“I need them to see a mechanical digger working,” Prof. Shlomi Codish, director of Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, said after an Iranian missile hit the hospital in June, emphasizing the importance of rebuilding for the morale of the hospital’s employees. Today, he received official confirmation of a budget for the project: NIS 360 million from the state and a $100 million donation from philanthropist Sylvan Adams, some NIS 720 million altogether. The donation from Adams is the largest that the hospital has ever received.
Codish insisted in a previous conversation on the matter that the rehabilitation of the hospital had to include not just reconstruction of the buildings destroyed by the missile, but also fulfilment, very late, of longstanding promises by the state to expand and reinforce Soroka’s main buildings. His insistence paid off, and the budget has now arrived.
In his previous conversation with “Globes”, Prof. Codish estimated that rebuilding the buildings that were destroyed in such a way that they would be proof against another such attack and would contain more protected floors as promised in the past would take NIS 960 million.
Even before the current budget was received, donors from around the world came together to help in rehabilitating and rebuilding Soroka. The Koum Family Foundation led the effort, and, along with a $50 million donation, called on foundations and donors to rally to the cause of strengthening Soroka. The Helmsley Charitable Trust, a longstanding partner of Soroka in a range of projects and emergency situations down the years, gave $15 million. Codish can thus now complete his plan.
“We welcome today’s decision by the government to allocate the required budget for the rehabilitation and reinforcement of Soroka. The new Soroka, with its devoted and outstanding staff, will combine advanced infrastructure and groundbreaking research and innovation to provide the highest standard of medical care, and will thereby turn the tragedy into growth and ensure the resurgence of the Negev, physically and morally,” Codish said today.
“I thank Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and our many colleagues in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance. On behalf of the employees of Soroka and the residents of the Negev I thank Mr. Adams for his generous donation, which will change the face of the medical center for many years ahead and position us on a par with the world’s leading medical centers. Alongside the government’s decision, the management of the Clalit Health Fund, the mayor of Beersheva, and a community of donors in Israel and around the world, are partners in the process.”
Sylvan Adams, one of the most prominent Jewish philanthropists, is president of the Israel region of the World Jewish Congress, and was named by “Times” magazine as one of the 100 most influential philanthropists in the world.
“It’s a great honor for me to announce a donation of $100 million to Soroka Hospital, to build and redesign the hospital as an advanced medical center of the first order, a national asset for the Negev and the State of Israel as a whole. Soroka will represent a beacon of medicine, progress, and peace,” Adams said today.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on November 3, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
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