MBA endowment supports non-U.S. veterans with ‘fundamental values’ of IDF

By Hongtao Hu     3/25/25 9:57pm

Asaf Bar Natan applied to the Jones Graduate School of Business in October 2023 while serving as a captain in the Israel Defense Forces. Bar Natan now attends Rice with the help of the Gibborim Scholarship, for which an endowment was recently created within the graduate business school. 

The endowment aims to provide a scholarship to one non-U.S. veteran a year. It has a preference for those who “have advanced knowledge of the mission and fundamental values” of the Israeli Defense Forces, according to an email by Chris Stripes, the executive director of news and media relations.

Peter Rodriguez, dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business, said that the scholarship is a standard endowment. He said it was based on merit, as students must first be admitted to the Jones Business School. Recipients will then be chosen by the dean.

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“You set up some endowed fund, and you might make gifts into it over a five year period,” Rodriguez said. “The way the scholarships typically work is you take the earnings from the endowed funds that are delivered by the Rice Management Company, and you give those or award those to scholarship recipients based on some mutually agreed-to criteria.”

In this case, the criterion is service in the IDF. The endowment was created by investor and writer Jay Zeidman, inspired by Bar Natan’s journey from military service to Rice. Zeidman did not respond  to request for comment. 

However, in an interview with eJewishPhilanthropy, Zeidman said he hopes that the scholarship will not only provide financial support to IDF veterans, but also foster community among the Houston Jewish community and combat antisemitism.

In previous iterations of the scholarship, when it was not offered directly through Rice, the Gibborim  (Heroes) scholarship further stressed the preference towards IDF veterans. 

In a copy of the scholarship from Bar Natan’s LinkedIn in January, it gave special preference to soldiers who served an active combat role. Additional preference was given to those involved in the Israel-Hamas conflict, called the Iron Swords War by the IDF, that ignited after Oct. 7, 2023. 

“[The Gibborim scholarship] is in light of the increase in antisemitism cases on campuses in the U.S. against Jewish, Israeli students, and IDF graduates, and serves as a direct, crushing, and unequivocal response to any attempt to undermine their place on campus. You, graduates of service in the IDF, are heroes,” a translation of the previous draft read. 

Both Rodriguez and Bar Natan said the scholarship was not political. 

“This is signaling some preference, some very different point of view, about a different background, or military background, or about … people who are [from] different parts of the world, different religions,” Rodriguez said. “It's a legitimate … scholarship to give to someone as long as we judge them to be meritorious.”

“I don't think that the scholarship is political in any sense. It’s basically a scholarship that want[s] to bring opportunities to the community, a very particular community with very particular skills and very particular value that they can contribute to the Rice business school as a whole,” Bar Natan said.

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