WhatsApp founder Jan Koum is donating $200 million to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in what is being described as the largest philanthropic contribution in the history of Israel’s healthcare system, officials from the Jerusalem hospital told JNS on Thursday.
The donation, made through the Jan Koum Family Foundation, is expected to triple the size of the hospital, which currently has approximately 1,000 beds. Koum, 50, who was born into a Jewish family in Ukraine and immigrated to the United States as a teenager, co-founded WhatsApp in 2009 before selling the messaging platform to Meta for approximately $19 billion in 2014.
The funds will be used to construct a new inpatient tower that will also include housing for medical staff, tripling the size of the hospital. According to a source in Israel’s healthcare system, planning approvals for the new tower are advancing rapidly through Jerusalem’s municipal planning institutions.
The contribution surpasses the previous record donation to Israel’s healthcare sector, a $180 million gift made in 2025 by Anat and Shmuel Harlap to Rabin Medical Center’s Beilinson Hospital.
The two donations reflect a growing trend in which private philanthropy—much of it from American Jewish donors—is increasingly funding major hospital infrastructure projects that the state has not undertaken on a similar scale.
As an independent hospital not affiliated with one of Israel’s health funds, Shaare Zedek relies heavily on philanthropic support to expand and develop its facilities. Officials said the latest donation underscores the widening gap between institutions capable of attracting major private capital and those primarily dependent on government funding.
Koum, who divides his time between California and Europe, has become a prominent philanthropist, supporting Jewish, educational and pro-Israel causes around the world. In recent years, he has donated to several Israeli organizations and initiatives, including the Maccabee Task Force, Friends of Ir David and the Central Fund of Israel.
