The ‘happening’ opening the 2025 (5785) academic year

With bated breath, thousands of students awaited the start of the new academic year, regularly celebrated at a ‘happening’. The Student Union girded their loins and produced a fair reminding everyone of the importance of learning, while also demonstrating that studying towards a degree should also be a pleasurable experience.

So, what did we experience? This fair began the semester with a variety of sales stands, opening-year gifts, food stands—and, of course, a lottery with especially good prizes. As for artistic performances, the well-known rapper duo (Ness ve-Stilla) came to SCE’s Be’er-Sheva Campus, and performed their chart-topping hits—“Migdalim,” “Ḥarbu darbu” and “Bumperim”—getting the students up on their feet. There’s no doubt that this duo, who recently won Israel’s Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers award as this year’s discovery, represent the newest, rebuffing young voice, for which they received thunderous applause. In addition, singer Lior Narkis, who has been successfully reinventing himself for over 30 years and could probably teach Ness and Stilla a thing or two about the music industry, performed many of his hit songs, causing the students to sing loudly with him—thus, beginning the new academic year in high spirits, with good energy.  

On the Ashdod Campus of SCE, the students also enjoyed a fair celebrating the start of the new academic year, with food and drink stands. In this port city, the students were treated to a clever and hilarious stand-up performance by Ḥen Mizraḥi, who has a large and faithful fan following, who never miss his videoclips aired on social media and always attend his comedy gigs.

Amit Dekel, Chairman of the SCE Ashdod Student Council, recalls: “After a challenging year, full of doubts among the students, we planned the year’s opening event in the spirit of the period. We are very happy to start this new academic year together with our students. Nevertheless, we still bear in mind that we are engaged in war, and that there are many reservists and military servicemen/women who are still missing their studies, because they are safeguarding us, so we may study. I wish all the students a good and peaceful year, so that we may fully return to our campus routine, together will all our colleagues—that all our reservists return to us in peace and resume their academic studies without interruptions.”