hamachon - המכון

so, did you know what the top academic institution to work at, worldwide, is according to the-scientist? so number 1 is in dresden germany (the sister city of coventry...), a place pretty well known - the max planck institute. number 3? university of bristol - the place that right now i feel is my most likely location for next year. cambridge is in the top ten as is the university of toronto! but the second best place in the world? the weitzmann instittuion!!! (hamachon - the institute - is what the cool kids call it...) and i totally see it. its just so nice, so peaceful, i guess the salary is good (well, i know nothing of professor's salaries, but students get paid around 1700 USD per month, tax free and expenses are much lower than say, davis...) there is no undergrads around (that's gotta push it to the top :) ) and hence if there is any teaching, its at the grad level, which typically (at least in physics) means teaching master students. i already wrote a little bit about how green it is and how there are so many fruit trees (all citrus) adorning the institute (i picked lemons the other day, man, they smelled soooo sweet! i love lemons. first tree i plant in my yard.). on top of that the buildings are modern but a bit warm, some are brick-laced, especially those that are more social sciences (archaeology...), lots of statues, lots of open grassy areas. three decent, quite decent cafeterias - one meat, two milk/fish - kosher reasons, one restaurant/coffee place which is very good... its a really nice place.


also the dynamics with people is very different. a really simple example. uzy' wife's mom passed away last tuesday. the funeral was the next day (in jewish tradition you are not supposed to wait with this) and was quite far away (ok, in israel terms. this means two hours north - near the sea of galilee). uzy's group includes four phd students, one masters student, a postdoc from switzerland and myself. we all went to the funeral. all of us.

we made it a bit more of a day, did very little sight seeing, a short hike to a spring and made tea there - hence the picture. but still, that's pretty unique situation. i mean in the states, i didn't even know for a while of deaths in my advisor's family. those intra-personal distances in israel, if they exist at all, are very short...

from left to right, rami, yehonatan, me, idan, amit, fabien, amit