Billionaire son of Holocaust survivors defunds Cambridge over ‘infestation’ of anti-Israel bias

A billionaire Jewish philanthropist has defunded Cambridge University over what he describes as an “infestation” of anti-Israel bias that has taken hold of the university since October 7.

Ivan Berkowitz, an American corporate executive, withdrew a £315,000 donation to fund a book project at Trinity College, his alma mater, accusing it of failing to properly investigate the vandalism of a Lord Balfour painting in March.

Speaking to the JC, Berkowitz condemned the university for its “fixation on elevating wokeness at the expense of the Jewish community”, adding that the same “virus” had taken hold in Cambridge’s law faculty, which he accused of shutting down debate on the Gaza conflict.

Speaking about the vandalism of the Balfour painting at Trinity, he said: “There’s a video of the occurrence, and the claim is still that there’s not sufficient evidence.”

Berkowitz, who is the son of Holocaust survivors, said he doubted that the “forensics at Trinity are so bad” that they cannot identify the perpetrator, considering the number of “Nobel laureates sitting at high table in science and physics”.

In March, Palestine Action posted online a video of an activist slashing the 1914 portrait and vandalising it with red paint, but there have been no arrests and the investigation is ongoing.

The philanthropist was also dismayed at reports claiming that the Master of Trinity, Dame Sally Davies, was considering divesting the college from arms companies linked to Israel following pressure from pro-Palestine student activist groups.

Berkowitz, who gained a PhD in law at Trinity College, Cambridge, took particular aim at the activities of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (LCIC), of which he is an honorary fellow.

On friday, the centre was due to host a panel discussion entitled “A Discussion on International Law and Palestine: Responsibility, Reparations & Reconciliation”, which Berkowitz said was likely to take an unbalanced approach to the conflict.

The panel features guest speakers Penny Green, who in 2016 tweeted denials of Labour’s antisemitism, and has repeatedly called for Israel to be boycotted; and Makram Khoury-Machool, who eulogised the architect of October 7, Yahya Sinwar, as “a fierce fighting leader who proudly defended his nation until the last breath and drop of blood and presented a role model for future generations”.

Berkowitz has pre-pledged a three-year, £400,000 donation to the Lauterpacht Centre but now says that he is reviewing his philanthropic association with the organisation.

“It’s crucial for me to deal with the rot that has infested the place. It’s like when a house first sees the infestation of a particular thing that creates an infection, like mould. There is mould already, but you can deal with it, you can scrape it off, you can try to work with it, unless it becomes too powerful,” he said.

Berkowitz’s attack on Cambridge followed the resignation of major Jewish arts patron Candida Gertler from all her voluntary positions within UK arts institutions after she was targeted by a boycott campaign over her links to Israel.

His £315,000 donation to Trinity College had been due to fund the Rabbinic Book Project at the college’s Wren Library, which aims to bring to light under-studied works central to Jewish history and preserve them in Cambridge.

“I would have loved to be identified with something so special and something that is so representative of what the Wren Library stands for, which is preservation of and study of archival material that is unavailable elsewhere,” said Berkowitz, but said he felt compelled “to make a statement” and withdraw himself from the project.

Speaking about the law centre, Berkowitz said its founder, the Jewish giant of international legal scholarship and Zionist Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, would be “turning in his grave” if he knew about its present activities.

Lauterpacht was the son of Hersch Lauterpacht, the British international lawyer and human rights activist who developed the concept of crimes against humanity.

​The centre was recently directed by Eyal Benvenisti, an Israeli attorney and Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge until earlier this year. Speaking about the law department, Berkowitz said: “Many of the younger professors are very ‘woke’ when it comes to Israel. They do not side with the Israeli view, and they don’t side with the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself.”

The new director of the Lauterpacht centre is Professor Sandesh Sivakumaran, and Berkowitz wrote to him about the planned debate on “law and Palestine” saying: “As a pillar of the academic study of international law, I’m surprised to see that LCIL appears to have shut down dialogue on such a sensitive subject. The roster of speakers seems to exclude those who would represent the merits of an alternative view that should be heard in this case.

“The very structure of the event, which is framed as a compassionate and international law-focused symposium, minimises the necessary rigorous attempt to balance such a fragile discussion.”

Sivakumaran told Berkowitz that “this is obviously a situation on which it is difficult to find uniformity of views” and “my sense is that there is no possible line-up that would satisfy everyone as to its composition”.

“I’m disappointed,” said Berkowitz. “It’s not a comfortable feeling to know that the environment has so changed – in law schools in general but in this specific place – where the dangerous notions conveyed will permanently affect the beliefs and practices of the lawyers who will come out of these places. Clearly, you have to blame the academy,” he said, calling the anti-Israel bias a “virus”.

Despite his upset, Berkowitz retains an attachment to the university where he still delivers lectures every Michaelmas term in his specialist area of law.

“I have very strong feelings about what they taught me and the experiences I had there, I don’t want to dismiss that,” he said. He recalls his college days fondly, and noted how the “place is so lit up with genius, it takes your breath way”. In the US, Berkowitz is considering withdrawing his funding for Harvard Medical School, to which he has given around $20 million, and where he set up a collaboration between the American Ivy League and the Clalit Research Institute in Israel.

Named the Ivan and Francesca Berkowitz Family Living Laboratory Collaboration, the Harvard project brings together biomedical researchers, clinicians, and data scientists from the United States and Israel to revolutionise treatments, care, and prevention, and even helped Pfizer in developing its Covid vaccine.

“The underlying reason for doing all these things was for my wife and I to subtly bring attention to the good that comes out of Israel,” said Berkowitz, who believes “conventional ways to fight antisemitism”, such as building museums, “are useless and financially wasteful”. He added: “another museum is not going to do the job. I have yet to hear from a group of high school or college kids that visited a tour at the museum come back and say ‘Oh, how can I possibly be anti-Jewish after all of this?’”

By considering withdrawing funding to Harvard, Berkowitz is following in the footsteps of more than 1,600 alumni who vowed to withhold donations last year, including billionaire Len Blavatnik who donated more than $270 million to the Ivy League university.

The final straw for the donors after mounting antisemitism on campus post-October 7 was the congressional testimony of former president Claudine Gay in December, who failed to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews as harassment, or state that Jewish students had the right to feel safe on university grounds.

In August, a federal judge in Boston ruled that Harvard University had “failed its Jewish students” and must face a lawsuit over campus Jew-hate that arose following Hamas’s October 7 attack. Explaining his passion for defending Israel and combatting antisemitism, Berkowitz brought up the fact that he and wife descend from Holocaust survivors.

“In each case, they didn’t escape the war, they survived the war,” he said. “My wife’s father and mother were in Auschwitz and survived Auschwitz, which in itself is traumatic. And my mother survived underground in Budapest by having a Christian name that she bought off a funeral director of a dead person, and my father was in labour camp.”

Even though his parents didn’t speak extensively about their experiences, “it’s in my guts”, he said.

The donor is also “disappointed” and “crestfallen” over what has happened at New York University (NYU), to which he pledged $800,000 25 years ago to fund the Berkowitz Fellowship at its law school.

NYU was one of the many US colleges overrun by pro-Palestine campus protests last spring. In July, the university settled a discrimination lawsuit brought by Jewish students, who claimed that their peers at NYU burned an Israeli flag, made throat-slitting gestures and yelled “Gas the Jews” at a group of students participating in an Israel vigil.

Berkowitz is happy for the fellowship to continue, which each year is awarded to a senior scholar whose area of research addresses issues from a broad spectrum of Jewish learning and civilization.

But when recently asked if he would take part in a symposium to celebrate 25 years of the fellowship, he refused.

“It started before October 7. The antisemitism on campus at NYU [has become] out of control, and it did infest the law school. So, I told the guy who runs the programme: ‘I’m not going to do this 25-year celebration. And frankly, I want to have nothing to do [with the university] other than make sure that the fellowship continues.’”

Professor Louise Gullifer, Chair of Cambridge’s Law Faculty, said: “The University abhors antisemitism and racism in any form. The university is also fully committed to academic freedom and freedom of speech within the law. In that spirit, a symposium focused on international law and Palestine is being held at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. We encourage our community to challenge ideas they disagree with and engage in rigorous debate.”

Dame Sally Davies, Master of Trinity, said about the incident at the College on 8 March 2024: “I am shocked by the attack in our College on our painting. I condemn this act of vandalism. We are cooperating with the police to bring the perpetrators to justice. As a community we continue to support each other.”

NYU told the JC: “Respectfully, NYU was among a handful of universities that responded on October 8, condemning Hamas’ terrorist attack. Just a few weeks later, NYU issued the first 10-Point Plan among universities to address safety, bigotry and antisemitism. NYU was also among the first universities to.. [clarify] that the use of code-words such as ‘Zionist’ could violate the University’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policies.” Trinity College, Cambridge University and Harvard were contacted for comment.