News Highlights Commencement 2026:
Gerald Chan
Gerald Chan, co-founder and chair of the Morningside Group, received an honorary degree at Hebrew College’s Commencement ceremony on May 31, 2026. Below are his remarks. (Pictured: Board member Andy Offit reads Gerald Chan’s remarks.)
I am extremely blessed to have parents who instilled in me a solid foundation of work ethics and moral rectitude, a grandmother who gave me a strong grounding in faith, and teachers that fostered in me a love for learning. These three strands of my upbringing came
together in the work I do in biotechnology. The opportunity to combine science and business to make new medicines to alleviate human suffering is an honor of a lifetime. The biotech business is arduous. Last year I got a rare disease drug approved by the FDA after working on it for twenty years. The reward is that there are toddlers eating dinner with their parents tonight who would otherwise have died without this drug.
Of all the honorary degrees I have received, none was as much a pleasant surprise as my being honored by Hebrew College. My interest in Jewish history began in the scripture lessons which was part of the curriculum of the Anglican school I attended. Reading the
book O Jerusalem! by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre stimulated my further interest.
In college, I studied Jewish history under the famous historian Amos Funkenstein. I remember fondly my first visit to the old city of Jerusalem. To know at that moment that I was standing on the ground where so much of human history was forged left me with nothing less than a sense of awe. That was 1974. I have since returned to Israel many times and have invested in several Israeli startups.
My dear friend David Fialkow calls me his Chinese rabbi. Now that I have a degree from a bonafide rabbinical school, I feel less of an imposter. I am grateful to Rabbi Sharon Anisfeld and her predecessor Rabbi Danny Lehman for their friendship and am honored to be
included in the company of the Jewish community of Boston.