Category Archives: Business & Finance

Jews in the World of Business and Finance

Jew of the Week: Don Isaac Abravanel

Treasurer of Torah, Treasurer of Spain

Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508) is perhaps the most famous member of the illustrious Abravanel (or Abarbanel) Sephardic dynasty, which traces its lineage back to King David. He served as Royal Treasurer for both King Afonso V of Portugal, and later, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, helping the new Spanish kingdom rise to greatness. Nonetheless, the Spanish decided to expel all the Jews from their domain in 1492. Incredibly, Ferdinand and Isabella gave Don Isaac an exemption, and begged him to stay in Spain as their treasurer. Don Isaac refused, and chose to go with his people. A man of vast wealth, he offered 600,000 crowns to the Spanish monarchy to rescind the expulsion of the Jews. The offer would have been accepted were it not for Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor (murder of thousands of Jews, who, ironically, had Jewish ancestry himself). Don Isaac was a huge philanthropist, supporting the Jewish community in Spain financially, and guiding them spiritually. He is most famous for writing dozens of treatises on Judaism and the Torah (the first of which he wrote before age 20), including a profound commentary on the Tanakh.

Words of the Week

Character is a person’s only real possession.
– Rabbi Israel Salanter

Jew of the Week: Haym Solomon

America’s Founding Father?

Haym Solomon (1740 – 1785) One of the major financiers of the American Revolution, he was born in Poland to a family of Sephardic Jews, and later immigrated to New York. (His father was the rabbi of the Sephardic community in Lezsno, Poland.) At one point imprisoned and sentenced to death by the British for being a member of the revolutionary Sons of Liberty, Solomon ultimately died in poverty for his incredible devotion to the founding of the United States. He single-handedly raised the equivalent of $100 million (in today’s value) to pay for the Americans’ final campaign against the British at Yorktown, which turned out to be the last battle of the war. Later, he lent what some estimate to be the equivalent of $40 billion to establish the United States and keep it from going bankrupt in its early years – money which he was never repaid. Many believe that the United States would not exist were it not for his efforts.

Words of the Week

It is a special kindness that God made man to walk upright, so that he looks upon the Heavens; unlike beasts that go on all fours and see only the earth.
– Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch (1789-1866)