| Shlomo Breznitz | |
|---|---|
| Date of birth | 3 August 1936 |
| Place of birth | Bratislava, Czechoslovakia |
| Year of aliyah | 1949 |
| Knessets | 17 |
| Party | Kadima |
Shlomo Breznitz (Hebrew: שלמה ברזניץ, born 3 August 1936) is an Israeli author, psychologist, former professor of psychology, former rector and president of the University of Haifa,[1] and previous member of the Knesset. He is currently the president and founder of Cognifit, a brain fitness software company.
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Breznitz was born in Bratislava in Czechoslovakia (today Slovakia). During the Holocaust he and his sister were hidden in a Roman Catholic orphanage, an experience detailed in his memoirs, "Memory Fields". His father was killed in Auschwitz,[2] but his mother survived and they made aliyah to Israel in 1949. He studied psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, gaining a BA in 1960, an MA in 1962 and a PhD in 1965, the first person to receive a doctorate in the new field of psychology in Israel.
From 1969 until 1971, Breznitz served as a consultant to the Israeli Air Force on problems of stress. He was the founding director of the Ray D. Wolfe Center for Study of Psychological Stress at the University of Haifa in 1979. Breznitz also has served as the Lady Davis Professor of Psychology and was the visiting professor at the London School of Economics, Berkeley, Stanford, National Institutes of Health and Rockefeller University. He has also been a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington D.C..
He has written seven books and has contributed chapters to over 20 other books in addition to numerous professional articles and research reports. In 1999 he retired from Haifa University to found brain fitness software company, Cognifit. He has been in the forefront of cognitive training using a personal computer and has developed patented technology that turns the personal computer into a tool for providing individualized training programs for a wide range of cognitive skills needed for everyday function and cognitive skills specific to particular fields of interest.
After Ehud Olmert, a personal friend, convinced him to enter politics, Breznitz was elected to the Knesset on the Kadima list in 2006, the first Slovak to become an MK.[3] However, he retired from politics and left the Knesset on 8 October 2007.
Books authored by Breznitz include: