Reichman University in Herzliya: Israel's Only Private University, on an Old Air Force Base
Herzliya's university campus used to be an air base. The British built it as an RAF station. In 1948, during Israel's War of Independence, the first squadron of the new Israeli Air Force flew from it for three months.
Today it's Reichman University, the only private university in Israel, and one of the main reasons the city's name turns up in business, policy and security circles abroad.
From college to university
Uriel Reichman, a law professor, founded the school on 11 May 1994 as the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, usually shortened to IDC. It was a bet that a private, non-profit college funded by tuition and donors, without direct government money, could compete with the state universities.
It grew fast. In 2018 it was allowed to run its own doctoral programmes, and in 2021 the Council for Higher Education let it call itself a university. It took its founder's name the same year. It still receives no direct government funding, which sets it apart from every other Israeli university.
The president today is Boaz Ganor, a counter-terrorism scholar who founded the university's International Institute for Counter-Terrorism. Reichman himself is still on campus as founding president and chairman.
What it teaches
Reichman has about 8,400 students across eleven schools. The names on the buildings read like a list of Israel's big donors:
- Adelson School of Entrepreneurship
- Arison School of Business
- Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology
- Dina Recanati School of Medicine
- Efi Arazi School of Computer Science
- Harry Radzyner Law School
- Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy
- Raphael Recanati International School
- Sammy Ofer School of Communications
- School of Sustainability
- Tiomkin School of Economics
The International School is the one most foreigners know. It runs full degree programmes in English, which makes Reichman an obvious option for students from abroad who want to study in Israel without first learning Hebrew.
Think tanks on campus
Two institutes give the university weight beyond teaching. The Institute for Policy and Strategy, based in the Lauder School, runs the annual Herzliya Conference, where Israeli prime ministers, defence ministers and army chiefs have set out policy since 2000. The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, founded by Ganor, hosts its own yearly world summit.
Why it matters to the city
Reichman sits a short drive from the Herzliya Pituach business district, and the link runs both ways. Graduates of its entrepreneurship and computer science schools go to work for, or start, the companies in Pituach. Faculty sit on boards and advise investors. The Herzliya Conference fills the city's hotels for two days and puts Herzliya in the international news.
For students moving here, the practical upside is location. Herzliya railway station has direct trains to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ben Gurion Airport, and the beaches are a short drive or bus ride west.
For more on the conference, see The Herzliya Conference Explained.