Ron Hassner (right), faculty codirector of the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies
Joining a select group of universities in the world with similar endowed faculty chairs, Berkeley announced in May the creation of the Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies — its first in the field.
Made possible by a $5 million grant from the Helen Diller Foundation, the chair will endow courses, research, and programs of the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies. Ron Hassner (right), the institute’s faculty codirector and an international relations expert on the relationship between religion and conflict, will hold the chair.
“The foundation recognized the urgency of teaching Israel in an even-handed and professional manner on the Berkeley campus and sprang into action,” says Hassner, whose courses regularly draw hundreds of students.
“Their gift allows us to address our students’ growing thirst for bold discussions in this flourishing, provocative, and crucial academic field.”
Helen and Sanford Diller, who passed away in 2015 and 2017 respectively, met as Berkeley undergraduates in the 1950s. They became prominent Bay Area business leaders and philanthropists in medicine, the arts, and Jewish affairs. In 2002, the Diller family made pivotal endowment gifts to Berkeley totaling $5 million, which today provide funding for the Center for Jewish Studies.
Chancellor Carol Christ says the latest gift signals great faith in our efforts to build up Jewish and Israel studies, “and helps launch, in a very robust way, a campaign to ensure that our ‘startup’ efforts will be institutionalized for generations of students to come.”
