Most
of Jewish American wealth is self-made in the last century or so (as opposed
to Gentile-inherited opulence), [WHITFIELD, American, p. 7] a trajectory
that has no reason to plateau. About half of the Jewish super-rich built
their fortunes in real estate and construction, most notably in the New
York City area, but also all across the country, including Detroit, San
Francisco, Miami, Washington DC, Indianapolis, and Oklahoma City. [LIPSET,
p. 15] Edward S. Shapiro specifically cites Jewish "real estate barons"
Alfred Taubman in Detroit, Melvin Simon in Indianapolis, Stephen Muss
in Miami, Monte and Alfe Goldman in Oklahoma City and Walter Shorenstein
in San Francisco. [SHAPIRO, 1987, p. 14]
"In real estate and construction,"
adds Abraham Korman, "there have been major Jewish builders in San
Francisco (Walter Shorenstein), Detroit (Philip and Max Stollman), New
York (Samuel Lefrak), and Washington [DC] (Charles Smith) ... Melvin Simon
of Indianapolis is one of the major shopping center developers in this
country." [KORMAN, p. 24] The Simon Property Group is indeed "the
nation's largest mall owner in the United States, " including the
Mall of America in Minneapolis. [MOTHER JONES, 5-3-01] "In the construction
and real estsate fields," notes Milton Presur, "there are such
giants as Webb and Knapp; the Uris Brothers; Tishman; Levitt; and Rudin
and Wolfson Enterprises." [PRESUR, M., 1982, p. 163]
San Francisco's Walter Shorenstein owns
"one of the nation's largest and healthiest real estate empires,"
[KING, R., p. AS1] worth $405 million. He
was noted in 1999 by the San Francisco Examiner as "San Francisco's
biggest landlord," owning "about 25 percent of the city's downtown
rental property." [BRAZIL, E., 11-5-99, p. A4] Also in San Francisco, Richard Swig -- winner of Israel's Golda
Meir award -- founded the posh
Fairmount hotel chain; he also served as on positions for the Anti-Defamation
League and the Jewish Community Federation. By the 1880s, Adolph
Sutro, a Jewish immigrant from Prussia, alone owned "roughly one-twelfth
of the land in San Francisco." He also became the mayor of the city.
[NEWITZ, A., 1-13-99]
In a March 2000 letter to an online magazine,
famed San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti singled out a Jewish real
estate developer who was central in the cultural destruction of that city:
"A developer from Michigan, Scott Seligman, who runs Sterling Bank
and Seligman
Western Enterprises, wants to gentrify the Mid-Market zone.
Not to make the City
a better place but to make his bank account
a little fatter. He wants a bretter class of
tenant. No more photographers
or poets or translators or editors or painters.
No more small businesses
serving the City." [FERLINGHETTI, 3-8-01]
In 1989 the Los Angeles Times called
Martin Selig "Seattle's biggest property owner." He had recently
sold Seattle's tallest building for $354 million. [DIETRICH, B., 11-20-89,
p. D1] A decade earlier in Seattle,
Forbes noted that Jack Benaroya (also Jewish), "for 30 years
built the Seattle area's largest real estate empire: 8 million commercial
square feet, about 90% industrial, including 5 business parks." [FORBES,
10-27-86, p. 290]
Another Jewish real estate developer, William
Levitt, is credited -- or blamed - for the creation of "massive tract
developments of single family homes ... He shaped the American dream,
a house of one's own for a small down payment and an endless mortgage."
[KREFETZ, p. 50] Levitt was instrumental in the invention of "suburbia":
sprawls of mass-produced uniform tract houses. Between 1947 and 1951 his
company constructed 17,447 homes for 75,000 people on Long Island, known
today as Levittown. He also created another housing conglomeration --
also called Levittown -- in Pennsylvania. George Ritzer notes that:
"Levitt and Sons thought of their
building sites as large factories. Insteadof
having the product move, as one the automobile assembly line, the Levitt's product, the emerging house, was stationary,
and it was the workers
who moved around the building site ... Said Alfred Levitt, one
of the
sons: 'The same man does the same thing every day, despite the psychologists. It is boring; it is bad; but
the reward of the green stuff seems to alleviate the boredom of the work."
[RITZER, p. 28]
By 1973, Arthur Cohen was chairman of Arlen Realty and Development Corporation,
"a corporation that controlled some $1.7 billion of U.S. real estate."
[CARRUTH, E., 1973, p. 184] ... Shopping centers are the largest single
element of Arlen's business,
and the company is one of the nation's largest builders (as well as operators)
of them." [CARRUTH, p. 187] Cohen and three associates held 49 percent
of the voting shares in the company.
By 1982, another Jewish real estate mogul,
Samuel J. Lefrak, alone owned 55,000 apartments in New York City and another
30,000 elsewhere, run by some 350 different companies, each owned by the
Lefrak family. [KREFETZ, p. 81] By
1982 too, "the great majority of the New York landlords [were] Jewish"
including the prominent family names of Uris, Durst, Tishman, Rudin, Horowitz,
Ravitch, Minskoff, Milstein, Sol Goldman, and Frederic Rose, a former
President of the Jewish Philanthropies of New York. [BAER, p. 195] Before financial problems in the late 1960s,
William Zeckendorf was "master, at one time, of possibly the greatest
of all real estate empires." [BLACKWELL, E., 1973, p. 534] In the
early 1990s the Rudins owned buildings worth $1.5 billion. Other huge
Jewish real estate empires include [d] those of Aaron Gural, Leo and Alexander
Bing, the Resnicks, Fishers, Koeppels, Wiens, Cohens, and Silversteins.
By 1929 A.E. Lefcourt's 24 buildings (many skyscrapers) placed him "among
the largest landlords in the city and squarely in the ranks of its wealthiest
men." [SCHACHTMAN, p. 117]
Most New York "real estate barons,"
confirmed Tom Schactman in 1991, are "white and Jewish." [SCHACTMAN,
p. 21] By the 1920s, "a survey
found that 80 percent of the speculative builders in [New York] city were
Jewish although Jews made up only 40 percent of the 10,000 builders in
the metropolitan area. The [Jewish] immigrants' domination of the field
worried some; the chairman of the board of the United States Realty and
Home Improvement company called the 'foreign element ... a disturbing
feature in real estate today.'" [SCHACHTMAN, p. 111] Architecturally,
"even the shopping center was a [Jewish] émigré contribution, pioneered
by Viennese-born Victor Gruen ... In Chicago, [Ludwig] Mies became the
virtual inventor of industrial design." [HEILBUT, p. 143]
The premier real estate trader in the ritzy
Hamptons area of Long Island was (until he choked on a piece of steak
and died in 1991) Allan Schneider. Schneider was both Jewish and homosexual,
although he hid both. He was, says, Steven Gaines, "the most powerful
broker in all the Hamptons -- the 'Pasha,' as he was affectionately called
by his staff, with offices in Southampton, Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor,
and East Hampton and revenues approaching $100 million ... [He had] domination
in the Hamptons real estate market ... He not only substantially changed
the face of the landscape, but his own life was in some ways a metaphor
for the new Hamptons: a stage upon which nouvelle society could invent
itself." [GAINES, S., 1998, p. 4, 45, 48] How about "the largest
private landowner in all of East Hampton?" That would be Evan Frankel,
who "held the deed to more than 1,000 acres of developable land ...
at one point he owned so much land that it was estimated he paid 50 percent
of all the real estate taxes in East Hampton. Not coincidentally, at various
times, he held seats on the town planning board, the board of directors
of Southampton Hospital, and the advisory board of the East Hampton Free
Library." [GAINES, S., 1998, p. 170]
Another Jewish real estate mogul, Ben Tobin, once a part owner of
the Empire State Building, was, like most, "a major benefactor to
Jewish charities." [NITKIN, p. 6B]
Down the street, Jack Weiler's nationwide holdings equaled 5 million
square feet in New York alone; 1.5 million more were owned in California.
"A new community of more than 2,000 homes and 5,000 residents on
the southern ridge of Jerusalem was named Kiryat Jack Weiler because of
his support for Israel and his ability to coax others to help as well."
[VAN GELDEN, p. 26] Frederic and Earle Mack's Mack Company, based
in New York and New Jersey commercial and industrial development, merged
with another firm in 1997 to form the Mack-Cali Realty Corporation "which
boasted a combined market capitalizaiton of $3.4 billion ... Like his
brother Earle, Frederic Mack has long shown an abiding interest in U.
S. relations with Israel ... Mack is currently on the national board of
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation's largest and
most infoluential pro-Israel lobby." [MOTHER JONES, 5-3-01]
In July 2001, a private company took over
control of the ill-fated World Trade Center. Silverstein Properties (president:
Larry Silverstein) signed a 99-year lease to run the landmark business
complex for $3.2 billion from New York City's Port Authority (chairman:
Lewis Eisenberg). [SCT NEWSWIRE, 7-25-01] The retail section was also
controlled by a Jewish entrepreneur. As the Jerusalem Post noted
after the 2001 terrorist attack:
"Australian businessman Frank Lowy,
who emigrated to Australia from Israel in 1952, owns the 99-year lease
for the 425,000 square foot retail portion of the destroyed World Trade
Center. Lowy is the chairman and founder of Westfield Holdings,
the manager of Westfield America Trust, which has a 57 percent
stake in Westfield America Inc ... Westfield said today
that it has insurance cover against terrorist attacks and its earnings
will not be materially affected. In a statement to the Australian Stock
Exchange the retail chain said that 'investment
in the retail component of the World Trade Center is fully insured for
both capital and loss of income,' adding 'the insurance cover includes
acts of terrorism' ... Today [Lowy] is the second wealthiest man in Australia
and was recently ranked as the 209th wealthiest man in the world by Forbes
magazine. Westfield is the fourth-largest shopping mall owner, with operations
in Australia, the US, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Lowy is philanthropically
involved in the Jewish community in Sydney as well as Israel, including
sponsoring the Overseas Students School of Tel Aviv University which is
endowed in his name and being associate international chairman of the
Israel Democracy Institute." [BERGER, S., 9-12-01]
In the New York city government sphere,
"for more than four decades, without ever holding public office,
Robert Moses
ruled in New York like a potentate. He spent an estimated
$27 billion on public
works: highways, bridges, parks, tunnels, beaches,
playgrounds, dams, public buildings,
and public housing. He was in large
part responsible for the construction
of the Lincoln
Center, the United Nations, Co-op City, and the Coliseum.
His most impregnable power
base was the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority,
where he reigned as chief executive
from 1933 to 1968. He had helped draft
the legislation that created the authority and that
at the same
time ensured its existence in perpetuity by empowering it to issue
new bonds.
The never-ending stream
of bridge and tunnel tolls gave Moses control over a bond-issuing
agency
with exiguous accountability; during his tenure the authority, although
a public agency,
was as autonomous as the privately governed Metropolitan
Museum."
[MEYER, K., 1979, p. 93]
Another Jewish mogul, Aaron Ziegelman, is
in "the controversial business of buying low-rent buildings in New
York City, renovating them and selling the apartments as condominiums.
The New York Times called him 'one of New York's biggest co-op
converters.'" [KLEIN, A., p. 10]
One of Ziegelman's pet projects is to reconstruct an Eastern European
village in Israel; he has also donated a million dollars to the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College in Philadelphia and a million and a half to the National
Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.
Yet another Jewish real estate mogul is
Jerry Speyer. He married into the Tishman family, also Jewish; the family's
firm "Tishman Realty" became the largest "builder-owner"
in the United States. [TRAUB, p. 68] Fellow Jewish real estate developer
Bernard Mendik told the New York Times Magazine in 1998 that "right
now, Jerry [Speyer] is the Number 1 real-estate developer in the world."
[TRAUB, p. 62] Today Speyer's Tishman-Speyer
Properties owns 36 million square feet of building space, valued at
$10.5 billion. Among other sites Speyer's firm owns include Manhattan's
Chrysler Building and the Messerturm in Frankfurt, Germany (Europe's second
tallest building). He has served on the boards of both Columbia University
and the Museum of Modern Art. Speyer, says journalist James Traub, "operates
in that elite sphere in which wealth, public-spiritedness, and proper
table manners converge to form a colossal nexus of power, but one almost
invisible to the outside world." [TRAUB, p. 64]
In 1995, Business Week highlighted
another Jewish real estate mogul, Steve Green:
"Most
people have never head of the 49 year-old real estate maven. But Steven J. Green's
empire is growing fast. His
personal holdings include 120 retail properties across the United
States,
which he estimated is worth
$500 million. Through partnerships, he has a stake in a
real estate company in Britain that owns 22 office properties
in European business centers,
an industrial project in Eastern Europe,
and a retail development in Moscow's Red Square.
And he's the chief executive
of Astrum International Corporation,
a $1 billion company
that owns Samsonite,
American Tourister, and Culligan
brands." [WOOLLEY, p. 116]
By 1940, Albert M. Greenfield's real estate
business in Philadelphia was the largest in the city. By age 35 he had
"accumulated" 27 building and loan associations and was known
as 'one of the most influential men in the city." [SKLARE, p. 284]
In early Los Angeles, Kaspare Cohn "was one of Southern California's
largest landowners." [GOLDEN, H., 1973, p. 233] By the 1970s, noted
one Jewish observer, the (Jewish) Hellman family's Farmers and Merchant
Bank, "excepting the state, is the largest property owner in California."
[GOLDEN, H., 1973, p. 233]
In Chicago, Sam Zell is "one of the
biggest property owners in the country." [ALLEN, J. p. C1] Zell built his fortune on slum lording or,
as the Chicago Tribune puts its, the "buying of distressed
properties and resurrecting them ... Zell acquired troubled apartment
buildings in Florida, Reno, and Las Vegas." [ELSNER, p. C1] "If
you viewed us as a group," said partner Burton Kanter, "we were
the biggest landlords in Reno." [ELSNER, p. C1]
In 1976 Zell and three associates were indicted in a tax shelter
scheme over a Reno hotel transaction. Zell cut a deal with the government,
but his brother-in-law went to prison. [ALLEN, J. p. C1]
Chicago-based Neil Bluhm, president of JMB Realty, and partner Judd Malkin, noted Forbes in 1990:
"are
among the few 1980s property owners to remain high on the Forbes Hundred
[richest Americans list]. Each is estimated
at over $770 million, although
they tell people
they are each worth just under $1 billion." [BERSS, p. 352]
JMB's
reach is far, owning even the prestigious Century City office complex
-- home to many in the Hollywood entertainment world -- in West Los Angeles.
Nearby, in Beverly Hills, Guilford Glazer oversees his own $474 million
real estate empire, including the Del Amo Fashion Mall, "the largest
shopping mall in the world." [BLUMAY, C., 1992, p. 415]
Glazer, notes Forbes magazine, is "active in Jewish
American causes. [He] built [an] Israeli community center with buddy Armand
Hammer." [FORBES, 10-12-98] A Beverly Hills neighbor is Eli Broad,
co-founder of Kaufman & Broad,
the Los Angeles area's "largest home builder." [GOLDBERG, JJ,
10-22-99] In 1977, Jewish mogul A. Albert
Taubman "purchased 77,000 acres of some of the best land in southern
California between Los Angeles and San Diego." Taubman, based in
Detroit, "by the mid-1960s ... was building shopping centers in California,
the nation's ongoing Mecca of real estate development ... It was Taubman
who continualy upped the stakes in mall development, again raising eyebrows
by building them bigger than anyone else, placing more stringent demands
on tenants and charging higher rents for retailers who set up store under
his roof." [HIGGINS/HOOVER, 5-3-01, p. 4a] A Holocaust survivor,
Frank Lowy, owns Westfield America,
the largest shopping mall company on the West Coast, including eight properties
in Los Angeles, eight in San Diego, and four in Northern California. In
St. Louis, Missouri, "Lowry has five malls and is the city's biggest
landlord." In Australia, Lowy's home base, his "mall empire
... has blanketed the continent." The global asset value of his company's
holdings is $13.2 billion. [COOLIDGE, 10-19-98]
Also in Chicago, "Philip Klutznik
and his American Community Builders,
and his later Urban Investment
and Development Co. went on to build much of the face of Chicago over
the last half century." [OLIVER, p. A16] He is largely responsible
for the planned Chicago suburb of Park Forest and he owned the downtown
landmark Water Tower Place.
In Washington DC, yet another Jewish real
estate king, Charles Smith, controlled "Washington's greatest real
estate fortune." [HAGGERTY, M. p. F10] His son Robert, and son-in-law
Robert Kogod today run an empire of 2,000 employees, 14,000 apartment
units (20,000 counting the ones they also manage), and interests in 54
office buildings. Their total worth was estimated by the late 1980s to
be $3-5 billion. Other area Washington area Jewish real estate
moguls include the Hafts, Mort Zuckerman, Albert Abramson, Ted Lerner,
Bernard and Carol Gewirz, Robert Rosenthal, Estelle Gelman, Hermen Greenberg,
Abe Pollin, Myer and Adrienne Arsht Feldman, Joel Meisel and Barry Cohen,
among others. [REGARDIE'S, p. 64-] As Barbara Matusow notes about an earlier
Jewish generation in the nation's capitol:
"Morris Pollin eventually became a
leading builder and developer in
the area -- the path to wealth for so many
other Jews of humble
origins ... Abraham Kay parlayed his earnings
from a grocery store
on Capitol Hill into vast landholdings
in the suburbs. Morris
Cafritz, the city's richest developer,
used to hawk newspapers...
Nearly all the other first generation success
stories -- car dealer
Joe Cherner, Giant Food's patriarch Nehemiah
Cohen, Macke
Vending's Hyman Goldberg, lumber merchant
Isadore Turover --
also had major holdings in real estate."
[MATUSOW, B., MAY
2000,
p. 79]
In Houston, Jewish real estate mogul Jerry
Moore is worth over $400 million, owning over 140 shopping centers. Forbes
noted that he bought
"shabby, low-profit but promising strip
centers and turn[ed] them
into
born-again cash machines ... Moore lives with his wife in an
authentic 18th-century, 40-room French chateau
(transported from
France and reassembled in Houston's ritzy Memorial
section). He
owns
22 Ferraris, 14 Rolls Royces, and over 200 well-restored antique
Dusenbergs,
Packards, and other vehicles." [FIELD, p. 32]
Elsewhere in Houston, David Mincberg owns
"one of the largest apartment firms in the city." [HOUSTON CHRONICLE,
1998] He is also chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party and president
of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston.
Also in Texas, based in Dallas, the Centex real estate company "is one
of the nation's largest home builders, with operations in 53 markets in
19 states." [NEW YORK TIMES, 9-3-98] Its CEO is also Jewish, Laurence
Hirsch.
In Boston, "the young professionals
who began favoring Boston as a place to live around the time of the Vietnam
War are ensconced in their lairs, many of them either built or financed
by [Mark] Goldweitz." [ROBINSON, p. 61] In 2000, Jerome Rappaport
sold his massive Charles River Park development -- apartments and condos
-- for $300 million. [Van Voorhis, S., 2-14-00] Other Jewish real estate
moguls in Boston include "the Krupp brothers, Philip and William,
who made a killing in real estate," as well as Stephen Karp, Julian
Cohen, Bruce Beal, Steve Fishman, Ron Drucker, Dick Friedman, Alan Leventhal,
and Edwin Sidman, among others. [BOSTON MAGAZINE]
Owner of properties throughout New England,
Holocaust survivor Simon Konover -- owner of over 11 million square feet
of real estate -- "is a staunch supporter of Jewish charities."
[CHAINSTORE, p. 92] Richard Penzer has a "real estate empire"
in Pittsburgh; in Chicago, by 1988 William Adler had developed over 100
suburban and industrial properties and thousands of homes.
In Los Angeles, by 1992 Jona Goldrich and
Abraham Lurie alone controlled 25% (worth $250 million) of the luxurious
Marina Del Rey beach area. "For years," notes the Los Angeles
Times, "Goldrich has been active in Jewish affairs." [RABIN,
J., p. B1] Goldrich has been "a major builder of residential and
commercial projects throughout California" and a "major player"
in the $400 million Channel Gateway project near Marina Del Rey. In 1991
he was awarded a controversial contract by the Los Angeles County to control
over 18 acres of prime Marina Del Rey waterfront for the next 70 years.
"Mark Nathanson [also Jewish], a Beverly Hills real estate broker
and a member of the California Coastal Commission," noted the Los
Angeles Times, "was a leading supporter of the lease extension
[to Goldrich] when the five-member Small Craft Harbor Commission met last
week." "Nathanson," observed the Times, "is
the target of a federal political corruption investigation in Sacramento."
[RABIN, J., 12-23-91, p. B1] For Abraham Lurie's part, he was once even
a business partner with the brother-in-law of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd.
In 1992, before economic problems, Lurie was described as Marina Del Rey's
"biggest developer." [RABIN, J., 7-29-92, p. B1]
In Miami, Jewish real estate moguls include
Craig Robins. As one journalist notes:
"[Robins] is Miami's most celebrated
purchaser and rehabber of
dilapidated buildings ... A few in Miami
Beach gripe that Robins'
rep and political clout have made him and
[his company called]
Dacra
inordinately influential in the city, greasing the skids for any
proposed project that has his name on it."
Robins' partners include his brother Scott
and New York-based developer Tony Goldman. [KISSELL, T., 6-15-99]
Even in Mormon-dominated Utah, John Price
is the (Jewish) chairman and CEO of JP
Realty, "among the top commercial real estate developers in the
Intermountain West, owning and managing properties in Utah and nine surrounding
states." These holdings include 12 enclosed shopping malls, other
shopping centers and various commercial and industry buildings. [KNUDSON,
M., 3-23, 97] In Denver, Sally Barry made local news when she fought prominent
real estate developer Jordan Perlmutter's plans that would obscure beautiful
views of the Rocky Mountains from popular Robert Clement Park. [GREEN,
C., 2-22-95, p., B7] Also in Denver, Israeli-raised Shaul Baruch, son
of a rabbi, was noted in 1995 as a "wealthy land developer"
who had recently purchased "443 acres of prime dirt near Denver International
Airport." [REBCHOOK, J., 12-5-95, p. A47]
In Omaha, Nebraska, as an addenda to the
real estate world, Phil and Harley Schrager own the Pacesetter Corporation, the "largest independent, direct-seller
and manufacturer of residential building and improvement products in the
United States." [JEWISH PRESS, 3-31-2000, p. 1]
In Canada, the Reichmann family has an
international real estate empire and, by the 1980s, before financial troubles,
were reputed to be "one of the wealthiest families in the world."
[BUCHINSKY, p. 4] The Reichmanns
owned the largest real estate empire on earth, as well as the world's
largest newsprint producer (Albitibi-Price),
plus various other holdings. The former Deputy Minister of Finance for
Canada, Marshall Cohen, directed the large
Olympia and York division of the Reichmann sprawl. "The Reichmann's
main business vehicle, Olympia
and York Development," notes Anthony Bianco, "was the greatest
property development company in Western history." [BIANCO, p. xv]
"At the peak of their success ... the Reichmann's donated $60 million
annually to [Jewish] Orthodox institutions worldwide." [ATLAS, p.
264] The Jewish Reichmann and Bronfman families were instrumental in building New
York's tallest landmark, the World Trade Center, and in the late 1970s
the Reichmanns had major downtown development projects in ten American
cities. [BIANCO, p. 368] "In Florida, Olympia
and York generally invested along with the Shapiro family." [BIANCO,
p. 399]
"Seagrams [owned by the Montreal-based
Bronfman family] are not only the largest liquor empire in the world,
but the largest private land-owners in Canada." [BERMANT, C., 1977,
p. 68] Also from Montreal, Maxwell Cummings' real estate company has owned
land and buildings across North America. In 1948 he built an apartment
complex "which was the largest privately owned housing development
in Canada ... Throughout his life, Cummings has played an important role
in the Jewish community." [BEAUDIN, p. A4] Cummings, who died in
2001, was "a leading developer of low-cost housing in Canada."
[EISENTHAL, B., 5-24-01] An Orthodox Jew from Toronto, real estate baron
Stephen Mernick, even bought (for $139 million) the 500-acre PTL Christian
theme park in North Carolina (after the sex scandal that swept Jim and
Tammy Bakker into ruins). [DOLPHIN, p 38]
Also in Canada, Jewish mogul Peter Munk,
while heading "one of the world's most valuable gold mining companies,
Barrick Gold," also controls "Toronto's
landmark CN Tower, lots of office space in New York, and what is described
rather coyly as effective ownership of the Sears Tower in Chicago."
[FINANCIAL TIMES, 6-30-98, p. 21] In 2000, Jacob Ghermezian died.
A Jew from Iran, he "built a real estate empire in Canada."
[KIRSCHNER, S., 9-14-2000, p. 11]
Even in a place like Sacramento, California,
Mort Friedman "is prominent in two of the most public arenas in town,
law and development." [DELSOHN, p. A1] Both a lawyer and a real estate developer (including Sacramento's
Market Square mall), his personal fortune is estimated to be about $100
million. Friedman has worked "for improved U.S.-Israeli relations,"
says the Sacramento Bee, "He lobbied Congress and met with
Israeli leaders as an officer of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee."
[DELSOHN, p. A1]
In 1989, a roomful of such Jewish real
estate barons and assorted slum lords gathered to hear the Jewish New
York State Attorney General, Robert Abrams, speak at the "Greater
New York Real Estate and Construction Division of the State of Israel
Bonds." Real estate mogul Sheldon Solow received the "Israel
Peace Medal." Abrams, noted a news wire dispatch, "as a public
official and even before that, ... has been a strong voice on behalf of
Jewish causes ... [and an] ardent champion of the state of Israel ...
While he was borough president, he successfully persuaded the New York
City Board of Education to incorporate Jewish Heritage Week into the curriculum
of public schools." [PR NEWSWIRE, 11-3-89] The chair of the Real
Estate Board of New York at the time (1988) was also Jewish: Larry Silverstein.
Such men no doubt included David Steiner, head of Steiner Equities Group,
"a real estate concern which oversees millions of square feet of
commercial and industrial property from its New Jersey headquarters."
Steiner is a former president of AIPAC, the foremost lobbying agency for
Israel in America. [MOTHER JONES, 3-5-01]
In Europe, in 1997, the Deutche Presse
Agence wire service noted that "Berlin's Jewish community is
currently in turmoil, its standing in the city tarnished by reports of
dubious real estate dealing and political in-fighting among some of its
members." [FREEMAN, C.] Jewish entrepreneurs were noted to have even
swindled Holocaust survivors. "Our image is tarnished in the public
eye by all the talk of corruption and scandal," the wire service
was told at the Jewish Community Center of Berlin."
"Recently," noted the Agentur, "a [Jewish
Community Center leader's] husband was investigated by the police, reputedly
for forcing a woman from Riga into prostitution. There have also been
media reports of a [Jewish] Community member ruthlessly driving up property
rents in east Berlin." [FREEMAN, C.]
Of the 21 members of Berlin's Jewish Community
organization, 17 were noted to be "involved in real estate or property
management." [FREEMAN] The chairman of the Central Council of Jews
in Berlin, Ignatz Bubis, also owned 40% of the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv
til his death in 1999. The London Guardian noted that "All
his adult life Bubis insisted that he would live in Germany but did not
want to be buried there ["he wanted to be buried in Israel"]
and "although Bubis came to reflect the secularization and worldliness
of modern German Jewry, he once said he would be 'very upset' if his daughter
married a Gentile." [TRAYNOR, p. 10]
Another German Jewish mogul, Moritz Gertler,
was recently described by one London newspaper as "one of Germany's
wealthiest private property owners." [NISSE, p. 1, 2] In 1998, a
French wire service noted the Jewish Fiszman family, rooted in German
real estate, as "one of Germany's wealthiest families." [AGENCE
FRANCE PRESSE, 10-1-98] (Other wealthy post-war Jews in Germany include
Emil Januscek (in clothing), the "banker Feuchtwanger, in Munich,
and Rosenthal, the manufacturer whose porcelain has a worldwide reputation.")
[KATCHER, L., 1968, p. 176]
In Vienna, Austria, Ariel Muzicant heads
the "largest association of Austrian Jews." (Today's Austrian
Jewish population is about 15,000). He was also born in Israel. "I
am the biggest broker in town," Muzicant told the New York Times
in 2001, "So, yes, I know the mayor and deputy mayor. I am bigger
than the second- and third-largest brokers combined. I build, broker,
lease, and sell commercial real estate." A rival Jewish leader condemned
Muzicant as a "man who advertises real estate on the Web page of
the Jewish community he is supposed to represent." [COHEN,
R., 3-25-2001]
In England, the firm owned by Jewish moguls
Michael and Peter Freeman was picked by Estates Times to be "one
of the top 10, and possibly top five, quoted property companies in the
UK" by the year 2000. [ESTATES TIMES]
Michael Price, also Jewish and active in British real estate (and
who owns 6% of the powerful Chase Manhattan bank), was noted by the Times
of London to have "recently emerged as one of America's most aggressive
investors. It is the nightmare of every American executive to wake up
in the morning and find that Mr. Price has just bought a stake in his
company." In 1993, Sighismund Berger (who father was
a leading figure in Britain's Jewish Orthodox Satmar sect), facing economic
woes, was still described by the London Observer as "arguably
UK's largest private landlord." [PARKER-JERVIS, ONLINE]
"Mention any high-profile development,"
noted the London Guardian in 1991,
"and Godfrey Bradman's been there too;
in particular, he favours mega schemes:
Finsbury Avenue (half a million square
feet); Broadgate (3.5 million feet); Chafford
Hundred in Essex, the
biggest residential project in
Britain. And of course the 125-acre
King's Cross development, the largest single inner-city scheme in Europe."
[COLES, GUARDIAN]
Bradman is also, noted an observer in
the Guardian, "part of that north London set of Jewish businessmen
who go to each other's charity dos." [COLES, GUARDIAN] Yet another Jewish British real estate force
is Gerald Ronson, "one of the country's most celebrated property
tycoons" who in 1990 "was fined pounds 5 million and did six
months in jail for his part in the Guinness share-dealing scandal."
[BARNETT, A., p. 3] Other British Jewish real estate tycoons include
Mark Pears (whose family owns an estimated 20,000 flats and houses), and
"London property brothers Eddie and Sol Zaky, whose Topland Group's
portfolio is worth 1 billion pounds." The Zakys are from Israel.
"I would forecast that unless peace comes soon," says Philip
Beresford, compiler of a newspaper "rich list," it would be
a logical step for Israelis to settle in Britain." [LEVITT/KOHEN,
4-27-01, p. 14]
Even in Hungary, in 1995, "Israeli-owned
real estate development companies have started or prepared projects in
Budapest worth $350 million that range from family apartments to renovations
of abandoned hotels to massive shopping malls. The total development market
size is estimated to be $1.6 billion." [O'LEARY, p. 28] And, as the
Jerusalem Post noted in
2000, "over the past few years, many Israeli companies have invested
in real estate in Eastern Europe, and in Poland and Romania in particular."
These Israeli companies include
Olimpia
Real Estate Holdings,
Kardan
Real Estate, and
Elscint Limited.
In 2000,
Elscint also bought
a 49% ownership of a Polish hotel chain. [SHAVIV, M., 10-6-2000] In the
Czech Republic, about 1,600 Jews live in Prague, the beautiful capital
of that country. "The new chairman [of the Prague
Jewish
Community]," noted the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2001,
"intends to ensure that the community makes the most of its assets,
which include prime real estate in Prague and elsewhere in the country."
[BENNETT, M., 7-2-01]
In
2001, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, noted that "Israeli
real estate companies are the largest and most active in some Eastern
European countries ... Companies like Europe Israel have invested hundreds
of millions of shekels in buying and developing East European commercial
centers. Kardan Investments has been operating several years
in Poland and has set up thousands of square meters of office space."
The article, however, focused upon increased Israeli real estate movement
in Great Britain. Israeli companies there include Giron Development
and Building and Dorot. But the "most prominent Israeli
company in the British real estate scene is Alony-Hertz."
[LINDMAN, C., 6-27-2001]
Israeli
Real Estate Flourishes in England. Haaretz [Israeli
newspaper], June 27, 2001
"The entry of real estate into foreign fields was made possible by
an easing of Israel's foreign exchange restrictions in 1993, allowing first
companies, then individuals, to move money out of the country. This, coupled
with accelerated globalization also easing the transfer of capital from
one country to another, has led to a new situation in which Israeli real
estate companies are the largest and most active in some Eastern European
countries. But Israeli companies and individuals also had many incentives
for investing in Britain."
Major international Israeli real estate
acquisitions in the year 2002, as noted by the Jewish Agency's "Global
Jewish Agenda" newsletter.
See also: Slum Lords
The above information is from:
When Victims Rule. A Critique of Jewish Pre-eminence
in America.
