Author: Nadav Katz

On 19th April 2023, the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, was declared as an EPS Historic Site by the European Physical Society (EPS). Luc Bergé, EPS president, inaugurated the site in the presence of invited guests.

This is the first EPS Historic Site distinguished in Israel. Prof. Hanoch Gutfreund and Prof. Eliezer Rabinovici, of the Hebrew University, initiated the nomination of the institute.

Guilio Racah (1909-1965) joined the Hebrew University in 1940 when he was forced to leave Italy due to anti-Semitic persecution. Racah brought with him up-to-date knowledge of modern physics from the European scientific community which he acquired by working closely with world leaders such as Enrico Fermi and Eugene Wigner. For twenty-five years after his arrival, Racah led a revolution in the theoretical understanding of atomic spectroscopy and developed advanced group-theory based tools for the analysis of nuclear systems and elementary particles. Racah educated generations of Israeli scientists and is considered one of the fathers of theoretical physics in Israel.

His work put the Hebrew University and the Racah Institute of Physics on the world map of physics.

From left to right: Prof. Tamir Shefer (Rector of the Hebrew University), Dr. Luc Bergé (EPS president),
Profs. Eliezer Rabinovici, Hanoch Gutfreund and Nadav Katz (Hebrew University).

Images: Racah Institute