GRAPEVINE: The Adams family | The Jerusalem Post

■ ON MONDAY, June 25, the Jerusalem-headquartered Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities will present the prestigious Adams Fellowships to eight outstanding doctoral students in natural sciences, life sciences, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. The fellowships, donated by billionaire Holocaust survivor and War of Independence veteran Marcel Adams of Montreal, grants each recipient a stipend of NIS 100,000 per year for three or four years of study and an additional $3,000 a year for travel abroad for professional advancement, in addition to exemption from tuition.

The recipients are Adar Adamsky, brain sciences, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Ayelet Arazi, brain sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Yaron Ben-Ami, aerospace engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology; Anael Ben-Asher, chemistry, Technion; Yoav Levine, computer science, HU; Itai Linial, physics, HU; Eran Lustig, physics, Technion; David Mass, computer science, Bar-Ilan University.

The awards ceremony will take place during the annual Adams Seminar, held each year for all the program’s current participants. Guest speaker will be Peretz Lavie, professor of biological psychiatry and president of the Technion. An international specialist in sleep research, Lavie will lecture on “My Heroes in Sleep Research.”

Dr. Julian Adams, son of Marcel Adams and developer of the cancer drug Velcade, will greet the new fellows on behalf of the Adams family.

He was recently appointed chairman and CEO of the biotech company Gamida Cell, owned by Clal Biotechnology Industries, where Adams also serves as scientific adviser, and Elbit Medical Technologies.

So far, 119 promising young Israeli researchers have received Adams fellowships, including those currently in the program. Its graduates have gone on to postdoctoral training at some of the world’s most distinguished universities.

Marcel Adams established the fellowship fund in his name at the academy in 2005. Born in Romania in 1920, and living in Canada since 1951, he will celebrate his 98th birthday in August. Two of his children live in Israel. Sylvan Adams, who was behind the highly publicized Giro d’Italia bicycle riding contest starting off in Jerusalem, lives with his London-born wife, Margaret, in Tel Aviv, and Linda Adams-Troy, with her husband, Prof. Gil Troy, lives in Jerusalem. Gil Troy is a regular columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

■ THE JERUSALEM Center for Public Affairs is hosting a book launch of The Caliph and the Ayatollah: Our World Under Siege, by Jerusalem-based Italian journalist Fiamma Nirenstein, who took time out from her career to enter politics and in 2008 was elected to the Italian Parliament, where she served as vice president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies. She returned to Israel permanently in 2013, after concluding her term as a legislator.

The book launch will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, June 25, at the JCPA, 13 Tel Hai Street, and will include a panel discussion in the author’s presence, with Dore Gold, president of the JCPA, Charles Small, director, Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, and Ruthie Blum, author, editor at Gatestone Institute, and a former senior editor at the Post.

The book, which deals with the Iranian project to create an atomic bomb and the parallel fight by Sunni Islamic State to dominate Christians, Jews, and Muslims, appears to many as political fiction. However, Nirenstein sheds light on the siege that Shi’ite and Sunni extremist ideologies have placed upon the world, and the reasons why they will not yield unless international forces unite to defeat them.

She is currently a senior fellow at the JCPA. She is the author of several books on antisemitism and Israelophobia. People wanting to attend the launch must register in advance with ahuva@jcpa.org or telephone (02) 561-9281.

■ IN AN effort to bring some of the iconic treasures of most of Israel’s museums to the attention of the wider public, the Knesset, as part of the nation’s 70th anniversary celebrations, is hosting a comprehensive exhibition curated by Prof. Dana Artieli. The exhibition, which reflects the history of the country as well as of the state, includes archeology, nature, Judaica, science and ethnography. It will open on Wednesday, June 27, and will remain on view till August 10.

During the course of the exhibition, there will also be gallery talks that will be advertised in the media.