2023-12-05 21:53:27
Sylvan Adams, philanthropist known for promoting cycling in Israel, donates to Ben-Gurion University.
Canadian-Israeli businessman Sylvan Adams has donated $100 million to Ben-Gurion University to help rebuild the South after the devastating Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, the university announced Sunday at a fundraising gala in Toronto.
“If we want the South to thrive again after the October 7 pogrom, we must invest in the South, starting in its capital Beersheba,” Adams told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Monday.
Adams, a real estate tycoon who moved to Israel in 2015, is perhaps best known for his support of cycling in Israel. He founded the country’s first cycling institute and a velodrome, created an eponymous commuter bike path in Tel Aviv and brought the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia to Israel in 2018 – at a personal expense of more than $20 million. He also owns the Israel-Premier Tech Cycling Team and won the World Cycling Championships in his age group last year.
In addition to cycling, Adams and his family foundation have also supported the Israel Academy of Sciences, SpaceIL, Israel’s non-profit space organization, and several medical centers in Israel. He also played a role in bringing pop star Madonna to the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Israel. He also donated heavily in his home country of Canada.
The latest donation exceeds anything ever seen before. The $100 million donation is the largest ever made to an Israeli university and joins the largest donations ever made to a university, such as Harvard and Duke universities in the United States United States recently announced. (The largest gift ever made to an American university was $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University in 2018 from Michael Bloomberg, the Jewish businessman and philanthropist who has also donated heavily in Israel).
The donation is intended for a university that lost 82 members of its community on Oct. 7, including students, staff, faculty and their families, the university said. The university has 20,000 enrolled students and employs 6,700 people, most of whom live in the southern region.
The funds will focus on six key areas, including the future of the Negev and Israel, technological advancements, climate change, sustainability and global health, BGU President Daniel Chamovitz told guests at the Negev Strong Gala, hosted by the university’s Canadian fundraising arm was, the statement says.
Adams, who moved to Israel in 2016, described BGU as Israel’s “most important university,” citing research in various areas of sustainability, including water management, solar energy, desert ecology and solutions to climate change – particularly through the campus in Sde Boker, the desert kibbutz , which was the retirement home of the country’s first prime minister and the university’s namesake.
Adams pointed to David Ben-Gurion as someone who “understood that the Negev is the beating heart of Israel.” “One of our responses to the horrific October 7 attack and the rise of lies about Israel and anti-Semitism around the world must be to embrace Jewish values as a force for good,” Adams told JTA. “We are building while Hamas is destroying. We teach our children to love while they teach them to hate.”
According to Mitchell Oelbaum, president of Ben-Gurion University Canada, the donation represents a significant investment in the future of Israel’s southern region and is seen as a beacon of hope and renewal after October 7. This comes at a time when the country has stronger ties to the region and when the rising costs of the war leave questions about how willing the Israeli government may be to make new unrelated investments in the near future.
“Our students, staff and faculty persevered during one of our country’s darkest moments,” Oelbaum said. “This gift comes at the perfect time for renewal.”
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