The money will go toward building a new inpatient tower that will also include housing for staff. The donation comes from the Koum Family Foundation, which in recent years has become one of the leading sources of pro-Israel philanthropy worldwide. According to a health care system source, the zoning plan for the tower is advancing quickly through Jerusalem’s planning institutions.
The donations point to a growing pattern: private capital, most of it American Jewish, is entering hospital infrastructure and funding expansions the state is not carrying out on a comparable scale. Shaare Zedek, an independent hospital that does not belong to one of the health funds, depends significantly on philanthropic funding to grow — and a donation of this magnitude highlights a widening gap between institutions able to raise private capital and those dependent on the state budget.