Posthumous birthday present helps SA students in Israel

The lives of South African students studying medicine in Israel will be made much easier because of a lifelong friendship and an 85th birthday gift from one business leader to another, both of whom have since passed away.

The Samson Lubner Scholarship, a pledge made by Eric Samson to his friend, Bertie Lubner, for his birthday didn’t come to fruition before they both passed away in 2021 and 2016 respectively. The scholarship will now be used to pay for medical students’ dormitories.

Dorron Kline, the chief executive of Telfed, the absorption organisation for South Africans in Israel, said, “It’s a 15 000 shekel [R76 300] scholarship for those who choose to study medicine at the Medical School of International Health at Ben Gurion University [BGU]. The money is to pay for dorms. New olim receive full tuition scholarship from the Israeli government.”

The Samson Lubner Scholarship is a result of Eric Samson’s pledge of $1 million (R18 million) to BGU for Lubner’s birthday.

Lubner’s son, Marc Lubner, the executive deputy chairperson of the Afrika Tikkun Group, said that his father was very involved with BGU and was a part of its board of governors, so when Samson wanted to give Bertie a gift, he suggested rather to donate it to the university.

“It was a bit of a joke,” Lubner said, “because my dad always wanted to be a doctor but his father would never allow him to do it because he was co-opted into the family business. Eric said that in recognition of my dad, whose real dream was to be a doctor, he would help fund a bursary programme for medical students, which wasn’t implemented unfortunately at the time of my dad’s death nor at the time of Eric’s death. So, Eric’s son-in-law, Steven Cohen, picked up on the pledge.”

In 2022, Telfed was behind the move to enable South African students who wished to complete their seven-year medical degrees in English to do so with a highly subsidised programme. They were able to complete a subsidised three-year BSc pre-med degree in English, as well as completing their Doctor of Medicine at the Medical School of International Health at BGU.

Up until then, any international medical student would be able to complete their medical studies at BGU without needing to make aliya. However, this came at a significant price – $40 000 (R722 000) a year for the last four years of the degree.

Kline knew of the pledge made by the late Samson, so he approached both the Lubner and Samson families to see if they would still be interested in honouring this pledge to help students who wanted to study medicine in Israel at BGU. They worked together to negotiate with BGU to try and lower the price of tuition so that many more South Africans could still apply and study in Israel.

“Dorron and I went to go and negotiate a fee for students studying at Ben Gurion University,” said Lubner, “The original intention was to offer bursaries for medical studies for students who were studying in Israel who would return to South Africa. And then the rules came, and you could get discounted fees only if you were an oleh, which is how it stands now.”

According to Kline, the Israeli Student Authority noticed that there was a shortage of doctors in Israel as many of the doctors that had made aliya from Russia in the 1980s and 1990s were going on pension and many of the students studying medicine at universities in Israel were returning to their home countries. “Israel said, ‘We are closing down all international medical schools for tourists; anyone who wants to study medicine in Israel has to make aliya,’” he said.

Since these medical students must make aliya and thus become Israeli citizens to complete their studies, the tuition fee would be covered by the Israeli government. Similarly, Kline said that after this change, the Israeli Student Authority agreed to pay for both the BSc degree at Ariel University and the four years at BGU, in which the first two year would be in English and the final two would have to be in Hebrew as they would have to practice in Israel.

“A person can come and study medicine, and all tuition is paid for if they make aliya,” said Kline, “however, their dorms and living expenses aren’t paid for, so that’s where the Samson Lubner Scholarship fund comes in.”

Applications for the scholarship fund will be selected through the South African Israel Chamber of Commerce (SAICC), and Telfed will administer the scholarship.

Daniel Yakcobi, the chairperson of the SAICC, said that he would consider “anyone who wants to learn medicine on a full scholarship in Israel, but is willing to make aliya”.

Similarly, Lubner said that recipients of the scholarship must give something back to the community in South Africa, and one condition of getting the scholarship was to return to South Africa and volunteer with the Smile Foundation, which the Lubners started. The foundation provides life-changing facial reconstructive surgeries and treatments to children in underserved communities.

“The idea is that South Africans come back to visit their family and are happy to give some of their time in some way, whether they’re here physically or whether it’s from Israel, sharing technology or whatever it might be, in some way contributing back towards the Smile Foundation,” Lubner said.