Profile: Guilford Glazer

Ever since Israel became a nation, Guilford Glazer, a TAU Honorary Fellow and Founder of the American Friends of TAU, has been a steadfast supporter of the State, as well as a friend of many leaders in Israel and the region, including among others, Israel's David Ben Gurion, Abba Eban, Shimon Peres, Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Yitzhak Shamir, Benjamin Netanyahu, and especially close friend of Avi Pazner, assistant to many Prime Ministers and Teddy Kollek, Haim Herzog and Jordan’s Dr. Marwan Muasher.   

Guilford Glazer has also maintained friendships with past and present Tel Aviv University Presidents, including Prof.Joseph Klafter, and  Ben-Gurion University President Prof. Rivka Carmi.   Together with his wife, attorney and television interviewer of world leaders, Diane Pregerson Glazer, he has supported projects of the Israel Defense Forces, and sponsored numerous programs promoting peace in the Middle East.

The Glazers co-founded TAU’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and the former Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, now the INSS; sponsor a new young faculty recruitment Chair at TAU’s Department of East Asian Studies and are supporting the Minerva Humanities Center at TAU's Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas. Additional TAU projects funded by the Glazers include research on Alzheimer's disease and the publication of the complete works of Zvi Preigerson about Soviet Jewry in the 20th century. A relative of Diane, Preigerson's writings in Hebrew offer a valuable and detailed portrayal of the plight of Soviet Jewry during the turmoil of much of the 20th century.

Glazers Support Chinese Students Exchange Program 

With support from the Glazers, 12 Chinese PhD students have studied at TAU as part of their graduate studies at The Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute of Jewish and Israel Studies at Nanjing University.  The Glazers strongly believe that a mutual dialogue between the two great cultures -- the Jewish and the Chinese – is highly relevant to the complex world of today. For the students, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – an eye opening experience and a launch pad for promising careers –  accessible to very few in their homeland of China. "I feel that the Chinese people have a lot to learn from Israel and the Jewish people, especially about maintaining the balance between tradition and modernization, a crucial issue in China today," said Huowan He, a former exchange student at TAU writing his dissertation on Jewish philosopher Martin Buber.