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The story
Bar-Ilan University has Jewish-American roots; it was conceived in Atlanta in a meeting of the American Mizrahi organization in 1950, and was founded by Professor Pinkhos Churgin, an American Orthodox rabbi and educator, who was president from 1955 to 1957 where he was succeeded by Joseph H. Lookstein who was president from 1957 to 1967. When it was opened in 1955, it was described by The New York Times "as Cultural Link Between the [Israeli] Republic and America". Presidents who followed were Max Jammer (1967–77), Emanuel Rackman (1977–86), Michael Albeck (1986–89), Ernest Krausz (1989), Zvi Arad (1989–92), and Shlomo Eckstein (1992–96).
The university was named for Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan (né Meir Berlin), a Religious Zionist leader who served as the inspiration for its establishment. Although he was trained in Orthodox seminaries in Berlin, he believed there was a need for an institution providing a dual curriculum of secular academic studies and religious Torah studies.
BIU's student population is diverse and includes both Jewish and non-Jewish students.
Jewish students must take at least five courses in Jewish studies in order to graduate; non-Jewish students can choose general courses instead. These are available as academic Jewish studies courses, as well as through more traditional Torah study, offered primarily by the Machon HaGavoah LeTorah, established in the 1970s. The "Machon" operates a Kollel / Bet midrash for men, and a Midrasha for women. The Kollel offers traditional yeshiva studies with an emphasis on Talmud and Halakha (Jewish law), while the midrasha offers courses in "Tanakh" (The Bible), practical Halakha, and Machshavah (Jewish philosophy). The Midrasha is the largest in Israel. These programs are open to all students free of charge.
Yitzhak Rabin's convicted assassin, Yigal Amir, was a student of law and computer science at Bar-Ilan, prompting charges that the university had become a hotbed of political extremism. One of the steps taken by the university following the 1995 assassination was to encourage dialogue between left-wing and right-wing students.
Bar-Ilan's Faculty of Law made headlines in 2008 by achieving the highest average Israeli bar exam grade of 81.9 by its graduates.
Under university President Moshe Kaveh (1996–2013), Bar-Ilan underwent a major expansion, with new buildings added on the northern side of the campus. New science programs have been introduced, including a multidisciplinary brain research center and a center for nanotechnology. The university has placed archaeology as one of its priorities, and this includes excavations such as the Tell es-Safi/Gath archaeological excavations and the recently opened Bar-Ilan University/Weizmann Institute of Science joint program in Archaeological Sciences.
In 2011, during President Kaveh's term, Bar-Ilan University opened the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine in Zefat in Northern Israel. The Israeli Government awarded Bar Ilan the tender to open Israel's 5th medical school and the first in the Galilee region in order to address the shortage of physicians and improve health care to its population.
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Daniel Hershkowitz was university President from 2013 to 2017.
Arie Zaban was elected as the President of the university in 2017.
In June 2024, the university received a $260 million donation from the estate of an anonymous American donor, the largest bequest in the university's history and the second largest ever to an Israeli university. The donation is earmarked for science and technology, specifically to recruit researchers, build laboratories, and create partnerships.
In June 2025, the Israel National Institute for Energy Storage was established at the university at a dedicated energy complex, at the direction of the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, in academic collaboration with the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
From Wikipedia’s article on Bar-Ilan University, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4