Elisha Netanyahu
Encyclopedia
Elisha Netanyahu was an Israel
i mathematician
specializing in complex analysis
. Over the course of his work at the Technion he was the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences and established the separate Department of Mathematics. Historian Benzion Netanyahu
is his brother and Benjamin Netanyahu
, current Prime Minister of Israel
is his nephew.
, Poland
(earlier part of the Russian Empire
) to the writer
and Zionist activist Nathan Mileikowsky. He was the third of nine children. In 1920 the family made Aliyah
to Palestine
. The family eventually settled in Jerusalem and adopted Hebrew name
Netanyahu.
Netanyahu went to the Reali School in Haifa, from which he graduated in 1930. He later returned to Reali in 1935 to teach mathematics there. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
, from which he received his BS, MA and Ph.D. (1942). His advisors were Michael Fekete and Binyamin Amira. After the graduation he joined the British Army
as a volunteer, serving in Egypt
and then in Italy
as an officer in a unit of the Royal Engineering Corps
. He specialized in preparation of maps, which he continued to do during Israel's War of Independence in 1948.
After he was demobilized in 1946, he became a lecturer at the Technion. He rose to a professor in 1958, and later became the head of the Mathematics Section, then as Dean of the Faculty of Sciences. His administrative efforts also played an important role towards establishment of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
.
He had long term visits at Stanford University
(1953–4), the Courant Institute (1961), the University of New Mexico
(1969), the University of Maryland, College Park
(1973), and ETH Zürich
(1979). In 1980, Netanyahu retired from the Technion and moved to Jerusalem, where he died of cancer in 1986.
Throughout his long career, Netanyahu collaborated with Paul Erdős
, Charles Loewner
and other leading mathematicians, continuing and expanding the analytical traditions at the Technion.
, his former student at the Reali, who later became the second female justice at the Israel Supreme Court. They had two children: Nathan (b. 1951), a professor of computer science
at Bar-Ilan University
, and Dan (b. 1954), an information systems
auditor.
, Lipman Bers
, Enrico Bombieri
, Charles Fefferman
, Samuel Karlin
, David Kazhdan
, Louis Nirenberg
, Terence Tao
, Wendelin Werner
, and Don Zagier
.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
specializing in complex analysis
Complex analysis
Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is useful in many branches of mathematics, including number theory and applied mathematics; as well as in physics,...
. Over the course of his work at the Technion he was the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences and established the separate Department of Mathematics. Historian Benzion Netanyahu
Benzion Netanyahu
Benzion Netanyahu is an Israeli historian and a professor emeritus at Cornell University. He is a specialist in the golden age of Jewish History in Spain, and is known for his opus, the Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain...
is his brother and Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is the current Prime Minister of Israel. He serves also as the Chairman of the Likud Party, as a Knesset member, as the Health Minister of Israel, as the Pensioner Affairs Minister of Israel and as the Economic Strategy Minister of Israel.Netanyahu is the first and, to...
, current Prime Minister of Israel
Prime Minister of Israel
The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...
is his nephew.
Biography
Netanyahu was born in WarsawWarsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(earlier part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
) to the writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and Zionist activist Nathan Mileikowsky. He was the third of nine children. In 1920 the family made Aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. The family eventually settled in Jerusalem and adopted Hebrew name
Hebrew name
Hebrew names are names that have a Hebrew language origin, classically from the Hebrew Bible. They are mostly used by people living in Jewish or Christian parts of the world, but some are also adapted to the Islamic world, particularly if a Hebrew name is mentioned in the Qur'an. When...
Netanyahu.
Netanyahu went to the Reali School in Haifa, from which he graduated in 1930. He later returned to Reali in 1935 to teach mathematics there. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
, from which he received his BS, MA and Ph.D. (1942). His advisors were Michael Fekete and Binyamin Amira. After the graduation he joined the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
as a volunteer, serving in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and then in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
as an officer in a unit of the Royal Engineering Corps
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
. He specialized in preparation of maps, which he continued to do during Israel's War of Independence in 1948.
After he was demobilized in 1946, he became a lecturer at the Technion. He rose to a professor in 1958, and later became the head of the Mathematics Section, then as Dean of the Faculty of Sciences. His administrative efforts also played an important role towards establishment of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is a university in Beersheba, Israel, established in 1969. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has a current enrollment of 17,400 students, and is one of Israel's fastest growing universities....
.
He had long term visits at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
(1953–4), the Courant Institute (1961), the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
(1969), the University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
(1973), and ETH Zürich
ETH Zurich
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....
(1979). In 1980, Netanyahu retired from the Technion and moved to Jerusalem, where he died of cancer in 1986.
Throughout his long career, Netanyahu collaborated with Paul Erdős
Paul Erdos
Paul Erdős was a Hungarian mathematician. Erdős published more papers than any other mathematician in history, working with hundreds of collaborators. He worked on problems in combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, classical analysis, approximation theory, set theory, and probability theory...
, Charles Loewner
Charles Loewner
Charles Loewner was an American mathematician. His name was Karel Löwner in Czech and Karl Löwner in German.Loewner received his Ph.D...
and other leading mathematicians, continuing and expanding the analytical traditions at the Technion.
Personal life
In 1949 Netanyahu married Shoshana ShenburgShoshana Netanyahu
Shoshana Netanyahu is an Israeli lawyer and judge, a former justice at the Supreme Court of Israel. She is a widow of mathematician Elisha Netanyahu , uncle of Benjamin Netanyahu, current Prime Minister of Israel.- Biography :...
, his former student at the Reali, who later became the second female justice at the Israel Supreme Court. They had two children: Nathan (b. 1951), a professor of computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
at Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University is a university in Ramat Gan of the Tel Aviv District, Israel.Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is now Israel's second-largest academic institution. It has nearly 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members...
, and Dan (b. 1954), an information systems
Information systems
Information Systems is an academic/professional discipline bridging the business field and the well-defined computer science field that is evolving toward a new scientific area of study...
auditor.
Elisha Netanyahu Memorial Lectures
The Elisha Netanyahu Memorial Lecture Series was established by the Netanyahu family and the Technion to honor the memory in 1987 with the first lecture by Paul Erdős. In other years, the speakers included Lars Ahlfors, Robert AumannRobert Aumann
Robert John Aumann is an Israeli-American mathematician and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel...
, Lipman Bers
Lipman Bers
Lipman Bers was an American mathematician born in Riga who created the theory of pseudoanalytic functions and worked on Riemann surfaces and Kleinian groups.-Biography:...
, Enrico Bombieri
Enrico Bombieri
Enrico Bombieri is a mathematician who has been working at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Bombieri's research in number theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical analysis have earned him many international prizes --- a Fields Medal in 1974 and the Balzan Prize in 1980...
, Charles Fefferman
Charles Fefferman
Charles Louis Fefferman is an American mathematician at Princeton University. His primary field of research is mathematical analysis....
, Samuel Karlin
Samuel Karlin
Samuel Karlin was an American mathematician at Stanford University in the late 20th century.Karlin was born in Yanova, Poland and immigrated to Chicago as a child...
, David Kazhdan
David Kazhdan
David Kazhdan or Každan, Kazhdan, formerly named Dmitry Aleksandrovich Kazhdan , is a Soviet and Israeli mathematician known for work in representation theory.-Life:...
, Louis Nirenberg
Louis Nirenberg
Louis Nirenberg is a Canadian mathematician, and one of the outstanding analysts of the twentieth century. He has made fundamental contributions to linear and nonlinear partial differential equations and their application to complex analysis and geometry.He was born in Hamilton, Ontario and...
, Terence Tao
Terence Tao
Terence Chi-Shen Tao FRS is an Australian mathematician working primarily on harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, combinatorics, analytic number theory and representation theory...
, Wendelin Werner
Wendelin Werner
Wendelin Werner is a German-born French mathematician working in the area of self-avoiding random walks, Schramm-Loewner evolution, and related theories in probability theory and mathematical physics. In 2006, at the 25th International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain he received the...
, and Don Zagier
Don Zagier
Don Bernard Zagier is an American mathematician whose main area of work is number theory. He is currently one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, Germany, and a professor at the Collège de France in Paris, France.He was born in Heidelberg, Germany...
.