Why Is Sheldon Adelson’s Jewish Fraternity AEPI Expanding To Israel?
AEPi, known as the “Jewish” fraternity,” is expanding to Israel, and it’s not an obvious move.
The group which recently chartered its third full fledged branch in Israel, is trying to establish a role for fraternities in a country where Greek Life is not part of the Israeli students’ experience and where fraternities and sororities are virtually unknown.
Haaretz reported that the third and newest AEPi branch will be located at the Tel Aviv University, Israel’s largest academic institution. Others are already active at the Interdisciplinary Center in Hertzeliya, known for its significant English-speaking student body, and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
“I’ve had people telling me for years that we couldn’t make this happen in Israel,” AEPi executive director Andrew Borans told Haaretz. “It turns out they were all 100 percent wrong. The kids starting university in Israel need to feel that they belong just as much as kids in the United States.”
While officially apolitical, AEPi relies on donations from mega-donor Sheldon Adelson and other Jewish Republican contributors. The fraternity also played a role in blocking the liberal lobby J Street from joining the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations. Recently, AEPi was hit with financial turmoil that led to the resignation of two senior officers in the group.
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com or on Twitter @nathanguttman
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO