Donor sends funds to Israeli schools that were once meant for UPenn due to anti-Semitism concerns
‘I think that liberal colleges in America are flawed institutions that are doing a poor job of preparing students for the real world,’ the donor said.
The donor also warned Jewish American students about the hostility they could face if they go to an Ivy League school.
Philanthropist and businessman David Magerman, who has stopped his donations to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) over anti-Semitism concerns, has chosen to donate the money to Israeli universities instead.
Magerman, an alumnus of UPenn, wrote an Oct. 15, 2023 letter announcing his decision to cut off donations to the Ivy League university, saying he is “deeply embarrassed by my association with and support for” UPenn. He cited his concerns about then-school President Liz Magill’s refusal to unequivocally condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist massacre.
The philanthropist will now donate the funds that were previously meant for UPenn to several Israeli universities, Fox News announced on Oct. 11.
Specifically, he will grant $1 million dollars each to five Israeli schools, including Tel Aviv University and the Jerusalem College of Technology, Fox News reported. Magerman wants to help facilitate the path for Jewish-American students who are interested in studying in Israel.
“My plan is to redirect my philanthropic efforts going forward largely to Israel,” Magerman told Fox News. “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.”
He continued, criticizing American universities whose “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.”
He also told Fox News regarding Jewish students: “If their best outcome is by going to Columbia, or Penn, or Harvard, they shouldn’t let antisemites stop them,” but added a warning that they “should re-evaluate” their choice on account of the hostility they will face from university leaders and other students. “Is [an Ivy League school] really the environment you want to go to learn subject matter that you can learn online or abroad or at different colleges across the U.S.?” he said.
Magerman is not the only donor to stop his donations to UPenn.
On Dec. 7, businessman and UPenn alumnus Ross Stevens said he would pull out a $100 million donation intended for the school in protest of Magill’s infamous congressional testimony in which she refused to unequivocally state that “calling for the genocide of Jews” goes against school policy.
Harvard has also gone through similar controversies, with former donors Ken Griffin and Len Blavatnik stopping donations because of certain concerns including over anti-Semitism.
[RELATED: Professors double down on anti-Israel ideology: WATCH]
UPenn has recently been caught up in several controversies related to anti-Semitism.
On Sept. 28, an anti-Israel group at the school helped share an Instagram post lamenting terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah’s perishing in an Israeli airstrike and claiming that “death to Israel” is “a moral imperative and the only acceptable solution,” adding: “May [Israel] burn to the ground for good.”
UPenn’s anti-Israel Faculty for Justice in Palestine group also recently falsely blamed Israel for a bombing that it had nothing to do with.
Anti-Israel activists also committed vandalism at the school, drenching a Benjamin Franklin statue with red paint and calling it a “symbol of imperial violence and colonialism.”
Campus Reform has contacted the University of Pennsylvania for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
