Tel Aviv University NEWS
Winter 1996/97

When TAU recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of its Florence and George S. Wise Observatory, its Director, Prof. Elia Leibowitz, pointed out that Jews have beed involved in astronomy from the very beginning of the history. Indeed, it was G-d Himself who called on Abraham to
"Look towards heaven, and count the stars, if thou be able to count them."
Then G-d promised Abraham that his seed would be as numerous as those stars.

There were many distinguised Jewish astronomers during the Middle Ages including Ibn-Ezra,Abraham Bar-Hiya and Levy Ben-Gershon after whom a crater on the moon is named. It was only in 1971, however, with the building of the Wise Observatory, that observational astronomy began in the Jewish state.