Avishay Braverman

Braverman was born on January 15, 1948, in Ramat Yitzhak, Ramat Gan.[1] His parents had immigrated from Poland and Lithuania; his father worked as a carpenter and his mother as a kindergarten teacher.[1] He attended the Aliyot elementary school and Blich High School, where he captained the basketball team, and enrolled in an academic reserve program before military service.[1][2]

He served in the Israel Defense Forces as an officer with the rank of lieutenant, working in systems analysis.[1] Braverman earned an undergraduate degree with distinction in economics and statistics from Tel Aviv University in 1968 and subsequently studied for a master's degree in economics there in 1971–1972.[1] He then pursued doctoral studies at Stanford University, where he taught in the economics department from 1974 to 1976 and encountered professors Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz — both future Nobel laureates — with Stiglitz and Mordechai Kurz supervising his doctoral work.[1] He received his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford in 1976.[3]

After completing his doctorate, Braverman joined the World Bank in Washington, where he worked for approximately fourteen years.[2] He served as an economist and senior economist from 1976 to 1987, then as director of the Bank's agricultural policy department from 1987 to 1990.[1] His work took him to South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, engaging with the Bank's research programs, development projects, and policy initiatives across those regions.[3][1]

During this period Braverman developed a scholarly focus on development economics, agricultural economics, industrial organization, public policy, and the management of water resources.[3] His publications from the early 1990s include "Improving rural finance in developing countries" with M. Huppi, "Promoting rural cooperatives in developing countries: the case of sub-Saharan Africa" with J. L. Guasch, M. Huppi, and L. Pohlmeier, and "Agriculture and the Transition to the Market" with K. Brooks, J. Guasch, and C. Csaki.[4] He also co-authored "Administrative failures in government credit programs" with Joseph L. Guasch in 1993 and contributed work on commodity-price stabilization and policy reform in Brazil.[4]

The 1993 volume "The economics of rural organization: theory, practice, and policy," co-authored with K. Hoff and Joseph Stiglitz, has accumulated 167 Scopus citations.[4] A pair of 1995 works addressed regional water issues: the chapter "Solving the water problem of the Middle East," co-authored with N. Hassid and S. Drori, and the article "Water — an Element of Peace and Conflict."[4]

Braverman became president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 1990 and held the post until 2006.[2] When he assumed the role, the university enrolled about 5,700 students, carried a large budget deficit, and faced a recommendation that it be reconstituted as a college rather than a full university.[2] By the time he stepped down, enrollment exceeded 17,000 students and the budget deficit had been eliminated.[2]

Braverman's vision for the university linked academic excellence with widening access to higher education and economic development in the Negev.[1] He pursued efforts to bring residents of development towns, Beersheba neighborhoods, and minority communities — including Arab and Bedouin populations — into the university, alongside investment in research facilities, classrooms, student housing, and scholarships.[1] The Israel Prize citation states that the student body included approximately 1,200 Arab and 400 Bedouin students at the time described.[1]

Research infrastructure built or established during his tenure included the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev, nanotechnology facilities, information-technology and telecommunications laboratories, and the Goldman medical school.[5][1] The university also developed research institutes and programs in water, desert studies, agriculture, and Israeli and Jewish literature and culture, as well as programs in international medical and desert studies.[1] Campuses were developed in Beersheba, Eilat, and Sde Boker during this period.[2]

Braverman secured approximately 600 dunams near the university for a technology-and-employment park and laid its cornerstone with Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1999; he is also credited with helping bring Deutsche Telekom to the park and advocating for the relocation of army communications and computing units to the area.[1] A railway station serving the university was developed during this era as well.[2] He served three times as head of the Committee of University Heads between 1991 and 2005.[1] Following his presidency, he remained affiliated with the university as an Emeritus Full Professor in the Department of Business Administration.[4]

Braverman announced in 2005 that he would seek a place on the Labor Party's Knesset list, placed fourth in the party's 2006 primaries, and entered the Knesset that year.[6] He served until the Knesset's dissolution in 2014.[6] In the Knesset he chaired both the Finance Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee and served as chairman of the Pensioners' Lobby.[7][6]

As Finance Committee chair in 2009, he led a policy that established a safety net for savers during a period of savings erosion.[5]

Braverman served as Minister of Minority Affairs from March 2009 until his resignation on January 17, 2011, following Ehud Barak's departure from the Labor Party and the party's exit from the governing coalition.[7][5] In that role, working with the prime minister's backing, he pursued initiatives aimed at promoting equal opportunity and developing economic and educational capabilities in Arab society, framing Arab citizens' advancement as a contribution to Israel's broader growth.[8] Initiatives during his ministerial tenure included 1,600 scholarships for outstanding Bedouin students, support for research laboratories in Triangle communities, and assistance in establishing a national research and development center for Israel's Druze population.[5]

In December 2014, Braverman informed Labor leader Isaac Herzog that he would not seek a place on the party's next electoral list, saying he felt he had exhausted that political field.[6] Before his Knesset career he had also served on a public committee for selecting bank directors, on the U.S.-Israel Commission on High Technology in 1993, as chair of the Jerusalem Prize for Literature jury in 2003, and as chair of a reserve-service reform committee in 2005.[1]

Braverman received the Ben-Gurion Prize in 1999 for his leadership in developing the Negev.[3] He was designated Knight of Quality Government in education in 2001 and received Beersheba's "beloved resident" certificate in 2005.[5][9] He became a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2011 and received that body's Tolerance Award in 2017.[1] He was also a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and of the Israeli-American High-Tech Commission for Science and Technology.[3]

In 2020, Braverman received the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement and special contribution to society and the state for his contribution to the development of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.[10] The expansion of the university from about 5,700 students to more than 17,000, the elimination of its budget deficit, and the establishment of major biotechnology and nanotechnology research institutes form the central institutional legacy of his presidency.[2][5]

As chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee, Braverman oversaw consideration of the Food Law. Calcalist criticized the committee process, reporting that deliberations began slowly and shifted to marathon sessions as the end of the Knesset term approached, with the remaining provisions approved without sufficiently thorough discussion. Braverman said he did not expect the law to lower prices.[6]

At a November 2009 seminar on government policy toward Arab citizens, Braverman argued that a lack of mutual listening between Jewish and Arab society bred ignorance and racism, which he characterized as a sign of failed leadership.[8] He framed the question in stark terms: "Either we embrace them and they become equal citizens or we press the young people into becoming our enemies. The choice is ours…this is a test for the government."[8]

While serving as chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee, Braverman opposed the planned acquisition of Tnuva by China's state-controlled Bright Food, which completed the 8.6-billion-NIS purchase in March 2015. He introduced a bill proposing ministerial review of major companies being sold to foreign parties, aiming to establish a body that would "forbid the sale of large companies to foreign parties."[11] His stated concern was that, in a future political-security crisis, foreign companies holding strategic Israeli knowledge and assets might move capital, research, and development abroad or advance the interests of states Israel regards as enemies.[11]

In a 2005 interview, Braverman argued that Israel's political system needed reform and expressed support for a presidential model of government, which he believed could improve ministerial appointments and reduce destabilizing cabinet reshuffles.[9] He also described increasing private industrial investment in the Negev as his principal objective at the time, contending that regional economic growth depended on government incentives for investors and on encouraging young Israelis to relocate there.[9]