Bottom line: We have no connection to the Shin Bet, and we do not organize events of this kind.” Still, such “headhunting” – proactive recruitment of people with specialized skills — by Israel’s security agencies on university campuses is nothing new. The resulting “symbiosis” between the institute and the new department, Rabinovitch wrote, “gave Tel Aviv University a unique status” within Israeli academia. Since 2018, TAU Ventures — a venture-capital fund founded by the university — has jointly operated “the Xcelerator” with the Shin Bet. It was against this backdrop that the university administration dismissed as an “outright fabrication” the claim that TAU was becoming an extension of Israel’s security establishment.