Robert Kraft is transforming Jewish life at Brandeis University with a $10 million gift that names a new center that will help prepare the next generation of Jewish leaders. The gift to create the Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Life and Leadership is part of a fundraising campaign that has received significant support from early leadership donors for this new hub for Jewish life and leadership on the Waltham campus.

“Robert Kraft and the Kraft family have a remarkable legacy at Brandeis, through their generous support of our faculty and students, and we are proud to now be home to the Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Life and Leadership,” says Arthur Levine, president of Brandeis University. “We are also deeply grateful to the alumni and friends whose generous support, vision and leadership are making this historic project a reality.”

The gift to name the center honors the Kraft family’s long connection to and support of Brandeis and the institution’s founding as a bold experiment in 1948: a university rooted in Jewish values, committed to excellence, and open to all. Today, these values continue to shape how the Brandeis community teaches, learns and lives together. The Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Life and Leadership will be the nexus of Jewish life on campus, a formative space for students’ growth, preparing them to shape the future.

A modern destination located in a 28,000 square-foot facility for Hillel at Brandeis, the Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Life and Leadership will feature state-of-the-art meeting spaces, a house of study (beit midrash) designed for collaborative learning, and flexible event spaces that can host conferences, convenings, and critical conversations about the future of Jewish life. The Kraft Center, expected to open in spring 2028 after renovations are complete, will serve as a natural bridge between undergraduate and graduate Jewish leadership development, attracting Jewish students and nurturing talented professionals.