- August 7, 2024
- 10:36 pm
- Israel
Shimon Briman on the website “Details” reported on August 6, 2024 that the Tel Aviv University hosted the first ceremony of the Mark Azbel Prize, dedicated to the memory of the outstanding physicist and dissident who fought against the Soviet regime for repatriation to Israel. Mark Azbel (1932-2020) received his higher education and began his scientific career at Kharkiv University.
At the age of 25, he became a doctor of science, having received glowing reviews from Academician Lev Landau. Since 1964, Azbel headed a department at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Moscow, continuing his scientific discoveries.
Shimon Briman notes that one of Azbel's greatest achievements was his refusal to participate in the development of new types of nuclear weapons for the Soviet regime. From the late 1960s, he participated in the dissident movement and was persecuted by the KGB for trying to emigrate to Israel. In the early 1970s, after being denied exit, Azbel headed an international scientific seminar of refusenik scientists, which was also attended by Academician Andrei Sakharov.
Since 1973, Mark Azbel has held a professorship at Tel Aviv University in absentia. The author mentions that Azbel lectured on physics to students in Israel by telephone from Moscow until his repatriation in 1977. The following decades of Azbel's scientific activity in Israel were connected with TAU.
Shimon Briman reports that Mark Azbel's widow, Irina Kolodna, came up with an initiative to perpetuate the scientist's memory in 2024. At her suggestion, Mark Azbel Prizes were established at the physics departments of two universities – Kharkiv National and Tel Aviv.
We have already written about this – The prize awarded to Israeli scholar and dissident Mark Azbel will benefit his home university in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Irina Kolodna is giving $25,000 to each of the two universities, so that the laureates will receive $5,000 over five years. Both universities will select the laureates of the annual Mark Azbel Prize for young researchers in theoretical physics.
“I am sure that Mark would have done exactly that – he would have sent aid to the Kharkiv University, where he studied and began his scientific career, and which is now going through hard times together with Ukraine due to Russia’s aggression,” Irina Kolodna said at a meeting with the Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel, Yevgeny Korniychuk, according to the author.
Shimon reports that the first Israeli laureate of the Mark Azbel Prize was PhD student Noa Feldman. The award ceremony took place at Tel Aviv University as part of a scientific colloquium, where Professor Alexander Palevsky spoke about the life and struggle of Mark Azbel against the Soviet system.
The first Ukrainian laureate of the Mark Azbel Prize was Dr. Zakhar Maizelis, a young professor in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Kharkiv National University. Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Brodsky presented him with the award at a ceremony in the main hall of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv.
Academician Ruslan Vovk, dean of the physics department of Kharkiv National University, noted in the university newspaper: “Mark Azbel's scientific discoveries were worthy of the Nobel Prize. Our department remembers Azbel and values his contribution to the development of science. The establishment of the Azbel Prize will help young scientists to conduct promising research within the framework of our university.”
Thus, the Mark Azbel Prizes, established by Irina Kolodnaya, not only contribute to the development of science, but also unite Ukraine and Israel, two countries that played an important role in the fate of Professor Mark Azbel, the author notes.
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