Israel Studies Program underway, sparking both hope and criticism

A major gift from the Jan Koum Family Foundation endowed the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program this year, enabling the program to launch activities since its inauguration celebration on Nov. 17. 

The program, which builds on a previous pilot program begun in 2022, aims to promote interdisciplinary teaching and research focused on the study of modern Israel through course offerings, campus partnerships and scholarship. Supporters described it as a valuable forum to create understanding, while critics called for more attention to Palestinian perspectives.

Jan Koum, a WhatsApp co-founder and billionaire philanthropist who established the Koum Family Foundation, has celebrated the program’s offerings.

“Students should have opportunities to learn about Israel’s profound history and modern culture with depth and insight,” Koum told the Stanford Report. “I believe this program will empower the next generation of leaders to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance and design our global future.”

The program is housed within the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). 

The dollar value of Koum’s donation was not disclosed by the Koum Family Foundation or the University, though the Stanford Report described it as a “major gift.” The foundation previously contributed to the pilot program, donating roughly $500,000.

With $3.3 billion in assets, the private foundation based in Palo Alto is one of the largest supporters of global Jewish causes. The foundation has gifted roughly $77 million to Stanford since 2017, primarily donating to the Stanford Medical Center and Board of Trustees. The foundation also donated $30,000 to Chabad at Stanford, a Palo Alto-based non-profit that aims to provide a community gathering space for Jews in the area.

Based on publicly available IRS records and tax filings reviewed by The Daily, the Koum Family Foundation has also supported a variety of pro-Israel groups through large donations. Those groups include Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), an American-based nonprofit that provides financial assistance to active-duty IDF soldiers, and Birthright Israel Foundation, the largest educational tourism group in the world, which offers young Jews fully-funded trips to Israel. 

Since 2017, the foundation has also donated a total of $15 million to Friends of Ir David, an American fundraising subsidiary of Elad, an Israeli settlement group that has faced accusations of displacing Palestinian families in East Jerusalem neighborhoods. 

Finally, the foundation donated over $2.5 million to the Central Fund of Israel, a fiscal sponsor of Honenu, an Israeli organization that provides financial support to Jews convicted of or facing charges of violence against Palestinians, as well as Yigal Amir, who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. 

Yana Kalika, President of the Koum Family Foundation, did not reply to requests for comment on the Koum Family Foundation’s donations. 

The Israel Studies website includes a video message from Israeli President Isaac Herzog congratulating Stanford on the program’s launch, speaking fondly of its goals.

“In a climate where identification with Israel has become grounds for ostracization, this is a constructive gesture not only for academic rigor and the pursuit of knowledge, but it is also a potent act of ethical reclamation as well,” Herzog said. 

Alon Tal, an Israeli Studies Program visiting fellow and environmental academic, said the program could advance thoughtful discussion. “It’s consistent with academic initiatives around the world that would like to have a more serious understanding of the countries that make up this planet,” said Tal, who previously served in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, as a member of the liberal Zionist Blue and White party. 

The program’s mission and offerings were developed in close collaboration with its stakeholders, according to Amiachi Magen, director of the Israel Studies Program. Still, “nobody is seeking to influence or control what we research, who we invite to speak, what we teach,” Magen said.

The Koum family members are “friendly and enthusiastic observers” and frequently attend events, but do not exercise control over the program, said political science professor, FSI Senior Fellow and Faculty Chair of Israel Studies Larry Diamond. 

Campus discussions of Israel and the war in Gaza became increasingly polarized after Oct. 7, 2023, leading to encampments and protests, including a pro-Palestinian student-led occupation of the University president’s office in June 2024.

“The goals are to increase education about an understanding of Israel…certainly not indoctrination,” Diamond said. “We’re not trying to suggest that everything Israel does is necessarily correct or ideal.” 

The faculty affiliated with the program are not exclusively Israeli. According to Diamond’s knowledge and previous reporting by The Daily, there are no Palestinian faculty members at FSI or in Stanford’s humanities or social science departments.

Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies Or Rabinowitz, who teaches two courses within the program, said that her views on the Israel-Palestine conflict do not play a role in her teaching. So far, she said, students seem to feel comfortable sharing their opinions and having open discussions. 

“When you’re a professor, you put that aside,” she said. “You will come to class and you tell your students, ‘I’m biased. I’m Israeli. This is my opinion. You get to have your opinion. But this is the literature. These are the theories. This is what different people say.’”

Rabinowitz emphasized that in the Jewish tradition, debating one’s instructor is a sign of respect. “The best students are those who disagree,” she said.

Many Jewish faith leaders and students on campus have supported the program’s launch. 

“In the disarray on campus immediately following the Hamas attack on Israel on 10/7/23, it was clear there just were not enough opportunities on campus for students to learn about this fascinating, complex part of the world,” Stanford Hillel’s Rabbi Jessica Kirschner wrote to The Daily. 

According to Anna Levenberg ’25 M.A. ’26, students required a space to learn about Israel and the geopolitics of the region amid general confusion and mixed reporting.

In her third year as a teaching assistant for POLISCI 114 “Israel: Society, Politics, and Policy,” she is now working with faculty to develop a class on Israel-Arab cooperation. 

Levenberg said she felt emotional at the program’s inauguration ceremony, as someone who was raised a Zionist and who has dedicated much of her life to studying Israel and working in the country.

“It’s been really hard and exhausting at times to explain to the people in my world, not just why we should study Israel, but why should it exist in the first place, and so for it to be recognized permanently by the University was such a sigh of relief,” she said.

Critics of the program have argued its launch reflects an institutional bias in favor of pro-Israel actors like Koum. 

While FSI describes its work as “nonpartisan,” some campus activists have alleged that the Israeli Studies program is skewed in Israel’s defense.  

Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) wrote to The Daily that the announcement of the program in the Stanford Report highlights alliance-building between the U.S. and Israel, signaling a bias. 

Colin Kahl, a political science professor and the director of FSI, did not respond to requests for comment from The Daily. 

SJP said the Koum Family Foundation’s pro-Israel record sharpened their concerns, citing Jan Koum’s $2 million donation to a super PAC affiliated with American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 2022, making him the “largest individual donor to the pro-Israel lobby.”

“We are therefore asking plainly: will Palestinian students and scholars, and faculty whose work is critical of Israeli policy, have full and fair access to this funding and platform based solely on academic merit,” SJP wrote to The Daily. “Given the program’s public, alliance-driven framing and the donor’s political ties, we are doubtful.”

Tal said that criticisms of the program were based on an antisemitic double standard. “There are many, many countries whose behavior are certainly, objectively, worse than Israel, and yet, nobody seems to have a problem with studying them on campus. It’s only the Jewish state,” he said. “So I’m sorry if that seems to me objectively to be some sort of a warped form of antisemitism.”

Comparative literature professor and former Faculty Senate Chair David Palumbo Liu criticized the program, writing to The Daily that, “No matter what the virtues of Israel Studies may be, this situation makes it more difficult to have any balanced study of Palestine.” 

Liu also said that the University has failed to follow suggestions from the Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian (MAP) Committee, which the University created in 2023 to develop recommendations related to anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate. “The purposeful asymmetry behind both Israel Studies and Stanford’s support of it and Stanford’s lack of response to the MAP committee speaks volumes,” he wrote. 

During the 2023-24 academic year, former University President Saller received a proposal for a focused study of Palestine from students protesting for Palestinians, Diamond said, adding that he was unsure where this proposal now stands.

“I can say it is our hope, just as we have endowed the Israel Studies Program, to endow our program on Arab Reform and Development. And if we do that, I think that will give us a platform to have more visitors and do more work on the Palestinian side,” Diamond said.

A second-year Muslim student, who requested to remain anonymous due to fears of harassment, stressed the importance of including Palestinian voices for meaningful dialogue. 

“For students, the academic legitimacy of this new program will rely on its willingness to teach without rose-tinted glasses,” she wrote to The Daily.

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