Toby & Leon Cooperman Sinai Residences Boca Raton, a not-for-profit continuing care retirement community (CCRC), on Monday hosted a ceremony to celebrate the dedication of the Rachel and Max Javit Medical Simulation and Classroom Building at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).
Rachel is a Sinai Residences resident. Her husband, Max, passed away in 2019. Their transformative gift is enabling BGU to dramatically expand its impact on health-care training, education and research. With the support of the Javits, the state-of-the-art building will be a magnet for attracting Israel’s best and brightest medical students and healthcare professionals to receive their training at BGU.
The Javits are longtime friends of BGU. In 2013, they supported the development of BGUSAT, a custom-design pico-satellite that is enabling BGU scientists to expand Israel’s space research and homeland security capabilities. Rachel, a native Israeli, and Max, born and raised in Brooklyn, met at an Israel Independence Day celebration in Michigan when Max was completing his dissertation in psychiatric social work and Rachel was in the U.S. visiting an aunt. They were happily married for 64 years until Max’s passing.
Featured attendees at Monday’s ceremony included Rachel Javit, her son Daniel Javit and daughter Sharona Javit; BGU President Prof. Daniel Chamovitz; BGU VP for Public Affairs and Resource Development Jeff Kaye; Americans for Ben-Gurion University CEO Doug Seserman; and Sinai Residences CEO and President Rachel Blumberg.
“For the Javits, supporting Israel has always been front and center among their charitable endeavors, and we are both gratified and humbled that Ben-Gurion University has assumed such a prominent role in the context of that support,” said Prof. Chamovitz. “Their gift to the University will help ensure that Israeli society benefits from the highest caliber of healthcare professionals for years and generations to come.”
“It was highly meaningful to witness the Sinai Residences community discover the innovative spirit of Ben-Gurion University,” Seserman said. “We convey our deepest appreciation to Rachel Javit and to Max, of blessed memory, for their transformative gift.”
Blumberg said, “We were overjoyed to welcome Ben-Gurion University’s president and vice president for Public Affairs and Resource Development all the way from Israel, as well as Americans for Ben-Gurion University’s CEO, to honor our residents Rachel and Max Javit, of blessed memory. It is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event, not only for the Javit family, but for all of us here at Sinai Residences.”
A plaque at the Rachel and Max Javit Medical Simulation and Classroom Building notes Rachel’s quote from a 2014 issue of Impact magazine, in which she stated, “When Israel succeeds, all Jews walk taller and prouder around the world. There’s a symbiotic relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. And we should work together.” The plaque adds that the Javits “set a personal example of love for Israel and the Jewish people that they are passing on to their children Sharona, Daniel and Debra, and their grandchildren Samuel and Isabel.”