Baron Edmond de Rothschild

There is a tendency in very wealthy families for some of the children to divest themselves of all business interests and become philanthropists. It was true in the Ford family, the Rockefeller family, and the Carnegie family. It’s almost like repentance for how the money was made. They try to give it back to the people.

Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Paris was in his late twenties when he decided to become a philanthropist. During the Irish potato famine of 1847, he donated more money to the starving Irishmen than some of the most prominent families in Britain who actually drew their income from estates in Ireland, but what he wanted was a Jewish cause. How he found one goes to prove how life is stranger than fiction. Samuel Mohilever, a Yiddish-speaking rabbi from Bialystok, founded a movement called “the Lovers of Zion.” It encouraged Jewish settlement in the Holy Land, and this was well before Herzl’s political Zionism. He heard about the Baron and went to see him in Paris. I don’t know how they communicated. Rabbi Mohilever didn’t speak French, and the Baron didn’t speak Yiddish, but somehow Rabbi Mohilever got through to him, and the Baron invested millions in thirty-nine colonies in the Land of Israel, many of which are thriving cities and towns today – Rishon Le’tzion, Zichron Yaakov, Binyamina, Gedera, Rechovot. In 1882, he opened the Carmel Winery, which remains Israel’s biggest producer of wine. And the Rothschild Foundation continues to distribute millions each year to worthwhile causes.

Carmel Wine Company in northern Israel in the 1890's

Another outstanding Jewish philanthropist, a predecessor to the Baron, was Sir Moses Montefiore. His is not quite a rags-to-riches story, but it’s a combination of fortuitous events. He was born to a Sephardic Jewish family in London in the late 1700’s and was employed as a clerk in the banking house of Nathan Mayer Rothschild. There were no restrictions on insider trading then like there are today, so Montefiore got in on the action. He became an independent millionaire simply because the Rothschild wealth rubbed off on him.

When Montefiore became wealthy, he did a very noble thing. He dedicated the rest of his life to philanthropy on behalf of the Jewish people. Like the Baron, he was only in his twenties when he made this decision, and he lived to be 100, so for nearly 75 years, he acted as the representative of the Jewish people in places where no other Jew had influence. He was knighted by Queen Victoria and was a leading member of England’s aristocratic establishment. But he never forgot his Jewish roots, and like the Baron de Rothschild, used his wealth to build up the land of Israel.

There is a famous legend about Sir Montefiore. It is said that in the basement of his palatial home, he kept a coffin, and every night before he’d go to sleep, he’d put on his shrouds and lie in it for a while. He is reputed to have said that it was very good for eliminating arrogance.

Whether that story is true or not, the fact that such a story even exists about him shows us his character and how highly the Jewish people regarded him.

From the philanthropic accomplishments of these great men, we see that there’s no limit to the good that can be done with money. Unfortunately, there’s also no limit to the corrosion it can cause if misused or handled dishonesty. Wealth can be good, and it can be bad. It all depends on what you do with it.

Louis Brandeis

With the recent appointment of the first Latina to the American Supreme Court, it is worth remembering the first Jewish Justice, Louis D. Brandeis, who was appointed by President Wilson in 1916. Like with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Brandeis’ appointment was a great symbol of “arrival.” It brought more pride to the Jewish community than did the election of Jews to high public office. Elections are decided by votes, and there were many Jewish voters. But an appointment to the Supreme Court was a matter of presidential nomination and senatorial confirmation, an acknowledgment by non-Jewish society of the value of the Jewish contribution to America.

Louis Brandeis’ family arrived in America with the first wave of Jewish immigrants in the year 1850. Like most Jewish immigrants of the period, they originated from Germany and did not observe Judaism, though the family never denied its Jewish ethnicity. However, Brandeis had an uncle named Lewis Dembitz who was an observant Jew and a powerful role model in his life. He was a lawyer with a sterling reputation and was also an ardent abolitionist. Brandeis’ decision to pursue a career in law came from the direct influence of this uncle. He so admired him that he even changed his middle name from David to Dembitz.

Though Brandeis himself was never an observant Jew, he described the impression that his uncle’s religious behavior made upon him:

“. . . I recall vividly the joy and awe with which my uncle, Lewis Dembitz, welcomed the arrival of the [Sabbath] day and the piety with which he observed it. I remember the extra delicacies, lighting of the candles, prayers over a cup of wine, quaint chants and Uncle Lewis poring over books most of the day. I remember more particularly an elusive something about him, which was spoken of as the ‘Sabbath peace,’ and which years later brought to my mind a passage from Addison in which he speaks of stealing a day out of life to live. That elusive something prevailed in many a home in Boston on Sunday and was not wanting at Harvard on that same day. Uncle Lewis used to say that he was enjoying a foretaste of heaven. I used to think, and do so now, that we need on earth the Jewish-Puritan Sabbath without its oppressive restrictions.” (Strum, Phillipa. Louis D. Brandeis: Justice for the People. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984, page 11.)

What he failed to appreciate is that the very presence of the “oppressive restrictions” is what makes the Jewish Sabbath “a foretaste of heaven.”

Naturally, Brandeis’ appointment to the Supreme Court did not happen without bitter opposition. Anti-Semitism was rife at that time, and Brandeis’ Jewishness was an issue in the Senate confirmation hearings. Even when he was finally appointed, his colleague Justice McReynolds refused to say one word to him in his entire 23 years on the Court. Nine people in one room, deciding on the most important cases on the country, and one wouldn’t speak to the other.

Because of this, Brandeis identified with the outsiders of society. A forerunner of the Warren Supreme Court, he was the first to articulate the solicitude a democracy should show to the disadvantaged and the individual, as opposed to protecting the rights of the insiders and the Establishment. In this, he was truly a Jewish justice, in the tradition taught by the great Hillel: “One should not judge someone else unless he is capable of standing in his place.” (Ethics of the Fathers 2:4) His utopian dream resonates with the vision of the Hebrew Prophets and the Talmudic heritage of justice. He was an heir to it, albeit unknowingly so.