Letters & Articles

Prof. Alon Chen was invited to speak to the Max Planck Senate on the occasion of his inauguration as a new member in November 2023, shortly after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. Here is the text of his speech.

Dear friends, I’m honored and grateful to be here. Thank you for this very special opportunity to speak. As former Director at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, an External Member of the Max Planck Society, and now also a member of this distinguished Senate, the Max Planck Society has been my second home for many years.

After the tragedy that befell Israel on October 7, when Israel was brutally attacked by Hamas, we have received an outpouring of support from our dear friends at Max Planck and throughout Germany. At Weizmann and all over Israel, we are keenly aware of the unwavering support from our German colleagues and the German government. We have seen the solidarity marches, read the many heartfelt letters, and received your phone calls and emails. Please know that your empathy and support are not being taken for granted, and I want to thank everyone in the Max Planck community, and our friends throughout Germany, for your warm and wide embrace.

Israel is experiencing its most difficult moment since its establishment in 1948. We are waging a war against a violent and evil terror organization, which on October 7 carried out a brutal massacre of 1,200 Israelis as well as citizens of other countries. Murdering, raping, mutilating, and burning bodies and homes, they spared no race or religion—Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Among the victims were babies, children, the elderly, and the disabled. Hamas invaded army bases, kibbutz communities, and a music festival and kidnapped more than 240 people into Gaza.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah is sending rockets from Lebanon into our northern communities, and Israelis and IDF soldiers have been killed by rocket fire and other attacks, and the Houthis in Yemen have sent missiles into Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city. At least 200,000 Israelis have been internally displaced by the war, which includes the towns and cities evacuated in the north and the south.

As the Israeli Defense Forces are searching for the hostages in Gaza and fighting Hamas, they found clear evidence that Hamas is using hospitals not only to house the abductees, but to kill some of them. We are horrified to witness the extent of Hamas’s use of the Palestinian civilian population as captive human shields; Hamas has cynically used not only hospitals, but also schools, playgrounds, mosques, and residential buildings as hubs for its terror activities and for storing explosives and ammunition. It has also prevented the International Committee of the Red Cross from receiving full access to the hostages. These actions—against both the Israeli and the Palestinian people—constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.  

The reality is horrifying. Too dreadful and shocking for words. And in the small and intimate country of Israel, the nation is intertwined together in mourning and despair.

We also have all seen the pictures of destruction and devastation in Gaza, and we are deeply saddened by the loss of innocent Palestinian lives.

Part of the sorrow in seeing the scenes and the bloodshed on both sides is the disappointment arises from imagining what could have been, instead. Today we are witnessing the outcome of years of Hamas’s cynical misuse of international aid, which it has funneled into the construction of a vast system of tunnels and weapons facilities to wage war on Israel—rather than for building the pillars of a healthy and vibrant civil society for the Palestinian people. Hamas’s actions thus represent a double injustice: to Palestinians and to Israelis and Jews, whom it has sworn to eradicate.

Like everyone in Israel, our community at the Weizmann Institute has been very much affected. Our research depends heavily on a huge cohort of talented international postdocs and students, and many of them have left Israel or haven’t returned to their labs. The first day of the academic year was originally scheduled for late October and we have postponed it to mid-December. Many of our Israeli postdocs, students, scientists and staff have been called up for reserve duty. So we are doing our utmost to keep our science going, but we are operating at about half-capacity in most labs.

I want to briefly share with you the heartbreaking story of an 88-year-old woman named Ruth Haran—and of course, her story is one of many. Ruth Haran is a member of Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities that was attacked on October 7. Ruth is a Holocaust survivor.

She was interviewed on Israeli television recently. Her son, and the sister of her daughter-in-law, and the sister’s husband, were murdered. Seven other members of her family were kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza. They include her daughter and daughter-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Four are German citizens, including an 8-year-old boy named Naveh and a 3-year-old girl named Yahel.  A kidnapped granddaughter, Noam, is 12 years old. We very much hope that Naveh, Yahel, and Noam and all the captives in this family are on their way home.

When she was interviewed, Ruth said, “I survived the Holocaust. I survived the horrific night of October 7, but my son was murdered. My heart is in pain. I’ve endured pain before, but this time it refuses to subside.”

Other Holocaust survivors were murdered that day, like Moshe Ridler, age 91, from Kibbutz Holit, who was sent to a concentration camp at the age of nine. Like Ruth, Moshe and other survivors became the pioneers who helped build the State of Israel and enabled it to thrive until this day.

The State of Israel has been built on these individual stories of survival and success. Just as the strength and resilience of these people have played a major role in the success of our country, human brainpower has always been one of our main resources. From the very beginning, an emphasis was placed on generating scientific discoveries and inventions, which have indeed become the backbone of Israel’s economy and society.

For over 50 years, our scientific colleagues in Germany have been working with Israeli scientists, enriching and expanding knowledge and discovery. It was the pioneering scientific efforts launched by the Max Planck Society and the Weizmann Institute of Science in the 1960s that laid the groundwork for diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany. Those bold and courageous early efforts led to what is now a robust ecosystem of German-Israeli collaboration in the sciences, which has contributed to growth and development in Germany and Israel alike.

Today, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Max Planck Society continue to be united by a common mission: to advance science for the vast benefits that it brings to humanity; to sustain and improve life, to make it more resilient. Science has the power to do this because it is based on the principles of truth, clarity, morality, democracy, freedom, coexistence, and collaboration. These are the principles of enlightenment that lead us to discover, innovate, and create new knowledge.

Unfortunately, not everyone adheres to the same values, and the opposing forces of progress and destruction were brought into stark and startling reality in the last few weeks. Israel now finds itself on a second front line, in a global war of opinions, facing rising anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism. Ironically, this is playing out on some college and university campuses—the world’s strongholds of knowledge and truth. We are also disillusioned to witness how many major organizations with worthy goals—like women’s rights, children’s health, and human rights—are either silent or outright antagonistic toward Israel, leaving us to infer that antisemitism is an underlying current.

I believe that we, as scientists, academics, and decision-makers in the public sphere, have an even broader role today than before. And that is a collective responsibility to make sure that these same principles that I just mentioned light the way forward for the entire world, illuminating our collective future and dispelling darkness.

While freedom of speech should be welcomed, we must ensure that colleges and universities do not become breeding grounds for hate of any kind, including anti-Israel and anti-Semitic provocation and rhetoric. But as institutions of higher education, we should do more than that. We must use the values of enlightenment that unite us to light the way forward.

As teachers and researchers, we aspire to reveal the truth and make sure that future generations are able to distinguish truth from fiction, right from wrong—and to stand up for what is right. We have a role to play in fine-tuning the moral compass of college and university students. These young individuals today will be the leaders of tomorrow, and they will have the power to sway public opinion. I strongly believe that we should use our institutions of research and education not as ivory towers but as lighthouses.

Before I end, I would like to say that the agreement for the return of some of the hostages, sometime today, gives us reason for optimism. Let us hope that ALL of the hostages return home quickly.

Thank you again for inviting me to join the Max Planck Senate, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come. I want to restate my gratitude for the friendship and solidarity here in Germany, and at the Max Planck Society in particular. It will be cherished now, and remembered far into the future.