CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS (VINnews) — A Jewish billionaire who froze a $100 million pledge to Harvard University after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel has agreed to resume the gift, following two years of outreach by the university’s president and changes addressing campus antisemitism, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
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Stuart Zimmer, 57, a 1991 Harvard College graduate and founder of the New York hedge fund Zimmer Partners, and his wife, Jennifer, made the pledge in 2018 through the Zimmer Family Foundation. Zimmer halted further funding after the attacks, citing Harvard’s initial response, a rise in antisemitic incidents on campus, the growth of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and reports of fewer Jewish undergraduates, the Journal said. One of the couple’s daughters was a Harvard student at the time.
Harvard President Alan M. Garber, who is Jewish, spent about two years speaking with Zimmer. The two reached an understanding during reunion events in June, according to the report. Harvard then announced that the Science Center on Oxford Street would be renamed Zimmer Hall in honor of Zimmer’s late father, Alan Zimmer, a neuroradiologist whose work helped advance CT and MRI technology in the United States.
The gift will also expand kosher dining options, including a kosher kitchen at Eliot House after renovations there are finished. Harvard had already added kosher options at Hillel, the Quad and Annenberg Hall in 2024. Zimmer said the family hoped the Eliot House kitchen would help Jewish students “feel genuinely welcomed and at home on campus.”
Garber praised the Zimmers for supporting scientific work and for helping the university carry out recommendations from its Presidential Task Force on Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias. Zimmer also received assurances that Harvard would continue recruiting at Jewish day schools to the extent allowed after the Supreme Court ended race-based affirmative action.
Harvard has since updated protest and antidiscrimination rules and adopted a policy of institutional neutrality, under which the university as an institution does not take official positions on most contested political or social issues. Faculty training programs based on the task force recommendations were also launched.
Zimmer Partners manages several billion dollars in assets. The Zimmer Family Foundation has long supported Jewish education and communal organizations in addition to higher education.
The June renaming announcement came nearly three years after many Jewish donors and alumni publicly criticized Harvard’s handling of the post-Oct. 7 campus climate. Several other major gifts were paused or redirected during that period. Harvard officials have said they have taken steps to protect Jewish students and restore civil discourse.
Zimmer Hall, formerly the Science Center, opened in 1973 and houses mathematics, statistics and history of science departments along with a science library. Renovations tied to the Zimmer gift have added classroom, lab and office space in recent years.
Just goes to show you could be a billionaire and still be stupid.
Nebach
Some give but don’t have the zechus to give correctly
So sad to see what a Jew can become. If this guy had even the faintest idea that taking even a fraction of that money and giving it to Torah would earn him such big eternity without even opening a book, he would jump on it so fast. But the evil inclination gets us to give to garbage instead
Proofs what King Solomon says לא לחכמים לחם , the more money one has, the dumber he becomes
Sucker
I would love to see more of Harvard’s efforts to combat anti-semitism. And that would include seeing them penalize the perpetrators on campus.
glad Harvard cleaned up now lets see CUNY do the same
good to have good principles….
Don’t believe a word the Harvard President says. They hired many pro Palestinian, proterrorist, pro Nukba professors. Qatar also gave them millions. They harassed, assaulted Jewish students and made Jewish students fear. Harvard was sued by Jewish students because of it. Harvard is a bastion of antisemitism that is still exploding. No money for colleges that harass and make Jewish studemts fear.