Sam Rothberg: Sam Rothberg with overseas students at the 1997 dedication of the Louis H. Boyar Building, home of the Rothberg International School, Mount ScopusSamuel Rothberg, a key architect of the American Jewish community’s relationship with Israel who, as both a philanthropist and business leader, played a major role in the nascent state’s economic and scientific development, died in Peoria, Illinois on Saturday July 7. He was 97. “Sam Rothberg contributed to the development of the State of Israel and was a pillar of the Hebrew University,” said University President Prof. Menachem Magidor. "We feel the pain of this great man's passing,"

Born in the Ukraine in 1910, Sam Rothberg and his parents immigrated to the United States in 1912 and settled in Philadelphia. Prevented from studying medicine by college quotas on Jewish students — “these were the realities and you took them in your stride,” he later said — he majored in bacteriology and microbiology at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. Shortly after his marriage to Jean Culver in 1941, the couple moved to Peoria Ill. where they raised their four children — Heidi, Kathy, Michael and Patrick. Initially employed as a senior researcher for the American Distilling Company, Rothberg moved into management where his exceptional skills in sales and marketing propelled him to become a leader of the industry.

Several formative events during the 1940s served to shape Sam Rothberg’s ensuing life and the extent of his involvement in the Jewish community. In 1944, he was invited to the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) to meet Henry Montor, an inspiring figure who became his teacher and mentor in fundraising and Jewish communal affairs. In 1945, as a participant in the First National Conference of UJA, Rothberg not only endorsed the fundraising campaign for an unprecedented $100 million but, on becoming its Big Gifts chairman, set out on an almost one-man fundraising drive across the country which — unsurprisingly for those who knew the extent of his integrity, single-mindedness and ability to stir the consciences of his fellow Jews — brought in a sum well above the goal.

It was in 1947, during a five-week visit to war-ravaged Europe and the DP camps with the Joint Distribution Committee, that Sam Rothberg met with a group of Jewish orphans none older than 6 years. As the father of young children himself, the meeting was a highly emotional experience, and he vowed that he would do all in his power to prevent any Jewish child suffering as had these children. He was similarly stirred later that year when the Jewish Agency invited him to welcome into Haifa the first boatload of Jewish children who had been released, in a goodwill gesture by the British, from the internment camps in Cyprus.

Sam Rothberg 3: Sam Rothberg and his family with David Ben-GurionSam Rothberg and his family with David Ben-Gurion Frequently returning to Israel, including during the 1948 War of Independence to help work out a financial program for the new government and in 1950 to attend the economic conference convened by prime minister David Ben-Gurion, Sam Rothberg applied his characteristic no-nonsense approach to helping the nascent state’s developing economic, scientific and educational infrastructures. He played a leading role in the creation of the State of Israel Bonds program, overseeing its successful operation in many countries and accompanying both Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir on their fundraising drives. In 1958, he and his close friend Lou Boyar, founded the Israel Investors Corporation to encourage private investment.

In 1967, Sam Rothberg was elected chairman of the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the wake of the Six Day War and the reunification of Jerusalem, he joined forces with University president Avraham Harman to direct the University’s return to its historic home on Mount Scopus. Sam Rothberg spearheaded numerous innovative fundraising projects such as the Wall of Life and he played a key role in the establishment of new academic units such as the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace.

Of particular importance to him was the creation of the School for Overseas Students, today known as the Rothberg International School, which he perceived as a means of both encouraging aliya and enriching Jewish life throughout the world. Likewise, he devoted his efforts to creating on-campus housing for students, to the establishment of the Center for Pre-Academic Studies and to the creation of the Golda Meir Fellowship Fund. For him, the Hebrew University epitomized a central meeting point where Israel could nurture excellent students from all backgrounds, foster fruitful academic exchange with outstanding young scholars from throughout the world, and engage in world-class research.

Sam Rothberg was conferred honorary degrees by the Hebrew University, Brandeis University and Hebrew Union College. In 1973, in a farewell letter of thanks, the then-ambassador to the United States Yitzhak Rabin wrote to him: “I have never known a person more devoted than you to Israel and to every good Jewish cause.”

Sam Rothberg is survived by his wife, four children and six grandchildren.