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Showing posts from September, 2024

🎓WELCOME to Tel Aviv University and its International Community of Researchers🎓

Introduction of the Blog and WA group guidelines

  Welcome to the first TAU international Volunteers-managed blog! This blog has been created to give complementary information to the graduated students of TAU and to create a community where we can share thoughts and information. This blog is not affiliated to any of the TAU services or bureaucratic apparatus and it is meant to be an informal tool where people can be updated, alongside the Whatsapp group and the informal word-of-mouth. Each student or post-doc is more than welcome to approach and participate in the creation of this blog, acting as a volunteer (with a little basic commitment) but also as an user, where they can collect any sort of information. All of the content posted on this blog is under the responsibility of the person who wrote it and posted it. UPDATE 06.11.23  Guidelines for the WhatsApp group  1.Respect & Kindness: Treat all members with respect and kindness. Be mindful of your tone and language.  2. Stay On Topic: Keep discussions releva...

A few tips on Rav Kav - the card for travelling in Israel

 As Wikipedia defines it, Rav-Kav (Hebrew: רב-קו, lit. "multi-line") is a reusable contactless stored value smart card for making electronic payments as a joint fare collection system for the different public transportation operators across Israel. Whether you are a tourist or a resident in Israel, the Rav Kav is a MUST. It is a very flexible way to get around the city and travel around the country (ahi ahi, except for the Shabbat time).  Actually, recently they implemented the Rav Kav access on the Monit Sherut (the shared taxi that travels across the cities also on Shabbat), but we highly recommend to check with the drivers! On the official Rav Kav webpage, they claim that the lines associated with the RavKav are the 4 and the 5 but they won't accept Rav Kav payments on Shabbat, probably because the price is different or the company does not work. In order to get a Rav Kav, you can either get it from an office, for example the one in the Airport, from a vending machin...

It is the time to bring up the discrimination problem (of the international researchers)

THINGS HAPPEN Academia is virtuous. Or at least this is what we are used to thinking, and what is appealing about it. But we know that reality is way much more complicated, and things happen, no matter where or when. A while ago we had a first conversation with the International Office (The Lowy International School) representatives, hinting to the unexpected (or expectable?!) happenings that got to us with a whispering word of mouth, where discrimination and offensive behavior or words were displayed and condoned as they were normal. Let's take for example that time in 2020-2021 when in the Life Sciences faculty we all received an email from the dean, condemning the behavior of some people who disrespectfully told our Chinese fellows that they are to blame for the virus and that they are spreading it across the University. Or - something happening repetitively - the comments from some PI towards the Asian students, stating that they should work day and night, implying that they sh...