WhatsApp Founder Jan Koum Donates $200 Million To Shaare Zedek

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum has donated $200 million to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, in one of the most significant private gifts ever made to Israel’s healthcare system.

The donation, made through the Koum Family Foundation, will fund a major expansion of the hospital and lead to its renaming as the Koum Shaare Zedek Medical Center. Israeli media reported that it is the largest donation in the history of Israeli healthcare.

The gift is designated for the construction of a new hospital tower, part of a project expected to expand Shaare Zedek’s capacity and strengthen its position as one of Jerusalem’s leading medical centers. The hospital currently operates about 1,000 inpatient beds.

According to reports, the project will include new inpatient facilities, surgical and emergency care services, and housing for medical staff. One report said the planned 24-story building will span more than 1.5 million square feet.

Hospital CEO Prof. Jonathan Halevy said the decision to rename the hospital was made carefully, in a way that would honor Koum’s contribution without erasing the institution’s historic identity.

“It was very important for us to add to the name and not change it completely, out of respect for the founders of the hospital 125 years ago,” Halevy said.

The latest gift follows years of cooperation between Shaare Zedek and the Koum Family Foundation. Halevy said the relationship began about a decade ago, when representatives of the foundation invited several hospitals to present possible projects at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

That meeting led to an earlier $15 million donation to Shaare Zedek, which helped build the hospital’s Yakum pediatric building.

“We then received a donation of $15 million, on the basis of which our Yakum building was built, for pediatrics, which we can now reveal is actually a building named after Jan Koum,” Halevy said.

The Koum Family Foundation later donated another $10 million to the hospital, according to Halevy. He said the newest donation was based on the trust built between the foundation and the hospital’s leadership over the years.

“People donate to people. The donation is based on the relationship that has been created over the years between our management and the foundation,” Halevy said.

Koum, who was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1976, immigrated to the United States with his mother as a teenager. He later worked as an engineer at Yahoo before co-founding WhatsApp in 2009.

The messaging app grew into one of the world’s most widely used communication platforms and was sold to Facebook, now Meta, in 2014 for about $19 billion. Forbes estimated Koum’s fortune at $15.2 billion in 2023.

In recent years, Koum has become a major philanthropist, with much of his giving focused on Jewish and Israeli causes. Reports have linked his donations to Israeli hospitals, universities, Jewish organizations, Chabad, pro-Israel advocacy groups, Ukraine aid, and organizations active in eastern Jerusalem.

The Shaare Zedek donation also comes among a wider wave of major private gifts to Israeli hospitals. In 2025, Anat and Shmuel Harlap donated $180 million to Beilinson Hospital for cancer research, a gift that had been described as one of the largest in Israeli healthcare before Koum’s reported contribution.

Reports said planning for the new project is already moving through Jerusalem’s municipal planning authorities. Once completed, the expansion is expected to significantly increase Shaare Zedek’s ability to serve Jerusalem residents and patients from across Israel.