Media mogul Mort Zuckerman. Photo: Wikipedia.

JNS.org – Real estate magnate and media mogul Mort Zuckerman, who publishes the New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report, has founded a new scholarship program that will fund US students’ graduate studies in Israel.

The Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program will provide more than $100 million in scholarships over the next 20 years, which will go toward graduate studies and postdoctoral research by Americans at Israeli academic institutions, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

“At a time when collaboration is essential to advanced scientific research, this program gives the next generations of leading American and Israeli academics the ability to work together on cutting-edge research in ways that stand to benefit their fields for years to come,” Zuckerman said Monday in his announcement of the scholarship fund’s launch at the Harvard Club in New York City.

“By helping some of America’s best and brightest students work and learn alongside leading researchers in Israel, this program gives us a new model for cooperation and partnership that will ultimately better society as a whole,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who attended the news conference along with Nobel Laureates Richard Axel, Aaron Ciechanover, Eric Kandal, and Ada Yonath.

“This project will help bring back home some of Israel’s most brilliant sons and daughters, allow them to advance their own careers here, and in so doing contribute to Israel’s growing scientific excellence. It will also enable some of America’s brightest young scientists to conduct their research in Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video message.