Dr Wendy Fisher honoured by and honours Yeshiva University

More than 40 years after philanthropist powerhouse Wendy Fisher began studying for her doctorate of psychology at Yeshiva University, she was honoured with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters at the same university in recognition of her lifelong dedication to the arts, education, and Jewish continuity.

“I accept this honour not as a closing of a circle, but as its expansion, a renewed commitment to learning, to listening, and to helping others shine,” Fisher said in receiving her award on 7 December.

She was given this honour in recognition of her roles as president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Kirsh Foundation advisory board chair, and founder of the A4 Arts Foundation and Lockdown University.

“It is deeply meaningful to return to my alma mater tonight, to a place that shaped my values, my imagination, and my way of seeing the world. Coming back to Yeshiva University at this moment feels like tracing a thread through my story and the story of our people: a thread of learning, remembrance, and renewed light,” said Fisher on receiving her doctorate.

“This recognition, that inner strength fuels outer change, became the thread I added to my parents’ work. Philanthropy is not only about building schools or water towers, it is about affirming personhood. It is about helping people discover their worth, their voice, and their agency.”

In her speech, Fisher explained that she has been profoundly shaped by her family and her South African roots, particularly the idea of ubuntu. “My father, Natie, built the Kirsh Foundation on the belief that you give fishing rods, not fish. Over the years, I learned that a ‘fishing rod’ can be many things: a school, a borehole, or just as powerfully, a sense of confidence and community. To feel needed, to know you matter, is its own sustenance. I came to see that the most powerful fishing rod is internal: dignity, confidence, a sense of self that says, I matter. I can. If it’s to be, it’s up to me. That belief was strengthened here at Yeshiva University.”

She explained that when she started her doctorate in psychology at Yeshiva University more than four decades ago, she was in search of answers to some fundamental questions of life: What does it mean to be human? How do we grow, suffer, and heal? “Those questions never left me. They became the foundation for everything that followed,” she said.

As well as receiving this honorary doctorate, Fisher, together with her family, endowed a Chair in Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University to support the role of rosh yeshiva of the James Striar School for Undergraduate Jewish Studies. This Chair is held by a fellow South African, Rabbi Jonathan Shippel.

The Chair in Jewish Studies was established to engage and embrace students who have never had a Yeshiva education within the Yeshiva University community.

Shippel, who was born and raised in Cape Town, told the SA Jewish Report that the students at the James Striar School for Undergraduate Jewish Studies are young men from Jewish communities around the world who have not had a Yeshiva education. In fact, many of his students, particularly valedictorians over the past 20 years, have hailed from South African Jewish schools like King David.

“There are four divisions of undergraduate Jewish studies for students who didn’t attend a yeshiva high school, whether they went to parochial, community schools like King David or Herzlia, or government schools,” he said.

“Over the past 18 years, I’ve had about 120 students each year from more than 17 countries: Panama, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Spain, France, Israel, Russia, and others. They come for academic excellence and to continue their Jewish journey. We were recently ranked the number two small university in the United States by US News & World Report.”

After completing high school and university in the United States, Shippel returned to Cape Town to give back to the community that raised him. He began working at the University of Cape Town in August 2000, engaging with students and young professionals.

By December that year, the Ohr Somayach shul had been established on the Herzliya Weizmann campus in Sea Point, intentionally created for people who didn’t usually go to shul.

From there, Shippel helped establish a Jewish Learning Centre and the Phyllis Jowell Jewish Day School in Cape Town.

In 2005, he received an offer to start teaching at Yeshiva University and jumped at the chance to help connect young people to Judaism on a bigger scale than he had access to in South Africa. And two years after he began teaching at the James Striar School, he became its director.

On receiving this Chair, he said, “I’m humbled and blown away. On one hand, it’s an incredible accomplishment. On the other hand, it’s ripe with responsibility. It allows me to have even more impact than I did before.”

Shippel has also been a major part of Lockdown University, an educational webinar series and online community started by Fisher.

Said Fisher of this innovation, “When the world fell silent, I created Lockdown University with a simple instinct: that learning could keep us connected. Education has always been our path from loss to renewal. I felt that truth deeply during the pandemic.

“What began as a small circle grew into a global community of tens of thousands. People came not only to learn, but to feel less alone. It reminded us that the Jewish story has weathered darker winters, that curiosity can keep the gloom from closing in, that the mind can open even when the world is shut,” she said.

“We see this same spirit of memory and illumination wherever the Jewish people build. When the National Library of Israel reopened in its breathtaking new home, it felt like the Jewish story was made visible, stone and glass glowing around centuries of wisdom. A place that says, our story is alive.”