ASA Boycott

In Late 2013 the leadership of the American Studies Association(ASA) began to discuss an anti-Israel BDS resolution to cut ties with all Israeli academic institutions because of Israeli international actions. After a quick last-minute debate the resolution was passed on to the voting members of the ASA on December 4 2013 to decide whether the ASA would in fact adopt this BDS boycott of Israeli education institutions. Surprisingly, this motion passed after a 2 week voting period in which 1,252 people voted out of their 5,000 members. The vote was split 66% for the boycott, 30% against and 3% abstain, so the boycott represents the wishes of effectively 16% of the members of the ASA. This vote however represents the largest participation in a vote on any ASA issue in the organization's history. The approval of this boycott caused Brandeis University, Penn State University, Indiana University, and Kenyon College to terminate their membership with the ASA. The American Council on Education, The American Association of Universities, and the American Association of University Professors all issued statements condemning the boycott and shaming the ASA for attempting to bar academic collaboration between thwe two countries. The ASA was founded in 1951 and is America's oldest scholarly association dedicated solely to the study of American culture and history. Of it's 5,000 individual members, less than half (about 2,000) represent libraries and educational instutions. The other members are individuals and professors who are paid members of the ASA.

The approval of this boycott of Israeli academic institutions has been met with harsh criticism from some and vehement support from others. Ignoring this boycott, many American educational instutitions still forge cooperative academic relationships with Israeli institutions every day, extending cooperation between two great allies and advancing the pursuit of knowledge together.

Academic Collaboration

Academic and educational collaboration between Israel and the US has been a cornerstone of their close relationship for many years. Israel is a leader in science and technology innovation, and many US higher education institutions have formed partnerships and joint ventures with Israeli universities, companies, and organizations.

Baylor University

Professor James Patrick along with Israeli Professor Hermona Soreq from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem collaborated while exploring the underlying mechanisms of stress-associated diseases. This research was made possible by Binational Science Foundation (BSF) grants, and their successful research is furthering the fields of Alzheimers's disease research and protection against chemical warfare. According to Professor Patrick, the BSF grants that allowed them to carry out their research "help to maintain better interactions between Baylor and labs in Israel".

Brandeis University

In December 2013 officials from Brandeis joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

Broward College

The Florida-Israel Institute (FII) is a public organization that was created by the Florida Legislature and is administered jointly by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and Broward College (BC). Its primary purpose is to promote the development of enhanced governmental, economic, technological, cultural, educational and social ties between the State of Florida and the State of Israel. This mission is achieved through the formation of cooperative initiatives in research, academic development, student and faculty exchange, cultural exchange, and technical assistance between FAU, BC and Israeli institutions of higher learning as well as private sector commercial endeavors. The Institute acts as a facilitator forging collaborative efforts between Israel’s world renowned academic institutions and Israel’s highly innovative hi-tech industry with Florida’s higher-education institutions and Florida industry in areas essential to both states.

California Institute of Technology

Highly sophisticated infrared optical fibers are being developed and fabricated jointly by research teams headed by Prof. Avraham Katzir (Tel Aviv University) and Prof. Amnon Yariv (California Institute of Technology), with BSF support. These fibers are to be used by NASA in its search of habitable extra-solar planets. The effort to identify habitable planets concentrates on the identification of a pair of stars similar to the earth and the sun and the detection of oxygen, water, and carbon dioxide. Each of these has a characteristic "color" in the infrared, invisible to the human eye, but which can be detected by sensitive infrared equipment. Both NASA and the European Space Agency have programs aimed at identifying the presence of life outside our solar system, and BSF-supported research is likely to play a key role in this effort.

California-Israel Technology Collaborative

Founded in the early 2000's by a group of physicians, students, alumni and faculty of UCLA, the "CAL-I-TC" is based on finding and encouraging opportunities for high technology transferi and innovation. It encourages partnerships between the major Israeli universities and the California business and investment communities. The CAL-I-TC strives to harness one of Israel's greatest assets, its capacity for innovation, nurturing it with teachable social and business networking skills, to accelerate the commercialization rate of Israeli technology. To find out more about CAL-I-TC, its goals and projects, please CLICK HERE.

Cleveland State University

Cleveland State University signed an agreement on August 30, 2014 with Israel's Haifa University to develop joint programming between the two and encourage academic cooperation between faculty members. The agreement was signed by Haifa University President David Farragi and CSU President Ron Berkman while Faraggi was in Cleveland for a 2 day visit. Berkman travelled to Israel with CSU students in April and hopes that the agreement with strengthen ties between Cleveland's large Jewish community and Israel.

Colorado School of Mines

In July 2010, the Colorado School of Mines agreed to establish workforce-development ties with Noble Energy and the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) to help develop the discovery of a vast natural gas reserve off Israel's coast. Israel lacks the workforce to develop such a project and CSM will jointly help in the overall development.

Columbia University

In December 2013 officials from Columbia joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

Cornell University

In 2003, Cornell University and the U.S.-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development fund (BARD)established a new program for joint agricultural research.

On December 19, 2011, NYC Mayor Bloomberg, Cornell University President David J. Skorton, and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology President Peretz Lavie announced a historic partnership to build a two-million-square-foot applied science and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City.

In December 2013 officials from Cornell joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

Duke University

Duke University has developed the Duke Information System for Cardiovascular Care (DISCC), which allows analysis of epidemiological information, national health care profiles, clinical trials, data, resource utilization, etc. The university is sharing its databank with the Israeli Ministry of Health.

Emory University

In December 2013 officials from Emory joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

Florida Atlantic University

The Florida-Israel Institute (FII) is a public organization that was created by the Florida Legislature and is administered jointly by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and Broward College (BC). Its primary purpose is to promote the development of enhanced governmental, economic, technological, cultural, educational and social ties between the State of Florida and the State of Israel. This mission is achieved through the formation of cooperative initiatives in research, academic development, student and faculty exchange, cultural exchange, and technical assistance between FAU, BC and Israeli institutions of higher learning as well as private sector commercial endeavors. The Institute acts as a facilitator forging collaborative efforts between Israel’s world renowned academic institutions and Israel’s highly innovative hi-tech industry with Florida’s higher-education institutions and Florida industry in areas essential to both states.

Georgetown University

In December 2013 officials from Georgetown joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

Kansas City Art Institute

The Kansas City Art Institute maintains a foreign study exchange program with the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

MIT formed a partnership in May 2014 with Ben-Gurion University for an exchange of ideas program between their faculty and students. Individuals at both schools will collaborate on research and project development. This announcement was made during Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's visit to Israel on a trade mission.

The MIT Enterprise Forum of Israel is a collaborative educational effort between MIT and Tel Aviv University that began in 1994. This collaborative project is meant to stimulate tech innovations worldwide and encourage dialogue and collaborative research. The forum has brought tech conferences, workshops, consultation programs, and entrepreneurial programs to Israel and has nurtured the local technology sector.

MIT's International Science and Technology Initiatives program connects MIT students and faculty with science and technology sectors around the world, including Israel. Participants in the program conduct research at top Israeli universities, work in Israeli high-tech start-ups, and learn from a great multicultural experience along the way.

Oakland University

In February 2011, the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Rochester signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Emek Medical Center in Haifa, Israel. The agreement encourages collaborative research and the sharing of scientific knowledge between the two institutions and leveraging the medical expertise of both institutions to advance the science and practice of medicine. It is hoped that this collaboration will foster economic development through biomedical discovery in Michigan as well as in the region served by the Emek Medical Center.

Princeton University

Princeton University announced a new partnership program on February 11, 2014, launching a joint program between themselves and the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya (IDC). The program is a collaboration between the Woodrow Wilson School of Government at Princeton and the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy at the IDC. The IDC was Israel's first private university, established in 1994, and they are the Woodrow Wilson's school of Government's first partner in the Middle East.

In December 2013 officials from Princeton joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

Stanford University

Stanford University in Stanford, California partnered with Hebrew University and Hadassah Medical Center to open the BioDesign Innovation Institute. This institute is dedicated to the research of new medical devices and technologies. So far the faculty are working on a device to fight obesity without the need for plastic surgery, a process that speeds up the fabrication of dentures, and a device to assist doctors and nurses with IV insertion.

In December 2013 officials from Stanford joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

Texas A&M University

On October 23 2013 Texas Governor Rick Perry and Texas A&M University Chancellor John Sharp announced plans to build a Texas A&M campus in Israel, known as "Peace Campus". Perry and Sharp travelled to Israel and the announcement was made at Shimon Peres's home. The university will be built in Nazareth with private funds secured through worldwide donors, and will cater to international students, Israelis, and Arabs.

Tulane University

In December 2013 officials from Tulane joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

University of California, Berkeley

In December 2013 officials from UC Berkeleyjoined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

University of California, San Diego

Research taking place at UC San Diego together with their counterpart Israeli institutions through BSF Grants include extremely diverse projects such as: the study of human embryonic cells aimed at developing therapies for heart failure; the calculation of magnetic fields to design electromagnetic devices; the development of the largest cosmological calculation ever created; the development of information processing in two-way communication methods.

University of Chicago

In March 2013, the University of Chicago and Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore a research partnership that would create new water production and purification technologies for deployment in regions of the globe where fresh water resources are scarce. The ambitious research collaborations will apply the latest discoveries in nanotechnology to create new materials and processes for making clean, fresh drinking water more plentiful and less expensive by 2020. University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer and Ben-Gurion President Rivka Carmi both signed the MOU.

University of Georgia

In October 2004, a new partnership was launched between the University of Georgia and Hebrew University to study the effects of terrorism on children. The program began with an international symposium on terrorism in Jerusalem. Topics that were addressed included the effects of exposure on terrorism and the rights of victims of terror. A second conference is scheduled for April 13, 2005, on the UGA campus. The project, aimed at improving services to terror victims, was initiated after Mark Lusk, UGA's associate provost for international affairs visited Israel to review hospital protocols after a terrorist attack.

In August 2012, students at the University of Haifa and the University of Georgia partook in the same comparative health systems course through innovative technology that facilitated their educational experience. Professor Richard Schuster, who directs the Center for Global Health at UGA, traveled to Israel with six American graduate students, while the remaining American students took the class from Georgia.

University of Houston

Through BSF grants University of Houston chemist Wayne Rabalias has been able to study ion beams collaboratively with Israeli academic Yishial Lifshitz.

University of Maryland

Established in 2003 under then-Governor Robert Ehrlich, the R&D partnership puts together the University of Maryland's Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) with a number of Israeli research institutions through the guidance of administration of BARD. The program promotes collaborative aquaculture research that are of mutual benefit to both Maryland and Israel for various shared aquaculture and marine biology challenges. One of the program's main priority areas is in finding new methods at controlling marine diseases in dense aquaculture areas. Learn more, CLICK HERE.

In 1998, the University of Maryland School of Nursing and Hadassah announced a partnership to develop and offer a clinical masters degree program in nursing at the Henrietta Szold Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Nursing in Jerusalem. This will be the first masters degree program in nursing offered in Israel.

In May 2011, The University of Maryland's Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship collaborated with the Technion Entrepreneurship Center, The Technion T3, and the Technion Seed Incubator to create a 10-week fellowship program for MBA students to work on commercializing technology at the Technion. Teams of U.S. students worked with Israeli students to develop feasibility studies and commercialization plans for Technion owned intellectual property. Throughout the fellowship, students were guided by a panel of entrepreneurs, researchers and venture capitalists

In 2014, the University of Maryland began an Israel studies course that paired local students with peers at Tel Aviv University. This course is the results of University President Wallace Loh's Israel visist in April 2013 where he signed academic partnerships with: Tel Aviv University, University of Haifa, Technion (Israel Institute of Science and Technology), Hebrew University's Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food, and Environment, and the University of Jordan.

University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC)

In 1999, the University of Maryland in Baltimore created the Maryland/Israel Visiting Fellows Program in Biotechnology. The program is designed to build and encourage ties between the bioscience communities of Maryland and Israel. Fellowships will be offered to qualified Israelis at the M.D. and Ph.D. levels to conduct collaborative research at Maryland biotech research institutions.

University of Michigan

In December 2013 officials from the University of Michigan joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

In 2008, the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute launced a collaborative initiative with various university laboratories in Israel to promote collaborations between the finest medical scientists at the University of Michigan and in Israeli research centers.

University of North Dakota

In May 2008, Dr. Gerald Groenewold, Director of the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota, announced the development of a long-term partnership between the EERC and Israel to address critical energy security issues facing both Israel and the United States. The partnership comes on the heels of the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the US Department of Energy and the Interdisciplinary Center at Herziloyah in Israel for cooperation on various energy topics. The MOU enables cooperation in carbon management technologies, water resource stewardship in power production, alternative fuels development, development of hydrogen and fuel cells, power grid efficiency and reliability, hybrid energy systems, and advanced materials for energy systems, all of which the EERC has expertise in.

University of Southern California

With funding help through the BSF, Professor Jonathan Leor of Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv and his colleagues- Professor Robert A. Kloner and Professor Laurence H. Kedes of the University of Southern California (USC)- are starting to find new ways to solve heart failure.

University of Virginia

In December 2013 officials from the University of Virginia joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

University of Wyoming

The University of Wyoming in Laramie has recently established three different study abroad programs with various institutions in Israel. In 2010, Ben Gurion University of the Negev and the Rothberg International School at Hebrew University in Jerusalem formed their cooperative joint programs and joined the University of Haifa, with which Wyoming had established a program in 2008.

Virginia Tech

Located in Blacksburg, the Virginia Israel Technology Alliance (VITAL) was created out of a partnership between the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (VTCRC) and the VIAB. Its mission is designed to help post-incubator, commercial-ready Israeli companies build strong foundations for growth in the U.S., and bring their products to market. The VITAL program offers specialized assistance in business development, advanced research for applications and marketing expertise.

Yale University

In December 2013 officials from Yale joined faculty from twelve other colleges in Israel to explore potential future partnerships with Israeli universities.

US-Israel Cooperation: University Agreements and Cooperation