, in which all citizens of the country have an equal share".
