$180 million gift to medical center from successful investor Dr. Shmuel Harlap
Anat and Dr. Shmuel Harlap have made history with a $180 million donation to Rabin Medical Center–Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, marking the single largest gift ever to Israel’s public healthcare system.
Their contribution will fund the construction of the Tower of Hope, a state-of-the-art Heart and Brain Center set to open in 2027. The 15-story facility will double the hospital’s capacity, adding 300 new beds and advanced departments dedicated to cardiology and neurology, while also housing Israel’s first fully integrated stroke command center and a brain research institute.
For the Harlaps, the donation is more than an investment in medicine—it is a statement about unity. “A public hospital best represents the healing of divisions in Israeli society,” they said at the signing ceremony, emphasizing that the new center will serve people of every background. Hospital leaders echoed that sentiment, calling the gift a national mission that reflects both trust in Israel’s medical teams and faith in the country’s future.
The couple’s philanthropy is deeply tied to their life story. Dr. Shmuel Harlap, chairman of Colmobil Group and one of Israel’s most successful investors, began his career far from the world of business.
Raised in Rehovot and Haifa, he fought in the Six-Day War as part of the Golani Brigade, earned a PhD in Platonic philosophy at Harvard, and taught at Hebrew University before moving into industry.
His early $10,000 investment in Mobileye grew into a 7.2% stake; when Intel acquired the company in 2017, Harlap netted $750 million. He has since become a billionaire investor in Israeli startups across cybersecurity, nanotechnology, and life sciences. Alongside his wife Anat, he has also focused on philanthropy that bridges social divides. Following the October 7 attacks, the couple donated 120 new vehicles to devastated kibbutzim near Gaza, a gesture that underlined their instinct for solidarity in crisis.
Founded in 1936, Beilinson Hospital is already Israel’s leader in organ transplants, but the Harlaps’ gift will transform it into the region’s foremost hub for heart and brain care.
Their donation joins a small circle of landmark philanthropic commitments in Israel—such as Dr. Howard and Lottie Marcus’s $400 million gift to Ben-Gurion University—but stands out for its unprecedented scale in public healthcare. More than a building, the Tower of Hope is envisioned as a national landmark of healing, a place where science, technology, and compassion converge.
For the Harlaps, it is both a personal statement of belief in Israel’s resilience and a promise that when citizens face their most urgent medical crises, they will do so in a hospital that embodies the highest standards of care and the broadest embrace of unity.