Jonathan Gray, the head of the investment firm Blackstone, and his wife, Mindy, are donating $125 million to Tel Aviv University’s health science and medical school, allowing the school to increase the number of students that it accepts by a third — a major boon for Israel as the country faces an existing and growing doctor shortage.

“Particularly these days, when Israel is dealing with a harsh war and with thousands of casualties, this important donation will help us strengthen our support for the national effort and significantly increase the medical system in Israel, beginning with doctors and nurses, and with [addressing] communication disorders, physical therapy, occupational therapy and more,” Dr. Keren Avraham, the dean of the health science and medical school, said in a statement. 

Tel Aviv University’s medical school — the country’s largest — currently accepts some 300 students each year. With the new donation, the school will be able to increase this to 400 annually. Avraham noted that the construction of new dormitories for the school will allow it to accept more students from the country’s geographic periphery.

The number of physicians per capita in Israel is more than 10% lower than the OECD average and has been projected to get worse. In the early 1990s, with the fall of the Soviet Union, Israel saw a massive wave of immigration, bringing with it many doctors and nurses. Those doctors are starting to retire at a faster rate than Israeli medical schools are able to replace them. Fearing low standards, Israel has also refused to accept some medical degrees from abroad — further fueling the shortage.

The Israeli government has been working to address this in recent years, opening three new medical schools — at Haifa University, Ariel University and Reichman University; canceling programs for international students that were considered a drain on domestic resources; and encouraging Jewish doctors abroad to consider immigration. Last year, there were approximately 1,200 medical students in Israel; by 2030, Israel’s Health Ministry hopes to have 2,000 students each year.

According to Israeli medical experts, one of the main obstacles to growing the number of medical students in Israel is a shortage of lab facilities, and a portion of the Grays contribution will indeed go to building more of them.

“The new donation will allow [the university] to strengthen its academic excellence and to bring in better researchers in the biomedical field. In addition, funds from the donation will help improve the medical school building and build new research laboratories at the highest international level,” the university said in a statement. 

To acknowledge the donation — the largest single gift in the school’s history and one of the largest ever given to an Israeli university — the medical school will be named for the Grays. An event will be held tomorrow at the university to recognize the donation.

“Since the tragic events of Oct. 7, we have searched for a way that would allow us to cause a significant change in Israel. There is no way better, in our eyes, to donate to a healing process than to support an institution that touches the lives of so many,” the Grays said in a statement.

“This donation will expand Tel Aviv University’s ability to train the next generation of health care professionals — including students from marginalized communities — and to build advanced research facilities. In this way, we are continuing our years-long support for medical research and access to higher education,” they said.

Until 2023, the medical school was named for the Sackler family, but this was changed — with the family’s approval — in light of its alleged involvement in the opioid epidemic. For the past two years, it has simply been known as the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.

“The generous donation from the Gray family will allow us a major ‘step up,’ both in instruction and in medical research. … As our medical school is the largest of its kind in Israel, the Gray family’s donation will directly strengthen the entire country’s medical system and advance its biomedical research,” Tel Aviv University President Ariel Porat said in a statement. 

“The importance of the donation of the Gray family is that it serves as a ‘vote of confidence’ by the Gray family in Tel Aviv University, in Israeli academia and — effectively — in the future of the State of Israel. I hope and believe that this generous donation will encourage others to follow in the footsteps of the Gray family,” he said.

The Grays’ $125 million gift comes nearly a year after the largest donation in Israeli academia’s history — a $260 million donation to Bar Ilan University for its “deep science” programs.