Hanukkah Dinner celebrates ‘Rise Up Campaign,’ which now stands at $350 million.

(Courtesy of YU) Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, announced record success in the first year of “Rise Up: The Campaign for 613.” Last year at this time, the Rise Up campaign, which has a goal of raising $613 million over five years, was launched with private-stage funding at $250 million. Today, with an additional $100 million raised this year, the campaign has passed its halfway mark and now stands at $350 million.

The announcement was made in a packed room of over 500 friends and supporters of Yeshiva University at its 98th Annual Hanukkah Dinner on December 4.

“Thank you to all of our friends, alumni and supporters for their commitment to building the flagship Jewish university,” said Berman. “Any student of history understands that today our greatest need is to educate the next generations to be leaders of tomorrow, deeply rooted in our Torah values and forward-focused to meet the challenges and realize the enormous opportunities of our times. In all of our metrics—national rankings, student enrollment, cutting-edge academic programs and career accomplishments of our graduates—Yeshiva University is on the rise. With gifts to secure scholarships, build state-of-the-art facilities and support our world-class faculty, the continued success of the Rise Up campaign is propelling YU into its next great era.”

The dinner committee included YU leaders from across the country, with Ingeborg and Ira Rennert serving as Honorary Chairs, and Anita Zucker and Senator Joseph Lieberman as Dinner Chairs.

The interactive program included virtual presentations demonstrating the dramatic impact of campaign gifts across the Universitym with touch-screen kiosks, pop-up theaters, surround-sound video and hologram testimonials from YU students, all underscored by the dynamic big band sound of Chris Norton and the powerful voice of Shulem Lemmer.

Already, students are benefitting from the campaign’s many new initiatives, including the Shevet Glaubach Center for Career Strategy and Professional Development, the Emil A. and Jenny Fish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership, a joint Yeshiva University-Albert Einstein College of Medicine B.A./B.S.-M.D. program, the endowment of the Abraham Arbesfeld Chair of the Director of the Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik Semikhah Program, the Louis and Malca Drazin Beit Midrash, the Mitzner Master of Science in Real Estate degree program at Sy Syms School of Business, and a significant expansion of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought.

New initiatives and spaces are in development, including the new Belz Building on Wilf Campus, the Anita Zucker Program for Jewish Early Childhood Educators, the Graduate Nursing Program at the Katz School of Science and Health and the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law School. Significant scholarship funding has helped Yeshiva University support its stellar student body, who are benefitting from a YU education that uniquely prepares them for lives of personal meaning and great success.

For more information about the campaign for Yeshiva University, go to riseup.yu.edu.

Visit the YU Web site at www.yu.edu