Last month, Brandeis announced plans for a new building on campus: the Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Life and Leadership. The new building, expected to be completed in the spring of 2028, will be the new home of Brandeis Hillel, currently located in the Usdan Student Center. It will also feature a beit midrash, which is Hebrew for house of study, and refers to a space dedicated to studying the Torah, Talmud, and Jewish law. The Kraft Center will also feature event spaces available to the Brandeis community. All members of the Brandeis community will be welcome at the Kraft Center, regardless of whether or not they are Jewish.
The new building is made possible by a $10 million donation by Robert Kraft, chairman and CEO of the Kraft Group and owner of the New England Patriots. Kraft’s wife, Myra Kraft ’64, who died of cancer in 2011, was a Brandeis alum and received a posthumous honorary degree from the university in 2012. Her father, Jacob Hiatt, was a Brandeis trustee and the namesake of the Hiatt Career Center. Their son, Josh Kraft, was also a Brandeis trustee. The Kraft family has generously donated to Brandeis in the past, helping establish the Myra Kraft Achievers Program Scholarship Endowment, the Myra ’64 and Robert Kraft Endowed Scholarship, the Myra and Robert Kraft Chair in Arab Politics, and the Myra and Robert Kraft Professorship in Christian Studies.
Brandeis President Arthur Levine said that “Robert Kraft and the Kraft family have a remarkable legacy at Brandeis, through their generous support of our faculty and students, and we are proud to now be home to the Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Life and Leadership. We are also deeply grateful to the alumni and friends whose generous support, vision, and leadership are making this historic project a reality.”
“Brandeis University’s longstanding commitment to excellence, belonging, and Jewish traditions and values has shaped generations of leaders,” Kraft said. “The Kraft family has always been proud to support Brandeis and I am pleased to strengthen the work of the university and create a Hillel on campus to help educate and inspire students to carry forward the university’s mission.”
Kraft began his business career working for the Rand-Whitney Group, a Worcester-based packaging company. In 1968, he bought the company. In 1972, he founded International Forest Products, the largest privately held paper company in the United States. Kraft was also an early investor in New England Television Corporation, which ran Channel 7 in Boston, although he sold his shares in 1991. In 1998, he founded the Kraft Group to serve as an umbrella organization for all of his business interests.
In 1994, Kraft purchased the New England Patriots for $172 million, the most ever for a National Football League (NFL) team at the time. Under Kraft’s leadership, the team went to 11 Super Bowls, winning six of them, while establishing themselves as the NFL’s most dominant dynasty for two decades. In 2023, Forbes estimated that the Patriots franchise is worth more than seven billion dollars.
