Rim Yeshayahu

Yeshayahu Rim was born in Czernovitz, Romania in 1922. After surviving the horrors of WW2, he fled to Palestine (Israel) in 1944. He completed his first degree in Psychology and History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He served in the army in the Psycho technical Unit, and after that he studied in England, at the Institute of Psychiatry, under the direction of Professor Hans Eysenk.

Upon his return to Israel, he worked in various research positions, at the Talbiyeh Hospital, the Civil Service, and The Institute for Social Research. He was married to Shulamit, and had two daughters, Carmela and Orna.

He joined the Department of General Studies at the Technion—Israel Inst of Technology in 1956, and, later, joined the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. There he remained as a member of the Area of Behavioral Sciences, until his retirement in 1991, at the rank of Full Professor.

Yeshayahu Rim was the senior industrial psychologist in Israel, and he trained hundreds of students of engineering and of social sciences, and contributed to the Area of Behavioral Sciences at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. He established the Laboratory of Industrial Psychology at the Technion and managed it for over twenty years (1960-1983). Over 35,000 subjects from industrial enterprises in the Haifa area were tested at the Laboratory for job selection and for training, as well as subjects for the numerous studies which he conducted. He was also instrumental in setting up the testing procedure for the entrance examinations of medical students at the Technion. His book “The selection of workers by means of interview and psychological tests” was the first of its kind in Israel.

The focus of Yehayahu Rim’s scientific work were individual differences and the variety of situational factors, social context and attitudes related to personality. He also engaged in studies of coping with stress. He published well over one hundred and twenty papers in prestigious scientific journals, and was cited by numerous scholars. He was a guest lecturer at several European universities, and was known as a witty and erudite scholar.

May he rest in peace.