Tag Archives: Charity

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.

Chanukah Begins Sunday Night – Chag Sameach!

18 Incredibly Brave Women in Jewish History

Archaeologists Find 2200-Year-Old Coins Confirming Chanukah

The Peruvian Villager Who Led Hundreds to Convert to Judaism

When Jews & Greeks Were Brothers: The Untold Story of Chanukah

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

Jew of the Week: Harold Grinspoon

The Philanthropist Behind PJ Library

Harold Grinspoon (Credit: Robert Charles Photography)

Harold Grinspoon (b. 1929) was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts to a family of Jewish-Russian immigrants. He had a difficult childhood, struggling with dyslexia and rampant anti-Semitism, poverty, and losing his father at 19. While a student at Marlboro College, he had his first business idea: Putting together some meagre savings, he bought an old laundry machine and put it in the college dorm, charging 25 cents per load. Meanwhile, he worked on an ice cream truck and soon left school to manage a whole fleet of them. After serving in the Navy, Grinspoon bought his first property in 1959. He renovated it and rented out one of the units, and from there steadily built his real estate development business. He founded Aspen Square Management, now one of America’s top-50 private developers, with 15,000 apartments across 16 states. When diagnosed with cancer at age 59, Grinspoon realized he wanted to do something more meaningful with his life. He was particularly troubled by Jewish assimilation and intermarriage. Together with his wife, he founded the Harold Grinspoon Foundation to fund a variety of Jewish causes, and has since donated over $200 million. At one Passover seder, Grinspoon saw how excited his grandkids were to read Jewish books, and came up with the idea of sending a free Jewish book once a month to every Jewish home. Thus, in 2005 he launched PJ Library. Today, PJ Library operates around the world, delivering nearly 1 million free books each month to kids in some 30 countries. PJ Library also delivers popular Arabic-language books to Arab Israeli children. (It’s the largest Arabic book program in the world!) Meanwhile, PJ Library runs weekend and after-school programs, along with over 3000 events a year. The Harold Grinspoon Foundation funds other Jewish programs, too, including Jewish camps and day schools. In 2015, Grinspoon signed The Giving Pledge to donate more than half of his wealth. Grinspoon and his PJ Library have won a number of prestigious awards, including one from the Library of Congress. Grinspoon has been called “the most important Jewish philanthropist you’ve never heard of”. He is also an avid artist and sculptor, and is still very active at 92 years old. Sign up to PJ Library here!

Words of the Week

We are indignant when we are fooled by others but live comfortably with our unconscious desire for self-deceit.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel