Texas A&M Will Open Branch Campus in Israel, Chancellor John Sharp Says

Image by Getty Images

By JTA October 22, 2013

Texas A&M is set to announce the creation of a branch campus in Israel.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp are in Israel, where they will announce plans for Texas A&M Peace University in Nazareth on Wednesday, The New York Times reported.

The newspaper said Texas A&M would become the first American university to have a branch campus in Israel.

Perry and Sharp will be joined in the announcement by Israeli President Shimon Peres and Minister of Education Shai Piron. Financing will come from private donors in Texas and around the world since Texas A&M is prohibited from investing public dollars in international campuses, the newspaper reported.

Students and teachers at the campus in Nazareth, a northern Israeli city of some 81,000 populated mainly by Arab-Israelis, will include Arabs and Jews, as well as international students and faculty, the university told the Times.

“I wanted a presence in Israel,” Sharp, who became chancellor in 2011, told the newspaper. “I have felt a kinship with Israel.” Sharp and Perry were college roommates at Texas A&M.

Sharp involved evangelical pastor John Hagee in the project. Hagee, who has raised millions of dollars for Israel, helped connect university officials with Israeli leaders, The New York Times reported.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO