Shabbat Shalom and Happy 2026 from BGU President
Dear Friends,
When I made aliya more than forty-one years ago, I remember feeling conflicted about celebrating “New Year’s” rather than marking time only through Rosh Hashanah. Over the years, and especially with the integration of waves of immigration from the former Soviet Union, for whom January 1 carries deep cultural meaning, I’ve grown comfortable holding both moments at once. Each offers a different kind of reflection.
So, as 2025 draws to a close, I find myself looking back, not to sum up a year in numbers alone, but to ask what this past year tells us about who we are becoming.
The year has been demanding in ways none of us would have chosen, and yet it has clarified something essential about Ben-Gurion University of the Negev: who we are, and why we continue to move forward.
Earlier this month, national data released by the Council for Higher Education showed that BGU now leads all Israeli universities in on-time degree completion. Ninety-one percent of our students complete their degrees on schedule, the highest rate in the country, with particularly strong outcomes in engineering, health professions, the social sciences, and the humanities. It is an extraordinary statistic, but it is not an isolated one.
This year’s incoming class was the largest in our history, nearly one thousand more students than just four years ago. Growth at that scale is not accidental. It reflects trust. It reflects students choosing BGU not despite challenge, but because of it.
I have asked myself what truly lies behind this success. I would like to say it is only our support systems, which are strong. I would like to say it is only our academic standards, which we have never compromised. There is truth in both. But perhaps something deeper is at work. Perhaps BGU attracts students with grit, students primed to thrive in the desert, students who understand that studying far from the center can be the first step toward building a future of their own. The Negev shapes them, and they shape the Negev in return.
This became especially clear over the past year as we welcomed home students returning from extended reserve duty. Some came back injured. Others carried emotional burdens that will take far longer to heal. We expanded mental health services, increased academic flexibility, and worked individually with students to help them reenter academic life without lowering expectations. Alongside this, we worked closely with Soroka University Medical Center while continuing to train the next generation of physicians and nurses. These efforts were quiet, often invisible, and absolutely central to student success.
The same pattern appears in our research. This year, three BGU faculty members were awarded ERC Consolidator Grants, the highest number we have ever received in a single cycle. For the first time, our share of the national research budget now exceeds our proportional size within Israeli academia. These are quiet indicators, but meaningful ones. They reflect an ecosystem that supports ambition even under strain.
And the strain has been real. We faced direct missile attacks. Buildings on our medical campus were destroyed. The roof of the gymnasium was torn open. Research laboratories holding years of irreplaceable work were lost. In the first hours after the attacks, teams swept the grounds, secured the campus, and began drafting engineering plans for recovery. It was difficult work, but we did not retreat.
Nor were these challenges confined to our physical space. We endured ugliness as well. A public bounty list targeting Israeli academics, accompanied by resurgent antisemitism abroad, reminded us of the very real dangers that accompany a climate of delegitimization. We responded with seriousness, coordination, and resolve, not fear.
At the same time, we expanded our global footprint. Gatherings in New York, Toronto, Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere brought together supporters who believe that the future of Israel runs through the Negev. International universities sought collaboration with us even as some European institutions chose to turn away from Israeli academia. These relationships matter, not only for resources, but for affirmation of shared academic values.
In October, we opened the Stein Faculty of Computer and Information Science, bringing together long-collaborating departments and formalizing a vision years in the making. This was not merely a structural change, but a statement about the future we are preparing for. And in May, when I outlined to the Board of Governors the next stages of our strategic development, the direction was clear: AI resilience, a renewed commitment to the Negev, and entrepreneurship as a cultural force across the university. These are not reactions to a difficult period. They are preparations for what comes next.
On David Ben-Gurion Memorial Day, we awarded the Ben-Gurion Medal to individuals and institutions whose lives reflec our values. Among them were scholars, civic leaders, and a former hostage, whose presence reminded us with painful clarity of what truly matters. And throughout the year, we continued the slow, demanding, and essential work of expanding access to higher education for students from Israel’s periphery, first-generation students, graduates of Haredi education, and members of the Bedouin community.
Taken together, these are not separate achievements. They are threads of a single story: a university that expects challenge and teaches how to meet it; a community that insists on excellence while remaining deeply human; an institution that understands that its success is inseparable from the future of the Negev and of Israel itself.
As we look ahead, I do so with confidence rooted not in optimism alone, but in evidence. We are building something durable, thoughtful, and forward-looking. And we are doing it together.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy 2026!
Danny
