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J E R U S A L E M I T E S

An occasional series of interviews with notable veteran or more
recent olim who have chosen to make their homes in Jerusalem.
David
Olivestone

YISRAEL AUMANN

Yisrael (Robert J.) Aumann was awarded the Nobel Prize
in Economics in 2005 for his groundbreaking work in
expanding the study of game theory. At 91 years old, Prof.
Aumann, a charming and gracious man who lives in the
Baka neighborhood in Jerusalem, can still be found every
day in his office at the Hebrew University, when he is not
away hiking, skiing or delivering a guest lecture.

You were born in 1930 in Frankfurt. meet, but my brother and I still had Gemara, how did you choose whether
Tell me about your family background. a beautiful childhood and they gave to further your education at yeshivah
us a very good Jewish and general or at university?
My father was a businessman, a fine,
upright man and a warm and loving education. It was a very hard choice. I agonized
father. My mother was extraordinary, over it and for a while I tried to do
with a bachelor’s degree at a time Back then, were you regarded as a both. I would take the subway every
when that was very unusual for bright student? day from my home in Brooklyn to
women. She was an accomplished Even up to the eighth grade I was not City College in uptown Manhattan,
singer and a medal-winning swimmer. regarded as a good student. In fact, then down to the Lower East Side to
She introduced my brother and me at one point I was evaluated and was learn Gemara, and later back uptown
to nature, telling us the names of told that since I was very good with my to college, and then home again
all the trees as we passed them. At hands, I should think about learning to Brooklyn. But after half a year I
night she taught us the names of the a trade. couldn’t keep it up and I had to choose.
constellations in the sky. In the end I chose math, because it’s
just beautiful, beautiful stuff; it really
When did you begin to shine?
When did you leave Germany, and is. It’s precise logical thinking, very
where did you go? After elementary school, I attended deep, very involved.
the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Yeshiva High
In 1938, just prior to Kristallnacht, we School, and there I had two excellent,
emigrated to the United States. My inspiring teachers who took a personal How did you become interested in
parents thought first about coming interest in me, one in math and one game theory?
to Eretz Yisrael, but they identified with After I got my doctorate at MIT, I did
Agudat Yisrael which was against the in Gemara, so I was captivated by a post-doc at Princeton University and
establishment of the State, and in both these subjects. These were the had a job in an operations research
formative years; this is where I was
any case they felt that the business consulting firm. Operations research
opportunities in the USA were more formed, in that high school. is a very, very practical branch of
promising. When we came to New mathematics. I was assigned to
York we had no money and my parents So after high school, with this deep analyze an actual military situation
worked very, very hard to make ends interest in both mathematics and that made me recall what I had earlier

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