There was a touching story in the Wall Street Journal recently about a German-Jewish couple named Dr. Howard and Lottie Marcus who passed away within two years of each other at ages 104 and 99 respectively. Two weeks ago it was revealed that in their will they left $400 million to Ben-Gurion University (BGU) in the Negev in what is said to be the largest donation ever made to an Israeli institution.
What makes the story particularly interesting is that the Marcuses were not fabulously successful industrialists or heirs to a huge fortune. He was a dentist and she a secretary but through her work for a Wall Street firm she met legendary investor Warren Buffett. They put their savings into his Berkshire Hathaway investment partnership and 50 years later this unprecedented bequest is the result.
It’s a very charming tale and a testament too to the magnanimity of the Jewish heart.
But listening to what motivated the Marcuses we come to see that one can be magnanimous and well intentioned yet sadly mistaken too. According to the BGU fundraiser who cultivated them the “Marcuses escaped Hitler’s Germany and lost their families. They came to believe that if Germany — ‘the most civilized nation in the world’ — could descend to barbarity and to the mass murder of Jews it could happen anywhere. A strong and secure State of Israel they concluded would have saved their families…”
