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Fundraising was never this easy for Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The world's oldest Jewish university raised $90 million last year, but rarely do gifts seemingly fall out of the sky like a recent $150,000 donation from a homeless, anonymous woman in New York who had no previous contact with the school.

A Holocaust survivor who died at age 90 two years ago left the institution half of her will, the school learned last week after the executor of her estate informed the American Friends of Hebrew University office in New York. After they saw the woman living out of a shopping cart in Manhattan, a local couple arranged public housing for her and gave her a daily hot meal in exchange for moving their car throughout the day to help them avoid parking tickets.

In her will, the woman stipulated that the money should be used for medical research and a scholarship fund for medical students at Hebrew University. Fittingly, the school is 90 years old this year, the same age as its surprise benefactor at the time of her passing.

"She was a Holocaust survivor and she cared about Israel, and she was very proud of the fact that there is such a reputable university here," Yefet Ozery, the university's director of development and public relations, told The Jewish State in a telephone interview.

The woman, who had no surviving relatives, left $100,000 for the New York couple and the rest of her funds to several other individuals, Ozery said. While displaying the stunning ability to out-hustle ticket-writing policemen for the last few months of her life, the woman would tell the couple how she planned to reward them by leaving them a significant portion of her will.

Despite that promise, Ozery said the couple was anticipating the gift about as much as the university was.

"They didn't think much about it because they were thinking there was really nothing there," Ozery said of the couple, which received a phone call from a lawyer informing them of their unexpected bequest.

Ozery couldn't recall any similar donations in the past from individuals who had no connection to the institution. Hebrew University will memorialize the woman with a plaque on the "Wall of Life" at Mount Scopus, a distinction given to the school's most prestigious benefactors, Ozery said. Though a donation of this size won't exactly help the school fully recover from the global recession, it's still a gift unlike any other, he said.

"We are a very large university, so such a gift by itself is not something that changes our [financial] situation in that sense," Ozery said. "It's just a very moving and special gift because of the story that goes with it."