After a three-year pilot, Stanford University’s Israel studies program became permanent with a major endowment from the Koum Family Foundation, Stanford announced on Nov. 18.
The new Jan Koum Israel Studies Program, named after the WhatsApp co-founder, will “significantly expand” the pilot program’s course offerings, research and public programming on Israel.
Making the program permanent was one of the recommendations in a report on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias at Stanford, published in May 2024. However, according to new program director Amichai Magen, the decision to make it permanent was mostly informed by the success of the pilot in engaging students and faculty.
“Our students crave opportunities for open and rigorous study of Israel as a human society, polity, economy, and innovation space,” Magen wrote to J. in a Nov. 20 email. “They are more than capable of managing historical and comparative complexity as part of that study.”
The pilot, which launched in 2021, brought Israeli scholars and fellows to teach courses, conduct research and hold public events. Magen became one of the first visiting fellows in 2022 and has since been teaching an undergraduate course on Israeli society, politics and policy.
Magen will continue teaching in his new role as director this school year. Other than the undergraduate course he already teaches, Magen will also collaborate with visiting professor Alon Tal on a course titled “Models of Israeli-Arab Cooperation and Pathways to Peace.”
Ori Rabinowitz, an associate professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and another former visiting fellow, will teach courses on “Israel, the Middle East, and Nuclear Weapons” and “Security Issues in the Middle East.”
After the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, amid intense anti-Israel demonstrations on the Stanford campus, the pilot’s visiting fellows “played a critical role in facilitating informal conversations, workshops, classes, and large public events grounded in evidence, research, and respect,” the Stanford announcement read.
In the May 2024 report, Stanford’s Subcommittee on Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias found that the anti-Israel sentiments extended beyond public displays and protests. After Oct. 7, the report read, Jewish and Israeli students felt ostracized and intimidated if they openly identified with their religion or nationality, or refused to explicitly condemn Israel.
Less than a week after the report was published, 12 pro-Palestinian student protesters broke into and occupied the office of then-Stanford President Richard Saller. According to a university spokesperson who talked to J. at the time, protesters caused “extensive damage” to the inside of the building and spray-painted “De@th 2 Isr@hell” on an out-facing wall.
The report’s authors encouraged the university to “develop a permanent program in Israel studies,” which would “counter the shallow and poorly informed nature of much of the discourse about Israel on the campus.”
Magen told J. that the rationale for a permanent Israel studies program at Stanford is “much more positive and goes far beyond antisemitism.” Nevertheless, he believes the courses and dialogue will help create positive change on campus.
The pilot program ran dozens of public events, including panels, film screenings and seminars. There is also a webinar series titled “Israel Insights,” in which Stanford faculty explore issues shaping modern Israel with Israeli decision-makers, scholars and analysts.
The new permanent program will be a part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. The center also includes regional programs on Turkey and “Arab Reform and Development,” which will allow the Israel studies program to collaborate with Arab, Iranian and Turkish colleagues, Magen told J.
“Israel’s enemies seek to dehumanize it so that they can demonize Israelis and delegitimize Israel’s existence,” Magen wrote in the email to J. “The best antidote for dehumanization is humanization, just as the best antidote to ignorance is well-grounded knowledge.”