After the Yom Kippur war, he and fellow Detroit-area philanthropist Lloyd J. Paul were flown to Israel by Prime Minister Golda Meir and given the Prime Minister's Club Award for outstanding philanthropic deeds towards Israel. In 1999, Davidson gave $20 million to establish the Davidson Institute of Science Education at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. This was then the largest private donation ever given to the institute, a leading international science research center and graduate school. Davidson later added another gift of $15 million to the same institute. In addition, he endowed the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York with a $15 million gift. The excavations on the southern wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have been named the Davidson excavations in tribute to his generous donations to the project. He also gave to the American Technion Society to establish the world's first educational institution entirely dedicated to the international management of technology-based companies at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. Davidson was also a contributor to the Wexner Foundation which gives grants to graduate students of Jewish studies. In March 2007, Davidson donated $75 million to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.