March 1, 2018, Updated April 21, 2020
Nobel winners Robert Aumann (left) and Thomas Schelling. Photo courtesy

• In the year that Microsoft’s Bill Gates calls Israel a high-tech superpower, Prof. Robert Aumann of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wins the Nobel Prize in Economics along with Prof. Thomas Schelling of the University of Maryland for their work “enhancing our understanding our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.”

• Israel sends significant aid to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The following year, Dr. Naomi Baum, an Israeli expert in psychotrauma, initiates the Building Resilience in Schools Project in New Orleans with the help of the United Jewish Communities, The Mental Health Association of Mississippi and the Israel Trauma Coalition. The project trains teachers, social workers, school nurses and counselors to help school children affected by the tragedy.

• Using ancient seeds found in Masada in the early 1960s, Dr. Sarah Sallon and Dr. Elaine Solowey resurrect the Judean date palm, one of the early Levant’s most important plants.