The comedy writer Michael “Mickey” Ross is donating $10 million to the City College of New York to create a center for Jewish Studies.

The announcement yesterday was made by the school’s president, Gregory Williams, following a lecture by a Nobel laureate, Elie Wiesel. Calling the donation a “truly transformative gift,” Mr. Williams said the Michael and Irene Ross Center for Jewish Studies would house offices, conference space, and a library. The gift will also create a chair in Hebrew and Yiddish. In the 1970s, Mr. Ross was a writer for television shows including “The Jeffersons” and “Three’s Company.”

Prior to the announcement, Mr. Wiesel accepted an honorary degree from City College, where he began his academic career in the 1970s. A winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Wiesel has won numerous awards for his humanitarian efforts.

Yesterday, he addressed hundreds of people who gathered to hear him deliver the school’s first President’s Lecture, a new lecture opportunity at City College. Among those in attendance was a former secretary of state, Colin Powell, who called Mr. Wiesel a “friend” and “brother” during introductory remarks.

For about half an hour, Mr. Wiesel spoke about confronting fanaticism, touching on his experiences during the Holocaust and subsequent trips he made to war-torn countries. He also described a road trip he took in 1956 in America, and expressed his frustration at the racism he witnessed at that time. “It is sheer stupidity to believe that because of the color of the skin one person is better or inferior,” he said.

Mr. Wiesel said hatred is contagious, but he rejected the word tolerance. “I don’t like the word, it’s condescending,” he said. “Instead of tolerance, I would use respect.”

Mr. Wiesel said society today is threatened by religious fanaticism that must be rejected. He concluded with the kind of poetic words that have earned him accolades: “The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. The opposite of life is not death, but indifference to life.”