Your Daily Phil: Jonathan, Mindy Gray gift $125M to Tel Aviv University medical school
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, Israeli medical schools take center stage as we report on Jonathan and Mindy Gray’s $125 million donation to Tel Aviv University’s medical school and interview Lloyd Goldman about his family’s support for Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. We look inside the international efforts to bring five Zanzibari children to Israel for heart surgery after their flight was canceled because of this week’s Houthi attack, and report on the American Jewish Committee and university groups’ collective response to the Trump administration’s efforts to combat antisemitism on college campuses. We feature an opinion piece by Rebecca Leibowitz Engel reflecting on her experience, as a professional in the field of legacy giving, establishing a foundation in her own father’s memory. Also in this newsletter: Alon Tal, Robert “Bobby” Lapin and Michal Rowe.
What We’re Watching
The SRE Network’s two-day conference launches this afternoon in Baltimore, coming just after the JPro25 conference comes to a close this morning.
The Milken Global Conference wraps up in Los Angeles today. This morning, Rabbi Sharon Brous will sit in conversation about her book, The Amen Effect. Later, there will be a three-part series on Israel in a post-Oct. 7 world. Former hostage Noa Argamani is slated to speak in conversation with the MilkenFamily Foundation’s Richard Sandler, followed by author Noa Tishby. A third session, focused on the Israeli economy, will feature Pinegrove Venture Partners’ Tilli Kalisky-Bannett, Apollo Global Management’s Michael Kashani, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Chairman Eugene Kandel and Israel Securities Authority Chairman Seffy Zinger.
Later tonight, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter is hosting a Yom HaAtzmaut celebration at the ambassador’s residence.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH EJP’S JUDAH ARI GROSS
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, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
“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 today.
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.
The number of physicians per capita in Israel is more than 10% lower than the OECD average and has been projected to get worse as more doctors retire than can be replaced. 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.
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.”
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.”
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.
Q&A
In Israel for 50th anniversary of the medical school named for his parents, Lloyd Goldman reflects on his decades-long ties to Ben-Gurion University
Thirty years ago, Lloyd Goldman and his sisters, Katja Goldman Sonnenfeldt and Dorian Goldman Israelow, were looking for a way to honor their father, Irving Goldman, after his death, and their mother, Joyce, who had died 16 years prior. Their parents had long supported Jewish causes, as well as healthcare systems, so the answer came quickly: a donation to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s medical school, which would be renamed the Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School, Lloyd Goldman told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
Goldman, who is now chairman of the board of governors of Ben-Gurion University, is in Israel this week to participate in the medical school’s 50th anniversary gala, which was held on Monday, and in the school’s upcoming board meeting. He spoke with eJP about his family’s involvement with the university and how his philanthropic priorities have shifted amid rising antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks.
JAG: Tell me a little bit about your family’s involvement with the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev medical school. You’ve been strongly connected to the medical school and the university in general for a number of years. So how did that come about?
Well, my brother-in-law, Michael Sonnenfeldt, got involved with the university 40-some years ago probably through Robert Arnow [real estate developer and former chairman of the board of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev]. … When my father passed away in 1995, we were looking for some way to honor him and his legacy and our mother’s legacy — my mother died in 1979 at a young age. My father always gave to causes in Israel and to Jewish causes… My father believed in education, and he was involved in what was then the North Shore Medical Center [now the Long Island Jewish Medical Center], so we decided that [Ben-Gurion University’s medical schools] was an appropriate place.
JAG: In terms of your philanthropic priorities, has that changed at all post-Oct. 7?
LG: There’s a certain sentiment that we need to put our names on things more just so the communities can see that great things are being done by the Jews. … Other than Catholic health systems, it’s hard to find a healthcare delivery system that doesn’t have Jewish names attached to it. Jewish families look to make sure they take care of themselves and their community around them, and that’s what you find Jewish names in many education institutions and many healthcare systems. It’s just a common thread of taking care of your community and improving healthcare and education to better people.
RESCUE FLIGHT
How diplomacy (inadvertently) saved Zanzibari kids stranded in Ethiopia while en route to Israel for heart surgery
Their bags were packed, they were ready to go. Then a missile fired from Yemen struck inside the grounds of Ben Gurion Airport, and their jet plane wasn’t going anywhere. The Houthi attack on Sunday morning prompted international carriers from around the world to cancel their service to and from Israel, including Ethiopian Airlines, which was meant to fly five young children and their mothers from Zanzibar to Israel for lifesaving heart surgery through the Save a Child’s Heart nonprofit. With the group stranded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the situation was looking increasingly dire on Tuesday evening, until suddenly there was an “last-minute twist,” Simon Fisher, the nonprofit’s executive director, told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky.
‘Children are children’: Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar happened to be in Ethiopia on an official visit. The group from Zanzibar was able to get on Saar’s flight home. “There was a lot of last-minute pressure combined with [help] from Ethiopian Airlines, and they managed to get the children on. We are very happy because we very worried and anxious about what was going to happen,” said Fisher, who found out about the happy ending when one of the group sent him a photo of the children on the plane over WhatsApp. The children and their escorts arrived in Israel on Tuesday night. “Against all odds, Save a Child’s Heart continues to save lives. With war here in Israel, with Houthis there, children are children,” he said.
COALITION ADMONITION
AJC joins university groups to express concern about Trump’s campus antisemitism efforts
The American Jewish Committee — together with major groups representing U.S. universities — on Tuesday released a statement asking the Trump administration to reconsider its approach to combatting campus antisemitism, which it said involves steps that “endanger” academic freedom, reports Haley Cohen for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider. The groups — which together represent more than 1,000 colleges and universities — called antisemitism “a plague on humanity” which “has found unacceptable expression on U.S. campuses in recent years, as it has elsewhere in American society, on both sides of the political spectrum.”
Endorse, with caveats: “America’s higher education and Jewish communities share and endorse the Trump Administration’s priority of eradicating antisemitism. We come together to ask the Administration to pursue this important goal in ways that preserve academic freedom, respect due process, and strengthen the government-campus scientific partnership,” said the joint statement, which was co-signed by American Council on Education, Association of American Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, American Association of Community Colleges, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
Bonus: University leaders sparred over the direction of higher education in the era of the second Trump administration at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference yesterday, largely agreeing that universities have not done enough to maintain freedom of expression but differing over ways to address it, reports Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen.
GETTING PERSONAL
How legacy giving helps me remember my father — and shape a Jewish future
“Despite years working in development and making countless shiva calls, I didn’t truly understand legacy until I became a steward of one,” said Rebecca Leibowitz Engel, director of legacy giving and impact at the Jewish Endowment Foundation of South Carolina and recipient of the 2025 Gail Littman Leadership Award at the North American Life & Legacy Conference last week, in her acceptance speech shared with eJewishPhilanthropy.
Giving in his spirit: “Through the Michael W. Leibowitz Family Fund, my daughters — now just 4 and 7 — will grow up knowing their Poppy like I did through the grants they’ll help make alongside their cousins. If I do my job right as their parent, this fund will give them the language and tools to carry their Poppy’s spirit forward — into their own lives and into the lives they’ll touch through their giving. Legacy isn’t only about how we want to be remembered. It’s also about how we remember the people who showed us what a life of purpose looks like, and how we use that memory to shape a more meaningful future… So let us keep asking: How do we honor those who came before us without freezing their legacy in time? How do we build something durable enough to last, but dynamic enough to grow? The Talmud teaches: ‘As my ancestors planted for me, so I plant for my children.’ May we all keep planting — with courage, clarity and conviction — so that generations from now, they’ll say: They didn’t just leave something behind. They passed something forward.”
Worthy Reads
Free to Be You and Me: In The Times of Israel, Alon Tal reflects on last week’s attack on Beit Samueli, a Reform synagogue in Ra’anana, which was targeted over its participation in a long-standing “alternative” Yom HaZikaron ceremony run by bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents. “Societal progress takes time. It often starts when brave individuals see reality differently from the majority and have the temerity to share their alternative narrative… In the case of the Alternative Memorial Day Service, it’s hard not to admire people on both sides of the conflict — Israelis and Palestinians — who have lost those who are dearest to them, and are still able to come together. They have found a way to get past their pain, anger, and impulse toward vengeance.. The problem for many of us, of course, is the timing. I believe that there exists a personal and collective need to mourn the tens of thousands of dedicated citizens, mostly young, who sacrificed their lives so that we might have the privilege of living in the State of Israel… Others see it differently. Surely, those Israelis and Palestinians who hold a ceremony on Memorial Day that promotes their more conciliatory narrative, along with those around the country who identify and want to watch, are entitled to do so without fear of being assaulted… Let’s ensure that Israel remains a country that not only tolerates alternative narratives but even gives them space to make their case.” [TOI]
In the Crosshairs: In The Atlantic, Rose Horowitch writes about the looming prospect of a significant tax-hike on university endowments. “Historically, nonprofit universities were exempt from federal taxation. As part of the 2017 tax cut, Congress imposed a levy on the annual investment income that the richest universities generate from their endowments, but it was set at a trivial 1.4%. This year, Republicans will very likely include an endowment-tax hike in their larger, must-pass reconciliation bill, for which they don’t need any Democratic votes. A 14% tax — in the middle range of the proposals — would cost Harvard, for example, about $560 million a year, according to an analysis by Phillip Levine, an economist at Wellesley College. A 21% tax, matching the corporate rate, would raise that figure to about $850 million… Taxing the fattest university endowments has long been championed by the political left as a way to get the likes of Harvard and Yale to share their obscene wealth in the name of fairness. (‘Tax Ivy League Endowments, and Fund Public Higher Ed,’ read one headline in the socialist magazine Jacobin.) But in recent years, the idea has made the leap to the MAGA right. Along the way, it has become something very different: not a tool to more equitably distribute educational resources but a weapon to make elite higher education poorer, weaker, and less influential.” [TheAtlantic]
Hedge Your Bets: In a post for Blue Avocado, Devon Kearney questions privileging strategic philanthropy approaches as the optimal means of effecting change. “Strategic philanthropy begat many approaches to philanthropy, from ‘effective altruism’ to the ‘big bets’ approach of making huge investments in proposed solutions to deep social problems. But social change occurs not in broad daylight or experimentally optimal conditions; it happens glacially, quietly, under the surface. All the way back to David Hume in the 18th Century, it has been recognized that we cannot see causality. And so, I am left to wonder: Strategic philanthropists, big bettors, and effective altruists all lionize the ability to measure problem-solving strategies. But what exactly do they think they are observing when they diagnose a problem? What gives them the confidence to pursue the root cause they think they see? Why privilege one strategy when there are many others at hand?… The way to effect changes in culture is to place your chips on a spread of numbers, invest in a broad swath of different strategies and theories of change. Supporting an array of even incompatible strategies that approach problems like racism from many angles can chip away at the excruciatingly complex root causes.” [BlueAvocado]
Word on the Street
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon proposed teaching American children and families the history of the Fourth of July like the “Seder in the Jewish religion” where “once a year families share the stories of their heritage.” McMahon raised the idea, which she said was inspired by a program by PragerU, at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles yesterday…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights Penny Pritzker, the senior fellow on Harvard Corporation who “stands at the center of the most consequential battle between a school and the U.S. government in more than half a century” as the Trump administration and Harvard administrators battle over federal funding and campus oversight…
Robert “Bobby” Lapin has been named the next president of the American Jewish Committee. He succeeds Michael Tichnor, who concluded his three-year term…
The Community Security Service has opened the United States’ first boot camp to train security guards for synagogues…
In a Jerusalem Post opinion piece, William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, discusses his current trip to Berlin to mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day tomorrow…
The Chronicle of Philanthropy examines GoFundMe’s expansion into the world of nonprofit fundraising with its GoFundMePro, following its acquisition in 2022 of the Classy platform…
Israel is facing a potential national teacher strike in response to the government’s plans to cut teachers’ salaries…
Robert Putnam, an emeritus professor from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Jonathan Sacks Institute Prize, which was created by the Gewurz family of Montreal, Canada, to honor “individuals who have made exceptional contributions as public intellectuals, advancing the ideas, values, and practical concerns central to the work of the late distinguished leader and thinker Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks”…
The New York Jewish Week looks at the Jewish cultural organizations that are affected by the Trump administration’s cuts to arts programs…
Josh “Shuki” Hartuv has been named the next executive director of the BBYO United Kingdom youth group…
Keshet Donor-Advised Fund has hired former Jewish Agency CEO Amira Ahronoviz to lead a new subsidiary that will manage public endowments for social causes…
Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor of mathematics and economics Sergiu Hart has been elected an international member of the National Academy of Sciences…
New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch met yesterday with Chabad-Lubavitch officials at Chabad World Headquarters…
A federal judge in Washington state ruled that a lawsuit filed by former Israeli hostages against the Palestine Chronicle can move forward; the nonprofit news site had employed a Palestinian man who held hostages in his Gaza home at the time he worked as a correspondent for the outlet…
A federal judge ordered NSO Group to pay Meta $167 million in damages over the cybersecurity firm’s hacking of 1,400 WhatsApp accounts of journalists, human-rights activists and government officials through its Pegasus spyware…
A New York judge dismissed a lawsuit against Zionist Organization of America President Mort Klein by former board members who accused him of financial improprieties, among other things…
An American-Jewish man was reportedly killed while traveling to Turkey to photograph wildlife; the Yeshiva World reported that Yitzchak Alishayiv, a former gabbai of the Vorhand Shteibel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, was fatally stabbed by his host in the country…
Holocaust survivor Eve Kugler, who escaped Nazi Germany as a 10-year-old when she and her sister were sent to live with foster families in the U.S., died at 94…
Pic of the Day
Michal Rowe, a 10th grader from England, is named the winner of Sunday’s International Bible Quiz for Jewish Youth from the Diaspora, which was held at Tel Aviv’s Anu Museum of the Jewish People. This was the first year that the event was held at the museum, in cooperation with Israel’s Education Ministry, Jewish Agency and Keren Kayemeth Le’Israel-Jewish National Fund.
The bible quiz marked the first in a series of events by Anu in honor of the Codex Sassoon, the oldest and most complete copy of the Bible, which was purchased for the museum in 2023 by Alfred Moses and will be put on display starting next week.
Birthdays
Founder of JewBelong, an organization to introduce people to the joy, meaning, relevance and connection that Judaism has to offer, Archie Gottesman…
Member of the New York State Assembly from 1993 to 2022, Sandra R. “Sandy” Galef… Senior member of the Mobile, Ala. law firm of Silver, Voit & Thompson, Irving Silver… Napa, Calif.-based media executive and podcast host, Jeffrey Schechtman… Theatrical producer at Press the Button Productions in Monterey, California, Jane J. Press… Former member of the Knesset for the Shas party, Rabbi Meshulam Nahari… Former deputy secretary of state, deputy national security advisor, currently the dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS, James Braidy “Jim” Steinberg… Director of films including “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “National Lampoon’s European Vacation,” “Look Who’s Talking” and “Clueless,” Amy Heckerling… President of Harvard University, Alan Michael Garber… Mayor of El Paso, Texas, from 2013 to 2017 and again from 2021 to 2025, Oscar Leeser… Professional poker player and hedge fund manager, Daniel Shak… CEO of Rationalwave Capital Partners, Mark Rosenblatt… Emmy Award-winning film, television and music video director, Adam Bernstein… Mexican actor best known for his work in telenovelas and the stage, Ari Telch… Chairman and CEO of Hertz from 2022 to 2024, Stephen Scherr… Former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Mark H. Levine… CEO of the American Jewish Committee, he was previously a member of Congress for 12 years, Ted Deutch… Principal at Cornerstone Government Affairs, Keith Stern… Chief judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims, Matthew Hillel Solomson… Former member of the Knesset who served as Interior Minister and Justice Minister, she now chairs Kardan Real Estate Group, Ayelet Shaked… AIPAC leader and activist, Yana J. Lukeman… VP of sales at Harvey, Robert Warren Saliterman… Head of school at Manhattan Day School, Dr. Pesha C. Kletenik… Social entrepreneur, winemaker and CEO of Napa Valley’s OneHope, Jake Kloberdanz… Director of government affairs for the Port of Los Angeles, Arthur L. Mandel… CEO of Austin-based Harris Media, he has worked on four presidential campaigns, Vincent Robert Harris… Adventurer, dogsled racer, advice columnist and writer, she raced in and completed the 2019 dog sled Iditarod, Blair Braverman… Las Vegas-based fashion blogger, model, DJ and writer, known as Bebe Zeva, Rebeccah Zeva Hershkovitz… Film and television actress, Dylan Nicole Gelula… Actor and singer, Andrew Barth Feldman…
