Zev Wolfson
Zev Wolfson (September 27, 1928 – August 13, 2012) was a Jewish businessman and philanthropist,[1] who has been remembered as one of the most important figures in American Orthodoxy over the past century.
At 16, he carried his father's dead body over his shoulder to bury him in the frozen tundra, and took responsibility for the support of his mother and younger brother.
Following the end of the war, they left Russia, reaching Lodz, Poland and eventually a DP Camp in Germany where they obtained visas to America.
His first major project was One State Street Plaza, a 33 story, Class A skyscraper located at the southern tip of Manhattan.
Some of those he invested with in his early days include legendary financiers Carl Icahn,[4] Julian Robertson and Michael Steinhardt as well as funds such as KKR, Apollo Global Management and The Blackstone Group.
In 1989, when Israel was in desperate need of money to absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees from the former Soviet Union (FSU), Wolfson played a major role in securing $10 billion in US government loan guarantees.
Working with leading figures in Congress, most prominently Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware he succeeded in having inserted into foreign aid appropriation bills, on several occasions, provisions altering the repayment terms on US governmental loans to Israel, or having the loans changed to grants.
He persuaded French president Jacques Chirac, for instance, to supply land for Otzar HaTorah schools, which primarily served immigrants from North Africa, and then paid for the building with monies from the Israeli government.
[3] In the 1960s and ’70s, Wolfson obtained US government funding to build dozens of institutions in Israel, under a provision for schools and hospitals abroad from the USAID budget.
He added that he once approached Wolfson for help with opening a niche Jewish Day School and was immediately yelled at, “Why one?
The Canadian Reichmann family and Brazilian businessman Elie Horn worked with Wolfson to fund Jewish outreach and education around the world.
In paying tribute to Wolfson, US Senator Joseph Lieberman, compared his humble nature to that of Moses, "who just wanted to be judged by his actions".
[7] In 1980, in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Wolfson was conferred with an honorary doctorate by the Jerusalem College of Technology, a school he helped found with Professor Ze'ev Lev in the late 60's.
His wife Nadine is herself a prolific philanthropist and the founder of Shalom Task Force as well as other important Jewish endeavors.
[2] His eldest son, Rabbi Avrohom (Abraham) Wolfson was a noted philanthropist and Torah scholar who died in December 2020 at the age of 64, a few months after suffering a heart attack from which he never recovered.
[11] His son Aaron is the president of The Wolfson Group and is active in many of the family’s charitable endeavors, including Olami, which was founded by his father and Elie Horn in 2001 to perpetuate Jewish identity and continuity on college campuses around the world.
