Fun fact: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has a racing-car team. Not only that, it has its own race car, developed and designed by students from various academic departments as part of a club first started in 2006. Most recently, the team participated in the Formula Student France 2025 competition in August, where it won the Best Spirit Award.
Ariel Fromowitz, 27, has been part of the team—a large one at that, with the involvement of as many as 120 students—since he started his studies in mechanical engineering at BGU in Beersheva three years ago, fueling his interest in motorsports. While he noted that the team came in 12th (out of 12) in the summer contest, the process has taken off, and “we learned a lot.”
He said this on Sunday at the 2025 Tribute Brunch sponsored by the Philadelphia and Delaware chapters of Americans for Ben-Gurion University (A4BGU), held at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.
Fromowitz was interviewed on stage by Sam Katz, a businessman, documentarian and Mid-Atlantic co-chair of the A4BGU chapter, in front of an audience of about 170 people. (Fun fact: Katz ran twice for mayor of Philadelphia, in 1999 and 2003.)
He described the experience in France among racing teams, with the conversations more focused on heat systems, dynamics, physics, math and technology issues than politics—meaning, it was productive in a hands-on way, despite Israel being in the cross-hairs in so many parts of the world, particularly Europe.
That same kind of camaraderie is partly what prompted Fromowitz, originally from Teaneck, N.J., to make aliyah in 2016.
And it is also what drove him to BGU specifically, since he was looking for a more haimish, tight-knit community to take him in after years in yeshivah and serving the Israel Defense Forces. The school and the smaller city (Beersheva, dubbed the “Capital of the Negev,” is the eighth-most populous city in Israel, with a population of more than 200,000) fit the bill.
More than that, his parents and siblings—he is the youngest of four—have since moved to Israel as well.
In Israel, colleges are for adults’
University president and professor Daniel Chamovitz sent greetings to the group via a video message at the start of the academic year, showing him surrounded by students, buildings and greenery, saying, “I wish you could be here on campus to see this with me.”
He added that “this is a year when we can all breathe,” referring to the October ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza after two years of war.
The event also gave awards to computer scientist, venture capitalist and Jewish philanthropist David Magerman, and Matt Meyer, the Jewish governor of Delaware, who attended with his wife, Lauren (Cooksey) Meyer, an emergency room doctor, and their 18-month-old son, Levi.
Magerman recently gave $1 million each to five universities in Israel, with an emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programs and the Hebrew language, redirecting money from his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, over campus antisemitism.
A longtime advocate and funder of day schools, he is urging American Jews to attend academic institutions in the Jewish state, saying “we need to build up the infrastructure of Israel.”
Disappointed by elite universities in the United States, particularly after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and continued anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activity on campuses, he said that “in America, colleges are for children. In Israel, colleges are for adults,” pointing out mandatory national army service before enrollment.
He addressed the audience briefly but compellingly, talking about the significance of Oct. 7 and the need to move forward—not to get caught up in a Holocaust mentality.
“As disastrous as it was, we have seen the resilience of the country, the strength of the army and the geopolitical brilliance of its government,” he said, also noting God’s hand at play.
“Israel is a country of Jews, helped by God, to be successful,” said Magerman, who has visited 16 times since Oct. 7. “What we’ve learned now we need to take to heart. We need to help make this the greatest country in the world.”
To that end, as part of A4BGU’s “Way Forward” campaign, some $1.33 million was raised for the university by the Philadelphia and Delaware chapter this year, with 250,000 new gifts, according to organizers.
‘Engine for economic development in Negev’
Claire Winick, who, as the Philadelphia-based director of development for A4BGU, works to rally such funds, was honored at the Nov. 16 breakfast event for 40 years on the job; she first started back in 1985. (Fun fact: She has 20 photos of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, in her home and ties with some of his family members.)
Connie Katz, A4BGU Mid-Atlantic co-chair, along with her husband, Sam, said Winick has, in sum, helped raise $50 million for the university and its three campuses (the other two in Sde Boker and Eilat in southern Israel), as she welcomed her up to the stage to receive recognition.
“What a blessing to be able to have this kind of long and fruitful career in the Jewish community,” said Winick, who a month earlier attended the annual BGU benefit in New York City. “What more can I ask for?”
She emphasized that she has no intentions of stopping, either, aiming to work as long as she can with the philosophy that “it’s not all about the check you write. It’s about being an advocate and making people feel valued for more than just their financial contribution.”
On stage acknowledging Winick and her work, Ian Benjamin, interim CEO of A4BGU (Fun fact: He is officially in week two of the position after Doug Seserman announced stepping down from his role as CEO last month after eight years), said this academic year marks the university’s largest incoming class to date, with 20,000 students.
Born outside London and a visitor to southern Israel decades ago, when it was mostly desert (at such events, presenters mention the days when the region was accessible by camel, as opposed to the train system in the works slated to cut the travel time to Tel Aviv to 30 minutes). He told JNS that BGU has become “an engine for the economic development of the Negev—from Beersheva to Eilat.”
He also said that the government is encouraging the school to double the number of medical students at the university’s Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School from 200 to 400, alluding to another hospital to be built in the region alongside the main one, Soroka Medical Center, which will also be boosted in infrastructure and resources, by both government funds and private donations, after damage done to a lab and other buldings during the 12-day war with Iran in June.
As for Fromowitz, he continues to rev up in his field, including work on electric cars and autonomous ones. Addressing him, Sherrie Savett, A4BGU Philadelphia chapter chair, announced to those present while lauding the day’s honorees: “We know you’ll be so successful in life—and you won’t come in 12th. You’ll come in first.”
