Jewish philanthropist and Brandeis trustee Michael Steinhardt said the University has great potential for helping realize his philanthropic aim of strengthening the Jewish identities among unaffiliated American Jews. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported in August that Steinhardt is dissatisfied with the outcome of some of his Jewish investments and plans to shift his donations to projects that work with unobservant Jews.

"I decided that I would focus my energies toward trying to improve Jewish identity and the Jewish commitment of the group that was most vulnerable," he said Sunday in reference to non-Orthodox Jews, particularly those "on the fringe of Jewish identity."

Steinhardt said the University's Steinhardt Social Research Center, which he endowed with $12 million in 2005, falls in line with his vision. The Center conducts surveys and produces research and statistical analysis on the American Jewish community.

"My hope for Brandeis is that it can be the light unto the non-Orthodox, secular, American Jewish world, which I do not think it is yet," he said. "But I do believe it, more than any other institution, has that potential."

Several top administrators didn't return requests for comment Monday. Last January when former President Jimmy Carter visited campus and rumors that donors disapproved of the event surfaced, Nancy Winship, the University's chief fundraiser, said donors don't dictate the direction of the University.

"We don't make any [academic] decisions based on donors' wishes," Winship said in February.

Steinhardt established the Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation in 1995 after leaving a lucrative career as a hedgefund manager. He has since donated over $100 million to Jewish causes, including the Birthright Israel program, which provides free trips to Israel for Jews ages 18 to 26.

He named the Birthright initiative, as his most successful endeavor because it reaches thousands of unaffiliated young Jews.

Devotion to the "future of the Jewish people" is his top philanthropic priority, Steinhardt said, adding that Brandeis' social research center plays an important role in this goal.

"One of the many failings of the organized Jewish world in America is a great lack of clear and accurate measuring devices," he said. "We know far less than we should know about our own community and much of what we do know has been derived at ineptly."

The Center provides "better quality information and new information in a host of areas that will be of major importance to the self-understanding in the American Jewish community," Steinhardt said.

In 2005, the institute conducted a widely read demographic survey of the Jewish population in the Boston area.

"If there is really a desire to step forth and to be courageous and to be relevant to the serious issues that confront the American Jewish community, and to come up with some serious answers," Steinhardt said, then Brandeis could be a viable partner in strengthening Jewish identities.