David J. Azrieli (1922–2014)

David J. Azrieli was born to a Jewish family in Maków Mazowiecki, Poland. His parents and siblings were killed during the Holocaust. Azrieli fled Nazi Occupied Poland in 1939 through Uzbekistan to the British Mandate of Palestine. From 1943-1946, he briefly studied architecture at the Israel Institute of Technology, or Technion, in Haifa. He fought in the Israeli War of Independence in 1948 before emigrating to Canada in 1954, and settling in Montreal. There he established a real estate development business that operated in Canada, the USA, and Israel and made him one of the wealthiest men in the world. He became a dedicated philanthropist and in 1989 established the Azrieli Foundation, which supports education, medical research, Jewish appreciation, and Holocaust commemoration. He also endowed the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration at Yeshiva University in New York City, and the David J. Azrieli Institute of Graduate Studies and Research in Architecture at Carleton University, Ottawa.

In 1957, he married Stephanie Lefcourt, with whom he had four children. In 2001, he published his memoirs as One Step Ahead: Memoirs: 1939-1950.