[1] He was the second of four brothers, Simon Sr. (August 19, 1882 – December 21, 1947), Robert Sr. (September 20, 1890 – February 4, 1973), and Jeffrey Sr. (June 20, 1894 – 1975).
He briefly attended Ohio State University, but dropped out at the age of 18 to work full-time in the store.
In the summer of 1929, months before the Wall Street crash of 1929, Lazarus met with Walter N. Rothschild from Abraham & Straus of Brooklyn and Edward Filene from Filene's of Boston on Rothschild's yacht in Long Island Sound.
Under his leadership, Federated eventually became the largest department store company in the United States.
Lazarus himself exerted enormous financial, social, and political clout; he is credited with convincing President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 to move Thanksgiving a week earlier, to the fourth Thursday in November instead of the last Thursday in November, in order to make the Christmas shopping season longer in those years on which November had 5 Thursdays.