Moved by Oct. 7, Blackstone president donates $125M to Tel Aviv University to address doctor shortage

Israel has the fewest medical graduates per capita among nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

By Grace Gilson, JTA

The president of the global private equity firm Blackstone and his wife are donating $125 million to Tel Aviv University’s health science and medical school, in the largest gift in the school’s history.

The gift by Jonathan and Mindy Gray is meant to address a pressing doctor shortage in Israel. It also answers a question raised in 2023 when the school announced it would drop its longtime name, Sackler, amid a settlement by the Sackler family over its role in promoting the opioid epidemic.

Tel Aviv University’s medical school will now be called the Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.

The Grays’ donation is also expected to help double the number of Arab Israeli students in the medical school, according to the New York Times, which first reported the gift.

The couple told the newspaper that they had been inspired to make the gift by the fallout from Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

“We can think of no better way to accelerate healing than by supporting an institution that touches the lives of so many,” they said in a statement.

The gift comes as Israel faces a critical shortage in doctors, in part because so many Israelis, faced with limited options at home, go abroad for medical training and then remain there.

Israel has the fewest medical graduates per capita among nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Three years ago, the Israeli government barred medical schools from enrolling students from abroad, including at Tel Aviv University. Earlier this year, the government signed off on the creation of two new medical schools, in Haifa and Rehovot.

The Tel Aviv gift is not the first response to Oct. 7 for the Grays, American Jews with a strong connection to Israel.

They also donated $1 million through their foundation last May to send New York City eighth graders to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in a bid to combat rising antisemitism in schools.