BGU&U | SPRING 2026

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Dear Friends,

I am pleased to present this year’s issue of BGU & You, a magazine devoted to you, our global community of supporters. Year after year, your commitment and engagement remind us that Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is the result of a partnership built on shared values and expressed through real, measurable impact. As we look forward to the Board of Governors meeting under the theme Our Roots Define the Path Forward , I have been thinking about what those roots demand of us today. In Jewish tradition and in Israeli life, our roots are not mere nostalgia. They are our responsibility. They remind us what we owe to one another, and what we can build together when we act with purpose. During the country’s formative years, Israeli society was shaped by a shared sense of purpose and mutual responsibility, grounded in the belief that building a hopeful future was a collective endeavor. Recent years have underscored the cost of division. In the period before October 7, 2023, Israeli society was strained and fragmented. Then, in the earliest days of the war, as in other moments of national crisis, a renewed sense of unity emerged — echoing earlier moments when collective purpose outweighed difference. It did not erase disagreement, but it reminded us of something deeper. When faced with what truly matters, we can still find our way back to one another.

The challenge now is sustaining that unity in the long-term. Here, too, roots matter. They shape the values that endure: mutual responsibility, civic courage, and the determination to contribute rather than withdraw. I see these values most vividly in young people. They are often described as detached or cynical, yet time and again they step forward with a sense of obligation and initiative that deserves recognition. At BGU, we see students balancing their studies with service, volunteering, entrepreneurship, and leadership in their communities. In our classrooms, laboratories, and programs, they carry forward a legacy of turning challenge into action, the very ethos David Ben-Gurion envisioned for the Negev and for Israel’s future. At the same time, we cannot ignore another difficult reality, the growing distance many feel between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. Even among those who care deeply, relationships can be strained, shaped by politics, media narratives, misunderstanding, and exhaustion. In this environment, Ben-Gurion University offers something essential, a tangible point of connection with Israel, a place where the relationship is not abstract, but lived. When you support BGU, you help