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http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Obituary+David+Azrieli+touched+many+parts+society/10014707/story.html By Paul Delean, THE GAZETTE European-born David Azrieli, who fled the Nazis as a teenager, fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and then found fortune in Canada, died Wednesday at age 92. According to Forbes magazine, the Montreal-based real-estate developer and businessman was one of the richest Canadians with an estimated worth of $3.1 billion. He also was one of the most generous, contributing more than $100 million to philanthropic causes around the world, many of them in the fields of medical research, education and the arts. “It’s a great loss,” said Susan Laxer, president of local Jewish organization Federation CJA. “He literally changed the landscape in Israel with his office towers and architecture, and with his philanthropy, he touched many parts of our society and community. Through his legacy, he’ll continue to touch the lives of many people.” Norma Joseph, professor of religion and associate-director of the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies at Concordia University, described him as “a formidable person, very strong-minded. And he used his mind for a wonderful vision of community and building.” The institute got its start in 2011 with funding provided by the family foundation, “but he did more than give money. He also gave his personal time and effort,” Joseph said. Born into a Jewish family in Poland, Azrieli escaped ahead of the Nazi occupation and kept moving, winding up in British Mandate Palestine in 1942. He studied architecture at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and fought in Israel’s war of independence before settling in Canada in 1954. In a rare 1973 interview with the Montreal Star, he said he arrived here with no family connections and “literally, penniless.” “Nobody gave me anything,” he said. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Université de Montréal and working at a number of jobs, he had enough saved for his first solo project in 1957, construction of four duplexes on vacant lots he purchased in Ville D’Anjou. It was the start of a real-estate juggernaut that would eventually include thousands of apartment units, office buildings and shopping centres in Canada, the U.S. and Israel. Among his local holdings is the downtown Dominion Square Building housing The Gazette, acquired for $78.25 million in 2005, and the Sofitel Hotel. The Azrieli Group also held interests in companies active in the fields of energy, water and finance. He remained its chairman until last week when daughter Danna succeeded him, a move prompted by his medical condition. A sometimes controversial figure, Azrieli made headlines in the 1970s when he razed the former Van Horne Mansion on Sherbrooke St. and erected a 17-storey office tower on the site. In 1984, he sued The Gazette for libel over an editorial about a local development, but lost. “From the times of the pyramids to those of the skyscrapers, the works of architects and builders have been monuments to their glory or to their shame,” Superior Court Judge Paul Reeves said. “They build before the public eye and the public rightfully says whether it likes or dislikes what it sees.” In his later years, Azrieli split his residency between Israel and Westmount. “I have two homelands,” he once said, “two places that I love and where I have been blessed to do what I love best.” Active in and supportive of Jewish causes throughout his lifetime, he served as president of the Canadian Zionist Federation and in 2008 authored a book called Rekindling the Torch: The Story of Canadian Zionism, which told the story of the contribution of Canadian Jews and non-Jews to establishment of the state of Israel and their continuing support for the country. He also made Holocaust remembrance a personal crusade after it took from him two siblings and both parents. “This is my vision, to be able to use the tangible rewards of my career in building and construction to create a legacy for education and educational institutions in both of my homelands,” he said. A recipient of the Order of Canada, Azrieli also was a “chevalier” of the Ordre National du Québec. Married for 57 years to Stephanie Lefcort, he had four children: Rafael, Sharon, Naomi and Danna. He died surrounded by family at his country home in Ivry-sur-le-Lac, Que. pdelean@montrealgazette.com

Publié le 04 octobre 2010 à 06h29 | Mis à jour à 06h29 (Montréal) Ils déposent plus de brevets, lancent plus d'entreprises et attirent plus de capital-risque que quiconque sur la planète. Malgré un territoire pauvre en ressources naturelles et une situation politique instable, les Israéliens se sont hissés au sommet des indicateurs internationaux d'innovation. Le Québec, qui traîne la patte en la matière, peut-il s'inspirer de l'État hébreu? > Suivez Philippe Mercure sur Twitter Lundi dernier, à Québec. Le ministre du Développement économique, de l'Innovation et de l'Exportation, Clément Gignac, lance les mises en candidature pour combler un tout nouveau poste: celui de «scientifique en chef». La personne choisie deviendra à la fois le chef d'orchestre, le conseiller du gouvernement et le porte-parole de tout ce qui touche à la recherche québécoise et son financement. Ce rôle, les Israéliens le connaissent bien. Ils comptent sur un scientifique en chef depuis 1984. Le parallèle n'est pas fortuit. «Mon idée de créer le scientifique en chef est venue quand j'ai regardé ce qui se passe en Israël - un petit pays, mais qui a des gains de productivité très élevés», a révélé à La Presse Affaires le ministre Gignac lors du dévoilement de la stratégie québécoise sur l'innovation, au printemps dernier. Cet exemple illustre un fait méconnu, mais facile à vérifier: le milieu de l'innovation québécois a les yeux rivés sur Israël, un territoire qui compte une population et un PIB similaires à ceux de la province, mais qui innove beaucoup plus. «Israël est un monde que je connais particulièrement bien et qui a influencé mes réflexions depuis sept ans», dit Jacques Bernier, associé principal de Teralys - plus important réservoir de capital-risque du Québec et de tout le Canada avec 700 millions sous gestion. M. Bernier dit aller en Israël en moyenne une fois par année. Il y a deux ans, Raymond Bachand, actuel ministre des Finances qui occupait à l'époque le siège de M. Gignac au Développement économique, s'y est aussi rendu avec une importante délégation commerciale. But de la mission: tisser des liens, mais aussi prendre quelques notes. «Israël est similaire au Québec à plusieurs points de vue, observe M. Bachand en entrevue. Il y a la taille, il y a ses secteurs porteurs qui sont très similaires à ceux du Québec - la biotechnologie, la pharmaceutique, les technologies de l'information. Et Israël est un leader mondial à la fois dans les secteurs technologiques et le capital-risque.» «Pour motiver un changement de perspective sur la technologie au Canada ou au Québec, Israël est le pays qui nous offre la plus belle occasion», dit carrément Céline Bak, du Russell Mitchell Group, groupe de consultants en technologie établi à Ottawa. Pourquoi Israël? «Quand on parle de la Chine, les gens nous disent: ils sont un milliard et demi, il n'y a pas de démocratie, ce n'est pas la même chose, répond Mme Bak. Avec Israël, on n'a pas d'excuse. C'est un pays où il n'y avait rien ou si peu il n'y a pas si longtemps, et tout d'un coup il se retrouve chef de créneau dans plein de secteurs.» http://lapresseaffaires.cyberpresse.ca/economie/international/201010/04/01-4329218-israel-les-lecons-pour-le-quebec.php?utm_categorieinterne=trafficdrivers&utm_contenuinterne=lapresseaffaires_LA5_nouvelles_98718_accueil_POS2

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette) I removed most parts of the article that aren't really speaking about the Decarie Square project. Plus he voices his opinion on office towers here in Montreal.

Le baril a bondi à New York, un nouvel essai de missile iranien ravivant les craintes sur une éventuelle pertubation des approvisionnements dans le Golfe en cas de conflit armé entre Téhéran et Israël. Pour en lire plus...

Montreal's Jews aren't going anywhere By Yoni Goldstein The history of Russian Jews in Montreal, Canada, began more than a century ago, when a coalition of Jews and Christians in the city raised funds to help Jews escape from the Russian empire in the wake of an onslaught of pogroms triggered by the assassination of czar Alexander II, in March 1881. There are widely varying estimates on the current size of the Russian Jewish community in Montreal: The local Jewish federation believes there are fewer than 10,000 Russian-speaking Jews in the city, while Russian community officials claim the actual number is more than double that figure. In either case, a community center and a Russian-language biweekly newspaper attest to the fact that Russian Jews have established a vibrant community in the city (whose total Jewish population is about 100,000). Of course, as in virtually every city outside Israel where there is a Jewish presence, life for the Jews of Montreal is not without challenges. The city has been home to some minor-league anti-Semitism in the past, and the province of Quebec is proving to be mildly hostile to anyone who can't speak in French and isn't willing to learn how. But the biggest threat to Montreal Jews, the Quebec sovereignty movement of the 1970s and then later, in the early-1990s, has more recently lost favor in the eyes of more Quebecois than ever before. Now is a good time to be a Jew in Montreal. Apparently, Nativ, the formerly clandestine organization that since the 1950s has shared responsibility for bringing Jews from what is now the Former Soviet Union to Israel, and Israel's minister of strategic affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, don't agree. According to recent stories in Haaretz and the European Jewish Press service, having apparently run out of Jews still living in the FSU to bring to Israel, Nativ is planning to make a new push in North America to recruit Russian Jews there to make aliyah. Target No. 1: Montreal. It's a peculiar strategy: aiming to do business in a country that has two significant, settled communities of Russian Jews (the other being Toronto, where some 90,000 live); a country that is safe for Jews and where Jewish communities have long prospered; and a country, moreover, to which disadvantaged immigrants flock and where they are welcomed in droves, where they can experience multiculturalism and inclusiveness. When you're trying to convince people to leave peaceful, thriving Canada for a better life in the Middle East, you know you're in trouble of some kind. The only ones that look bad in this story are Nativ and Lieberman. The decision to recruit in Montreal is, at best, misguided. Worse, it demonstrates that the brand of covert immigration missions that were Nativ's bread and butter between the 1950s and 1990s is no longer needed. For 30 years, the organization was solely responsible for assisting countless Jewish escapees from the Soviet scourge, but that very important work is now finished. Jews who, under the hammer and sickle, were unable either to express themselves Jewishly, or to leave for someplace else where they would be free to do just that, are now at liberty to choose where they want to live, including Israel. In fact, Nativ's decision to choose Montreal's as its first stop in North America proves just how out of touch the organization is. (Already in Germany, Nativ has provoked a protest from Jewish communal leaders because of similar efforts there to lobby Russian-immigrant Jews to depart for Israel.) According to estimates from the city's Jewish federation, 80-85 percent of Russian Jews living in Montreal actually moved there from Israel. These people have already been the beneficiaries of Nativ once, and yet, at some later point, they decided that Israel wasn't the right place for them after all. There's no reason to think that they would consider moving back now, no matter how hard aliyah-liaison officers try to convince them. Nativ's venture into Montreal is doomed to fail because the organization's brand of cloak-and-dagger aliyah recruitment simply isn't suited to today's Jewish global village. Its employment of old-style Zionist tactics, which depict the State of Israel as representing the final stronghold against a world of Jew-haters doesn't connect with people anymore. There are, after all, other perfectly suitable homes for Jews. Montreal is one of those places. Perhaps the time has come for Israel in general to reevaluate its relationship with Diaspora Jewry and acknowledge that there are other places in the world perfectly suited to Jewish living. Once it takes that first step, the next job would be to recognize that the overall relationship between Israel and the Diaspora must change. Instead of looking at the Diaspora as a temporary home for those Jews who can't or aren't ready yet to make aliyah, Israel should invest in forming bonds with Jewish communities around the globe. Nativ, which has been reorganized and reportedly has a fat new budget, might even consider investing some of its cash in making those communities healthier, much in the same way those communities have long invested in the welfare of Israel. Montreal's Russian Jews aren't going anywhere and neither are the vast majority of Jews - Russian-speaking or otherwise - in North and South America and Europe. The sooner the Israeli government realizes that fact, the sooner it can begin to forge a new, symbiotic relationship with all the Jews outside Israel who are quite content to stay right where they are. Yoni Goldstein is an editorial writer at Canada's National Post, and a columnist at the Canadian Jewish News.