Robert Kraft. Photo: New England Patriots/Wikimedia Commons
Robert Kraft, the Jewish owner of the NFL’s New England Patriots and founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS), has donated $1 million to Yeshiva University in New York City to establish a new program aimed at promoting inclusivity.
The Blue Square Scholars program will also help Yeshiva University accommodate and support Jewish college students who are transferring to the school after feeling unsafe at their previous campuses due to the recent rise in antisemitism on college campuses across the country. The program will “help provide the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the best and the brightest students who are rooted in the university’s values of compassion and respect for all,” the university announced on Tuesday. “These students will become the leaders and bridge-builders our society so desperately needs.”
The name of the Blue Square Scholars program is inspired by FCAS’s Blue Square initiative, a multimedia campaign that addresses rising antisemitism.
“I am honored to establish the Blue Square Scholars program at Yeshiva University in order to give students a welcoming place to further their education and grow into leaders who will serve as advocates for unity and respect and will push back on all hate,” Kraft said in a statement. “At a time where hate has been unleashed across our universities, Jewish students are feeling isolated and unsafe. Yeshiva is providing a safe haven for these students and I look forward to seeing them thrive in an academic environment where they could live and study free of fear for being who they are.”
Yeshiva University President Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman thanked Kraft and FCAS for establishing the Blue Square Scholars program, “and for all they have done to foster a more inclusive society throughout our country.”
“Robert sets the standard for impactful leadership in this country and this program will support top tier students who will follow his example to become the leaders of tomorrow,” he added.
Following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, more than 100 university and college presidents across the US — including from public, private, faith-based, and historically Black colleges and universities — joined Berman in expressing solidarity with Israel and condemning Hamas terrorism. Berman also led a group of university presidents on the March of the Living at the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland on Holocaust Memorial Day last month.
Kraft pulled funding from his alma mater, Columbia University, in April “over the treatment of Jewish students and faculty during pro-Palestinian protests at the campus.” In an op-ed for the New York Post, he said he was profoundly disappointed seeing Jewish students being targeted by anti-Israel student protesters at Columbia. “The Columbia I loved is no longer a place I know,” he said.
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