(JTA) — The San Francisco-based Taube Philanthropies has pledged $1.3 million for the construction of a Chabad house near the Stanford University campus.
The new home of Stanford Chabad will be named Taube Chabad House, Taube Philanthropies announced on Tuesday.
The campus already is home to the Taube Center for Jewish Studies and the Taube Hillel House.
The Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform movement seminary, is also named in honor of Taube’s family, after he gave $15 million toward its renovation.
“It is a privilege to share in the good fortune I’ve had as a Jewish immigrant who came to the United States as a child from Poland,” Tad Taube, a native of Krakow who made his fortune in real estate, said in a statement. “It is most satisfying to be able to support organizations that bring people of common interest together. Stanford Chabad, in its new home, will continue to provide a venue for the spiritual and material needs of Stanford’s Jewish community for generations to come.”
Taube, who earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Stanford, has overseen more than $100 million in gifts to the university. This has included grants for the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, the Taube Hillel House, the Taube Family Tennis Stadium, an endowment to support the Taube Director of Men’s Tennis, and gifts for construction of Stanford’s football stadium, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, the Hoover Institution, and the endowment of the Tad and Dianne Taube director position at the Hoover Institution.
As a signatory of the Giving Pledge, an initiative of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, Taube has committed to donate the bulk of his wealth to philanthropic causes and charitable organizations.
Taube Philanthropies has also made significant grants to various Bay Area organizations, including the Commonwealth Club, the San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Zoo, Ronald McDonald House at Stanford, and major Bay Area Jewish organizations, including Chabad of Oakland and Chabad of San Francisco. It has also donated significant sums in Israel and to efforts in Poland to revitalize Jewish life.
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