As more Modern Orthodox American students choose to attend Israeli universities, the Orthodox Union is expanding its Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC) initiatives at Tel Aviv University and Bar- Ilan University, buoyed by a new major donation from longtime Yeshiva University donor Dr. Monique Katz and her family, an OU representative told eJewishPhilanthropy.

This $6 million donation and the growing focus on Israeli universities more generally comes amid a broader trend of American Jewish donors shifting contributions from U.S. institutions of higher learning to Israeli ones, following the 2024 protest movement and heightened concerns about campus antisemitism after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

The gift from the Katz family, the largest single donor contribution to the OU and JLIC, will honor Monique Katz’s late husband, Mordecai D. Katz, the philanthropist who spent 12 years as chairman of Bar-Ilan University’s board of trustees. The gift will support programming at both TAU and Bar-Ilan University, and the program at Tel Aviv University will be named after Katz in perpetuity. 

“Supporting JLIC at Tel Aviv University and Bar-Ilan honors everything my husband Morty stood for,” Katz said in a statement. “He believed that Jewish education is the foundation of Jewish continuity, and that quality matters.”

JLIC, the Orthodox Union’s program that places married educator couples on college campuses to support Jewish student life, was founded in 2000 to support campuses in the United States. Some eight years ago, the organization introduced its first couple in Israel. Now, there are 15, Rabbi Josh Joseph, the Orthodox Union’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, told eJP. 

According to Joseph, some 20% of Orthodox graduating high school students in the U.S. are attending university in Israel, a trend that the organization has been observing since before the COVID-19 pandemic. “Modern, centrist Orthodox day school students are now going to college in Israel, and JLIC in Israel is serving something like 4,000 young people,” he said. “So that’s more and more students, right? That’s more and more people to engage with. The more they’re there, the more we need to be there.”

According to a statement, the funding will “significantly strengthen” JLIC’s support for TAU’s 2,500 international students, including Shabbat meals, religious opportunities and guidance, as well as social programming. The donation will also support the expansion of university staff, said Joseph.