For five decades not a single university has been established with the blessing of the Council for Higher Education or the Planning and Budgeting Committee. During these years, dramatic changes took place in all the higher education systems in European countries and new universities were opened that absorbed the demographic growth and helped cultivate local intellectual abilities and, among other things, contributed to improving ties between the center and the periphery. The Upper Galilee is one of the areas hardest hit by the policy of not opening new universities. Now is the time to change that trend. 

There is no doubt that the college revolution that took place in the Galilee region had an important impact, but the many colleges that were opened during this revolution cannot exhaust the growth and cultivation required in the Galilee. A university to be established in Safed, located in the center of the Galilee, will be a new and important pillar in advancing the ideas put forward by the leaders of Zionism - Dr. Haim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion. 

Safed University will be established and developed as an institution for research and higher education that strives to reach the pinnacle of achievements in world science. From its inception, the new university will be a place to study all the diverse contents of modern culture and will promote interdisciplinary collaboration in teaching and research. 

In the first stage, we will face the pursuit of advancing the natural sciences through dedicated research institutes. We find this the first and important goal of the University of Safed - to develop excellence in research in the natural sciences alongside training students at all levels of academic training that will be a focus for profound change in all areas of life in the city. 

The new university and the city of Safed will rely on each other. We aim to establish a modern and modern employment infrastructure that has a positive impact on the fabric of life in Safed. Alongside the university, high-tech, science and medical centers will be established, which will be built on the basis of cultivating the natural sciences at the highest level in the world. Science and advanced industry parks will link science and industry and turn research ideas into world-leading knowledge companies. 

The University of Safed will be a center for the social strengthening of the periphery, based on scientific and technological strengthening. Safed will realize its potential and will be an attraction for the younger generation. Today, Safed has about 35,000 residents, and as of these years it is ranked in cluster 2 out of 10 in the socio-economic ranking - the city with the enormous potential is slipping and weakening. This national project of the growth of Safed University will lead to economic and educational renewal, which will allow Safed and the Galilee to flourish, and will change the status of the city from end to end, from a place that fights the abandonment of residents to the pearl of the Galilee. 

The University of Safed is intended for all citizens of the State of Israel and will be a tool that will be filled with democratic and liberal content that will bring in the best of scientists, scholars and students from Israeli society and beyond. A place designed for expansion and growth, which will help realize the human potential in Israeli society. The University of Safed will strive to cultivate a community that expresses a wide range of attitudes, worldviews and cultures. The University will work to create and maintain a non-discriminatory academic environment against the background of the community, national, ethnic, religious or gender affiliation of the students and faculty. 

Safed University will be a social and cultural space that will be visited by diverse groups in Israeli society: secular, national religious, ultra-Orthodox, Arabs, new immigrants, residents of the center and the periphery. It will be a crossroads of meeting and opportunity for acquaintance and renewed discourse on the basis of respect, tolerance and sharing and of research and academic excellence with a view to producing common infrastructures in the existence and practice of Israeli society. A place where the prayers for the good of society in Israel and with humanity will be fulfilled through research and academic excellence. 

We are now facing the establishment of a public council for the establishment of Safed University, a council that will bring together public figures, scientists and scholars from Israel and abroad, donors from Israel and the Diaspora, who will formulate the action plan to promote the common vision. Our ambition is that the eyes of millions of Israelis and the entire Diaspora of Israel around the world will be married to the success of Safed University and the transformation of the city into a vibrant urban center that looks to the future.

Shuki Ohana is the mayor of Safed; Dr. Uri Cohen is a senior lecturer at the School of Education at Tel Aviv University