David Joshua Azrieli CM CQ (Hebrew: דוד יהושע עזריאלי; 10 May 1922 – 9 July 2014) was an Israeli-Canadian tycoon, real estate developer, architect, and philanthropist.

[4][5] Following the outbreak of World War II, he fled from the German-led invasion of Poland and took refuge in the Soviet Union for a brief period.

By late 1942, he had arrived in the British Mandate for Palestine, having been smuggled along with a weapons shipment concealed in coffins for the Yishuv.

[6] Between 1943 and 1946, Azrieli studied architecture at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in the city of Haifa, but did not complete his degree.

[11] In Canada, he reconnected with a few of his first cousins who had also survived the Holocaust and fled from Europe, including Henia Azrieli Rosenfeld.

In Montreal, Azrieli enrolled at the Thomas More Institute (now part of Bishop's University), where he completed a Bachelor of Arts in 1956.

As a direct result of this action, the Canadian advocacy group Save Montreal was formed to organize resistance to future demolitions of designated heritage sites.