UPenn donor redirects $5M to Israeli universities after cutting ties with alma mater
After halting donations to his alma mater last year, a former University of Pennsylvania donor has redirected $5 million to Israeli universities instead, citing the Ivy League institution’s refusal to address antisemitism on campus.David Magerman, a venture capitalist and philanthropist, has reallocated millions in donations to universities in Israel after witnessing the anti-Israel protests and antisemitism that has permeated U.S.college campuses in the months following the Oct.
7 attack on Israel by Hamas, he told Fox News Digital.Magerman said he will give $1 million grants to five institutions of higher learning across Israel, including Tel Aviv University, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Bar-Ilan University and Jerusalem College of Technology. He also revealed that he intends to donate to additional Israeli causes in the coming months.His donations will support programs for English-speaking students to learn academic Hebrew and integrate into STEM degree programs in Israel.Magerman said he hopes his contributions will give Jewish-American students who are considering moving to Israel more options to study abroad after growing weary of campus life in the U.S.“My plan is to redirect my philanthropic efforts going forward largely to Israel,” he told Fox News Digital.
“I don’t see much value generated by giving to American universities.I think that liberal colleges in America are flawed institutions that are doing a poor job of preparing students for the real world.”Asked what his message is to other prominent Jewish donors still contributing to Ivy League schools, Magerman said pointedly, “Stop.” He said it’s naive to believe that elite U.S.
universities are “reformable.”“They’re fulfilling the mission they want to fulfill.Their goal, it seems, is to indoctrinate their students to question the validity of Western civilization, to question the value of the Founding Fathers and to criticize Western society.
I don’t think...