Category Archives: Business & Finance

Jews in the World of Business and Finance

Jew of the Week: André Azoulay

Advisor to Moroccan Kings

André Azoulay (b. 1941) was born in Morocco to a traditional Sephardic Jewish family. He moved to Paris to study and, after completing degrees in economics and international relations, got a job working for Paribas Bank. He stayed at the company for 22 years, rising to the rank of executive vice-president, overseeing the bank’s operations in the Middle East and North Africa. In 1991, Azoulay left Paribas to work for the Moroccan monarchy. He became senior advisor to King Hassan II, and was put in charge of reforming Morocco’s struggling economy. He ran a program of privatization and deregulation that significantly boosted Morocco’s financial position, and brought billions of dollars in new investments to the country. Azoulay is also an international ambassador for Morocco and works to improve relations between Morocco and other countries, including Israel. He has participated in Arab-Israeli peace talks, and played an important role in the Abraham Accords. Azoulay is president of the Foundation of Three Cultures and Three Religions to boost interfaith dialogue and build bridges between Jews, Muslims, and Christians. He sits on the boards of several non-profits and educational institutions. Azoulay has received many awards, including Morocco’s Commandeur dans l’Ordre du Trône, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Sephardi Federation and, most recently, an Israeli Presidential Medal of Honour. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said “Azoulay has made an extraordinary contribution to Moroccan Jewry, the Jewish world, and the State of Israel, in cultivating and preserving relations with Morocco over the years, preserving Jewish heritage in Morocco, and providing support and advice to Israeli leaders in their quest for peace in the Middle East. His vision of establishing friendly and peaceful relations between Israel and Morocco was realized in the Abraham Accords and his influence is evident in every area of these relations.” Azoulay continues to serve as senior advisor to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI today, and plays an active role in his hometown of Essaouira, where he works to preserve and promote its history and culture.

How Sephardic Jews Shaped the World

Words of the Week

The Jewish people is permeated by an ancient and historically confirmed belief that nations who subject it to torture and persecution sooner or later feel the full measure of God’s punishing wrath. At the same time, God Almighty sends his blessing to those peoples who stand by the Jews in their time of peril.
– Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan

Jew of the Week: Ted Lerner

Bringing Back the Washington Nationals

Theodore Nathan Lerner (1925-2023) was born in Washington, D.C. to a family of Orthodox Jewish immigrants. He went to public school and his favourite pastime was baseball. He would sell newspapers as a child to get just enough money to afford a bus ride to the local stadium and buy an entrance ticket (a total of 28 cents). After serving in the army during World War II, Lerner returned to the US and enrolled at George Washington University (with a scholarship from the “G.I. Bill” for veterans). He went on to law school but became more interested in real estate. As a young man in 1952, he founded his own real estate development company starting with just $250. Lerner worked tirelessly, often 18 hours a day. He said that he would only take time off for Jewish holidays, and the occasional ball game. He went from developing small homes to larger apartment buildings, and then to massive commercial enterprises. Some of his most famous projects are Chelsea Piers in New York City and Tysons Corner in Washington (the area’s first indoor shopping mall, and still one of the largest in the whole country). All in all, Lerner Enterprises developed more than 20 million square feet of residential and commercial spaces, and Lerner became the richest man in Maryland. In 2002, the Montreal Expos baseball team went up for sale, and Lerner knew he had to bring the team to Washington. He ended up outbidding all the other contenders to resurrect the Washington Nationals. Lerner retired in 2018, and the following year the Nationals won the World Series, fulfilling Lerner’s childhood dream. Lerner was a generous philanthropist, and donated large sums regularly to hospitals and charities, to numerous Jewish schools, as well as to Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute in Israel. Sadly, Lerner passed away last month.

Why President Truman Recognized the State of Israel

Words of the Week

The Jew is not a burden on the charities of the state or of the city; these could cease from their functions without affecting him. When he is well enough, he works; when he is incapacitated, his own people take care of him. And not in a poor and stingy way, but with a fine and large benevolence. His race is entitled to be called the most benevolent of all races of men.
– Mark Twain

Jew of the Week: Temerl Sonnenberg Bergson

Europe’s Greatest Jewish Businesswoman

Tamar “Temerl” bat Avraham of Opoczno (c. 1765-1830) was born in Poland to a wealthy and deeply religious Jewish family. She married young, but her first husband tragically died soon after. She got remarried to a young businessman named Dov Ber (“Berek”) Zbytkower. He went on to become immensely wealthy, and supplied the Polish and Russian armies. He took on the last name “Sonnenberg”, and was nicknamed the “Polish Rothschild”. Meanwhile, besides being a devoted mother of six children, Temerl was busy supporting the nascent Hasidic movement, founded just a few decades earlier by the Baal Shem Tov. Temerl played a huge role in bringing Hasidism to Poland. In fact, she financed the construction of Warsaw’s first Hasidic synagogue. She paid the salaries of numerous Hasidic rabbis in Poland (along with non-Hasidic rabbis), including the great Simcha Bunim of Peshischa. Temerl was a huge philanthropist and gave to all kinds of other causes as well. In 1818 alone, she donated some 54,000 rubles to Polish charities. After her husband passed away, Temerl took over his business. (In honour of their father, her children changed their last name to “Berekson”, or “Bergson”, which is why she came to be known as Temerl Bergson, too.) She also founded her own new bank. Temerl was one of the top businesswomen in all of Europe at the time. She was so influential that the Russian government gave her special permission to buy an estate, making her only the third Jew to own property outside the ghettos. She continued to do everything she could to assist the plight of the Jews. In 1824, she used her influence to rescind a government decree against Jewish pilgrimages. In fact, some Hasidic leaders came to refer to her as Reb Temerl! (A title traditionally reserved for men.) In her will, she left 300,000 zlotys to charity. Temerl was called the “Polish Hasidah”, and her tombstone states: “To her nation she was a protector against oppression—a helper during distress. To the poor she was a mother. She was a virtuous woman, powerful and famous.” The renowned philosopher and Nobel laureate Henri Bergson was her great-grandson.

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Words of the Week

The Sabbath is the day we focus on the things that have value but not a price, when we neither work nor employ others to do our work, when we neither buy nor sell, in which all manipulation of nature for creative ends is forbidden and all hierarchies of power or wealth are suspended.
– Rabbi Jonathan Sacks