Statement from HAC President Prof. Bertold Fridlender December, 2023

18/12/2023 | Prof. Bertold Fridlender

In the days following Hamas’ terror attack on October 7^th, we received the heartbreaking news that four members of our community were murdered in the massacre, or killed while defending Israeli towns and villages in the subsequent battles: Dr. Hayim Katsman, a Lecturer in our Department of Politics and Communication, Uriel Bibi and Yitzhak Levi, two of our current students, and Ido Rosenthal, a graduate of Hadassah Academic College.

Together with other institutions of higher education in Israel, HAC decided to postpone the opening of the academic year until December 24^th, to allow those students called up for reserve duty to miss as few days as possible. Since October 7^th, 386 students and 27 HAC staff members have been mobilized, while many of the remaining students, faculty, and staff have been volunteering frequently to aid fellow Israelis in every way possible. More than 150,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes in southern and northern Israel, including many of our students. They are still living temporarily in hotels, or with family and friends.

We are proud of the fact that, over the years, we have succeeded in creating an atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect within our student body. Our students come from an extremely diverse cross section of Israeli society that includes secular, observant, and ultra-Orthodox Jews, Arab-Israelis (Moslems and Christians), and new immigrants from many countries.  We are committed to further promoting HAC’s educational mission while respecting our diverse student body and, at the same time, have set forth clear boundaries between freedom of expression and incitement or hate speech.

HAC views the internationalization process as one of its strategic goals. The International Office will thus continue to update our colleagues around the world regarding the situation on our campus, and maintain online connections with the participants in our joint projects, in order to further sustain these collaborations.

We look forward to resuming our international activities onsite as soon as the situation stabilizes, and are again able to continue hosting experts, researchers, colleagues and students from all over the world, while sharing with them our campus and our beautiful capital: Jerusalem.

We appreciate your friendship, support, and willingness to stand by us during these difficult times. I hope that you’ll share our hopes and prayers for more peaceful days ahead.

Prof. Bertold Fridlender, President

Hadassah Academic College Jerusalem