A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
James and Eleanor Randall gave $100 million through their Randall Family Foundation to support surgical care, training, and research within the hospital’s surgery department; and to establish the Jim and Eleanor Randall Chair in Surgery. The surgery department will be named for the Randalls.
James Randall is a commercial real-estate developer in Los Angeles. He sold his aerospace rivet-manufacturing company, Allfast Fastening Systems, to TriMas Corporation in 2014 for roughly $360 million.
American Society of the University of Haifa
Herta Amir gave $55 million to establish the Herta and Paul Amir School of Medicine and support the construction of the new medical school’s new home in Haifa, Israel. The school is scheduled to open next year and is meant to address the shortage of physicians in northern Israel, where the university is located.
Amir is an economist who co-founded with her late husband, Paul, the Amir Development Company, a commercial real estate developer in Beverly Hills, Calif. She spent the early years of her career as a staff economist at the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research and then worked for more than a decade in the Economics Department of Rand Corporation, a think tank in Santa Monica, Calif.
Paul Amir was born in Central Europe and survived the Holocaust as a child. He left when he was 17 to fight in Israel’s War of Independence. He moved to Los Angeles in 1960 to marry Herta; they started their real estate business in 1972. Paul Amir died in 2020 at 89.
Harvard University
Joseph Bae and Janice Lee gave $20 million to the university’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences to endow the Arts and Humanities deanship and to back financial aid for undergraduates. The couple are Harvard alumni who graduated from the university in 1994. They serve as members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Dean’s Council and its Committee on Financial Aid, and the university’s Global Advisory Board.
Bae is co-CEO of KKR, a private equity firm in New York. He joined the firm in 1996 after a stint at the investment giant Goldman Sachs. He will join the Harvard Corporation, the university’s top governing board, in July. Lee is a writer best known for her first novel, The Piano Teacher. She worked as an editor at Elle and Mirabella magazines earlier in her career.
Hospital for Special Surgery
Ken Griffin pledged $12 million, which he will give through his Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund, to establish the Kenneth C. Griffin Research Accelerator. It aims to speed up research into knee conditions. The donation will also pay for the construction of the HSS Kellen Tower, a new headquarters for joint replacement surgery and the treatment of complex orthopedic problems. The facility is scheduled to open in 2025.
Griffin founded Citadel Investment Group, a Miami hedge fund, and has given extensively to arts and culture groups, medical care and research, universities, and other nonprofits. He appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors in 2014 when he gave Harvard University $150 million, primarily to support financial aid.
NYU Langone Health
Nicki Harris and her family gave $10 million through the family’s J. Ira and Nicki Harris Foundation, to support the health-care provider’s facility in Bridgehampton, N.Y., which will be renamed the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Ambulatory Care—Bridgehampton. The medical practice provides primary care, cardiology, gastroenterology, and pediatric care services to residents on Long Island’s East End.
Harris is the widow of investor J. Ira Harris, an expert on corporate mergers and acquisitions who founded J.I. Harris and Associates, a financial consulting firm. He died in 2022 at 83.
Occidental College
John Branca gave $5 million to establish the John Branca Institute for Music and support the expansion of the college’s music department to include music business courses and contemporary music classes. The institute will work with Los Angeles City College to establish a program that will help community college students, especially those from diverse backgrounds, transfer more easily to Occidental College.
Branca is an attorney who leads the music division at Ziffren Brittenham, an entertainment law firm in Los Angeles. His clients have included Aerosmith, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, the Beatles catalog, Dr. Dre, Berry Gordy, Enrique Iglesias, Interscope Records, Michael Jackson and others. He graduated from Occidental in 1972. His gift follows a similar one his client Gordy gave last month to UCLA’s music school.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
