Before the dentist Simon B. Poyta, of Forest Hills, Queens, died in 2006, he expressed a wish that programming on WNET, New York’s flagship public television station, could help combat the anti-Semitism he witnessed while serving in the army during World War II.
On Thursday, WNET is set to announce a $20 million gift from the estate of Mr. Poyta and his wife, Sylvia — a comptroller, who died in 2012 — the largest bequest in its 53-year history.
With the donation, the station has established the Sylvia and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Anti-Semitism, the proceeds of which will be used for on-air and online programming on anti-Semitism and tolerance.
“We have a lot of ideas on the drawing board about projects we’d like to make happen,” Neal Shapiro, WNET’s president and chief executive, said. “This is a great way to investigate some of these topics.”
The Poytas’s gift will be applied toward WNET’s $150 million campaign for an endowment devoted to programming, bringing the total raised to more than $90 million.