Shabbat Shalom from BGU President (March 13, 2026)

13/03/2026

Dear Friends,

As I write this, the university is in its final preparations for the delayed opening of the second semester this Sunday. Unfortunately, as the war continues, we will begin the semester through remote learning. While this is rarely ideal, we have unfortunately gained considerable experience over the past years, and I am confident that our faculty and teaching staff know how to adapt and how to support our students through this difficult period while maintaining the rigorous academic standards that a BGU degree represents.

The timing is also unusual. With Passover vacation only two weeks away, the first part of the semester will be short. Still, I remain hopeful that after the holiday break our students will be able to return to campus and complete the semester as normally as possible.

The resilience that has defined us over the past three years continues to guide us, often through situations that feel almost surreal. For example, on the personal level, over the past week alone, in response to air-raid sirens, I have found myself lying face down in a field near Kiryat Gat (this happened three separate times), crouching with my daughter and dozens of other travelers in a roadside field along the highway to Jerusalem, sheltering with twenty strangers in the protected space of a hi-tech company off the highway on my way to Be’er Sheva, and even waiting in the heavily secured bomb shelters several floors beneath the airport.

clockwise from top left: Shani and I next to the road to Jerusalem, my driver Shlomi and I in the shelter at close-by hitech building, the shelter at Ben-Gurion Airport (which also holds lost items), and Shlomi and I in a field off of Route 6.

Each time it happened calmly, almost matter-of-factly. There is no panic. Waze now even has an option that directs you to the nearest shelter.

At the university, we have mapped how many researchers can safely work in each building according to the capacity of the adjacent protected spaces. Next week, a limited number of students will be allowed back on campus for studies that simply cannot be done remotely. These activities will take place only in facilities immediately adjacent to shelters.

But resilience should never be mistaken for accepting this as normal.

It is clearly not normal for my nine-month-old grandson to sleep in a shelter, just as it has not been normal for the residents of the Gaza envelope and the northern border to live this way for years.

I do not pretend to know the long-term answers. At BGU, however, we are fortunate to have many scholars who dedicate their lives to understanding the complexities of the Middle East. For that reason, I would like to invite you to join us for a special webinar this Sunday with two of our experts, who will share their perspectives on the current conflict and what may lie ahead.

Join us for a briefing with Prof. Yonatan Mendel, Chair of the Department of Middle East Studies, and Dr. Gershon Lewental, historian of Iran. Together they will offer insights into the current conflict and what the future may hold for Israeli-Iranian relations and the broader Middle East.

When: Sunday, March 15, 2026

I hope you can join us. I'm sure it will be interesting!

Wishing us all a Shabbat Shalom, a Shabbat uninterrupted by sirens,
Danny