Bar-Ilan Awarded Israel's Newest Faculty of Medicine

Bar-Ilan University will be the home of Israel's newest medical school. The Council for Higher Education yesterday (January 12) selected the University to launch the much-needed school, which will be located in the northern Galilee town of Safed.

Following the announcement of the Council's decision, Bar-Ilan President Prof. Moshe Kaveh assured Israel Minister of Education Gideon Sa'ar, who serves as its Chairman, that the University will prove worthy of this decision.

Bar-Ilan University will establish a leading faculty of medicine integrating cutting-edge research similar to that conducted in the world's top medical schools. The medical school complex will include a state-of-the-art facility which will house 40 medical research teams and absorb returning Israeli scientists.

The new Faculty of Medicine will work in close concert with hospitals in the northern Israeli towns of Afula, Safed, Tiberias, Nahariya, and Nazareth, and community clinics throughout the Galilee region. Community medicine will be one of the core components of research and study within the Faculty.

Bar-Ilan University has pioneered the establishment of regional colleges throughout the State of Israel. With the addition of the new Faculty of Medicine in the Galilee, the University is continuing its tradition of commitment to Israel's outlying regions.
Bar-Ilan President Prof. Moshe Kaveh thanked the Council's Planning and Budget Committee Chairman Prof. Manuel Trachtenberg for his active role in advancing the establishment of a medical school in the Galilee. Prof. Kaveh said that in coordination with the Council for Higher Education, the Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee, and the Ministry of Finance, the University would soon present detailed plans for the project.

"Bar-Ilan University views the establishment of its Faculty of Medicine in Safed as a scientific undertaking of the first order and the answer to a crucial national imperative," said Prof. Kaveh. "Bar-Ilan's reputation as a leading research institution with top-notch faculty in life sciences, brain research, and nanotechnology, uniquely positions the University to answer this need," he added.