Throngs of BIU students celebrate the start of Academic Year 2017-18 with a festive mid-day concert organized by the BIU Student Union in the Bob Shapell Park on the south campus. This year some 17,000 academic degree candidates – including 35 from China – are enrolled throughout the university. Among the most popular majors: computer science, law, economics, engineering, management and logistics, and life sciences.
Also in this issue:
Spanning cultures and centuries, ageism, or age discrimination, pushes older adults to society's margins and often affects health. Two prominent BIU experts, Prof. Liat Ayalon and Prof. Ehud Bodner, examine this age-old challenge that is ever so relevant today.
"For the first time in history, older adults have outnumbered children worldwide. It is therefore our duty to ensure a world for all ages, where age is not a barrier," says Ayalon.
Targums are more than a pure translation of the Hebrew Torah text into Aramaic – once a common language among Jews. In addition to a plethora of Talmudic and Aggadic wisdom that illuminates the Biblical accounts, "these seemingly objective Torah translations can actually reveal important historical information, such as the muffled cries of oppressed Jews living under the rule of Islam," notes Dr. Leeor Gottlieb of Bar-Ilan University's Zalman Shamir Bible Department.
"This is doubly important in light of statements expressed by some people that in contrast to the Jews of Christian Europe, the Jews in Islamic lands lived under benevolent rulers."
