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Draft:Kalaniyot Foundation

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Kalaniyot Foundation
Founded2023
FoundersOr Hen; Ernest Fraenkel
Type501(c)(3) nonprofit
LocationMIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Region served
United States, Israel
MethodFellowships, seed grants, campus programming
Websitewww.kalaniyot.org

The Kalaniyot Foundation, also known as Kalaniyot (kah-lah-nee-YOHT), is an American nonprofit organization that supports academic collaboration between graduates and faculty of Israeli universities with faculty-led chapters at U.S. universities. Its programs include research fellowships, sabbatical placements, seed grants, and campus programming. The organization began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2023 and launched its first fellowship programs in December 2024; by 2026, it had chapters at seven universities.

The organization describes its work as strengthening ties with Israeli academia and building inclusive campus communities; its fellowships are open to graduates of Israeli universities regardless of national, religious or ethnic background.[1][2] Kalaniyot is one of several university-level responses to a rise in academic boycotts of Israeli institutions after October 7, 2023.[3][4]

History

[edit]

Kalaniyot originated among MIT faculty in the weeks after the October 7, 2023 attacks. Co-founders Or Hen, a physicist, and Ernest Fraenkel, a bioengineer, along with fellow MIT faculty member Tal Cohen, began organizing weekly community lunches that grew to draw around 100 participants, and worked with MIT administration to support affected students and staff.[5][3]

The name Kalaniyot refers to the Hebrew word for anemones, a red flower associated with Israel. Kalaniyot flowers bloom each winter across southern Israel, including areas near the Gaza border, in what is locally known as the Darom Adom ("Red South") bloom; co-founder Ernest Fraenkel has said the organization adopted the name to evoke that same sense of renewal after a difficult period, applied to university campuses after October 7.[6] The organization uses the name to evoke themes of renewal and resilience after October 7, 2023.

In December 2024, MIT-Kalaniyot launched two fellowship programs which included the MIT-Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellows Program and the MIT-Kalaniyot Sabbatical Scholars Program. The programs are open to scholars from Israel's nine state-recognized universities, regardless of ethnicity or religion. "In the 2024–2025 academic year, 11 Israeli scientists, selected solely on the basis of merit by faculty committees that included non-Jewish members, joined research groups at MIT. Without any attempt at social engineering, the cohort reflected the diversity of Israeli society itself: religious and secular Jews alongside Israeli Arab scientists, working in leading laboratories."[7] The program aims to host approximately 16 Israeli scholars on campus each year.[5]

The model has subsequently been adopted at other universities, each organized around a philanthropically funded chapter and local faculty board. Co-founder Fraenkel described the MIT program as a template other campuses could replicate.[3][2] In 2024, the second chapter was established at Dartmouth College by computer science professor Daniel Rockmore and psychological and brain sciences professor Jeremy Manning. This was followed by a chapter at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2025, chapters were added at Harvard Medical School, Columbia University, and the University of Southern California.[3][1][8] By mid-2026, seven chapters had been launched with active programming, including Cornell University.[9]

For the 2025–26 academic year, 11 scholars — seven postdoctoral fellows and four sabbatical scholars — worked across all five MIT schools, alongside the program's first teaching fellow, hosted by MIT's History program.[9]

Programs and activities

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Kalaniyot's chapters share a common set of bylaws and pursue a stated mission: advancing academic excellence by deepening universities' research ties with Israeli scholars and building supportive campus communities.[5][8] Its central programs are the Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellows Program, for recent graduates of Israeli PhD, MD, and MD–PhD programs, and the Kalaniyot Sabbatical Scholars Program, for established Israeli faculty on sabbatical; the Foundation also provides seed funding intended to help scholars sustain collaborations after returning to Israel.[10][5] Chapters additionally host recurring community luncheons and lecture programming.[3][5]

The fellowships are open to graduates of Israeli universities irrespective of religion or nationality; the MIT chapter states that being Jewish is not a requirement, and Columbia's chapter has said its scholars would include alumni of Israeli universities "of various religions and nationalities".[2][1] Co-founders Hen and Fraenkel have described the program as academic rather than political, saying it does not take a position on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and that its faculty boards include non-Jewish members.[3][6] The Foundation is incorporated as a 501(c)(3) organization and its chapters are funded by private philanthropy rather than by the host universities.[10][2]

University chapters

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Kalaniyot chapters have been established at MIT, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, and the University of Southern California. While part of a shared national network, each chapter is run by a local faculty board with its own funding.[3][1][8][11][12]

Reception

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Coverage has situated Kalaniyot within a wider debate over academic boycotts of Israeli institutions following October 7, 2023. In an August 2025 feature, The Boston Globe reported that supporters saw the initiative as a response to bias against Israeli scientists and quoted Hen calling the program "the opposite of an academic boycott."[3] The Times of Israel cited Kalaniyot as an example of a U.S.-based effort to deepen ties with Israeli academia amid expanding boycott activity in parts of Europe.[4] Reporting on chapters at Harvard and Columbia placed their launches in the context of federal scrutiny of those universities over campus antisemitism and related funding disputes.[12][13]

The program has also drawn criticism. Science for the People, a progressive science publication, argued that Kalaniyot presents itself as apolitical and multiethnic while advancing a political framing, and questioned the founders' characterization of boycotts. At Dartmouth, two members of the Palestine Solidarity Coalition protested a Kalaniyot lecture on January 26, 2026, distributing flyers calling for the program to end. One protester said collaboration with scholars from Israeli universities was inappropriate because, in the protester's view, those institutions were complicit in "genocide and scholasticide in Gaza." Dartmouth Kalaniyot co-founder Daniel Rockmore responded that the program was apolitical and focused on academic collaboration with Israeli institutions without regard to individual scholars' backgrounds.[14]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 "A Kalaniyot Chapter Starts at Columbia". Columbia News. Columbia University. September 30, 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Kalaniyot". Science for the People. July 23, 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Inside a new MIT initiative that aims to offer solution to what it sees as widespread bias against Israeli scientists". The Boston Globe. August 4, 2025.
  4. 1 2 Stub, Zev (December 5, 2025). "'A very bad year': Despite Gaza truce, academic boycotts pile on, threatening Israel's future". The Times of Israel.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Capone, Lisa (December 20, 2024). "MIT-Kalaniyot launches programs for visiting Israeli scholars". MIT News.
  6. 1 2 "Meet the MIT Scientists Fighting Academic Boycotts of Israel". People of the Pod. March 28, 2025. American Jewish Committee.
  7. ↑ Sheffi, Yossi (2026). Unsafe at MIT: A Chronicle of a Campus War on the Jews. Transoft Incorporated – via Kindle.
  8. 1 2 3 Mao, April (October 20, 2025). "New Kalaniyot chapter blooms at USC". Daily Trojan.
  9. 1 2 Dizikes, Peter (July 1, 2026). "MIT-Kalaniyot program expands, with new cohort of scholars". MIT News.
  10. 1 2 "About / Programs". Kalaniyot Foundation.
  11. ↑ WeaverBell, Iris (August 1, 2025). "Dartmouth partners with Israeli universities through new research program". The Dartmouth.
  12. 1 2 Patel, Dhruv T.; Yoon, Grace E. (July 29, 2025). "Harvard Announces 2 New Partnerships With Israeli Universities". The Harvard Crimson.
  13. ↑ Diep, Francie (September 12, 2025). "Columbia Confronts Life After Its Deal With Trump". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
  14. ↑ WeaverBell, Iris (February 3, 2026). "A look at new collaborations between Dartmouth and Israeli institutions". The Dartmouth.

Category:Non-profit organizations based in Massachusetts Category:Organizations established in 2023 Category:501(c)(3) organizations Category:Israel–United States relations Category:Jewish organizations

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