Israel Matzav

This is rich: UK Nobel prize co-winner boycotts university of his Israeli co-winner

François Englert, 80, a Belgian Holocaust survivor, was yesterday awarded the Nobel Prize in physics together with British physicist Peter Higgs.

Englert is a Sackler Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University, and has taught at, done research at, and been associated with Tel Aviv University for over 30 years. He is also a professor emeritus at the University of Brussels.

Interesting – but not surprisingly – in their reports yesterday, media outlets with a track record of hostility to Israel, such as the New York Times, did not mention in their quite lengthy articles that Englert, a Belgium-born Jew, is a professor at Tel Aviv University, and a Holocaust survivor.

In 2004, Englert, Higgs and Robert Brout won the Wolf prize, an Israeli award granted by the Wolf Foundation and seen as a precursor to the Nobel. (Englert’s colleague Robert Brout passed away in 2011; otherwise he may have also shared yesterday’s Nobel Prize.)

(Tom Gross exclusive:) Englert’s British co-winner of Nobel Prize for Physics, Professor Peter Higgs, effectively refuses to acknowledge the fact his co-recipient teaches at Tel Aviv University. Higgs is calling for an academic boycott of Israel, and refused to attend the Wolf prize ceremony.

On Monday, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to two American Jewish professors, James Rothman and Randy Schekman, together with Thomas Suedhof of Germany. They narrowly beat their Israeli colleagues to the prize. Hebrew University professors Howard Cedar and Aaron Razing were thought to be frontrunners in the run-up to the announcement.

Both Israeli and Diaspora Jews have won an incredibly high number of Nobel Prizes.

Labels: BDS, British anti-Semitism, Israeli Nobel prizes, Nobel laureates, Tel Aviv University

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:28 PM