|
The Milchan family 1. Chaim Eliezer Milchan and his wife Ester Michaela
2.The family c 1960s
3.The Milchan brothers ( Azrikam, David, Mordechai and Yohanan)
4. Israeli-American movie producer Arnon Milchan (center) with Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres (left) and Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in 2005 (David Silverman / Getty Images) Born on an estate near Goniondz, district of Bialystok, Poland, on the 3rd of Tevet Tr"m (late 1879). His father Dov was "Ben - Torah", who was also known as "a hero" to the Jews. The local hooligans often "felt his heavy hand" when trying to run wild and attack the Jews. His mother was Matatia, daughter of Eliezer Jezrael. His bible teachers in the "Cheder" , ignited his spirit and filled his heart with the desire to renew the glory of Israel in its land as in the "judges" and the "kings" and "prophets". At the age 12 he was sent to a Yeshiva in Lumza, where he was studying the Torah every night until 2, and was greatly affected by the "Musar movement", Especially The book " Path of the Just " by Ram"chal. His teachers recognized his great promise in term of his sharp perception. But he did not want to waste the years of his youth in exile, for the sake of a rabbinical career. In 1904 he immigrated to Israel with his sister Malka. When he reached the port of Jaffa he witnessed the harsh stiffness of the Turkish government against Jewish immigration. At 4 in the morning he parted from the ship into the boat, to be taken to the shore, but the Turks did not let him go on shore. The ship would not let him returned either. So the boat was next to the ship without food or water for 12 hours, to which eventulaly the captain took pity on him and gave him some water. At the end he was allowed to return to the ship. He traveled to Beirut and returned to Jaffa but again was not allowed to go to the shore. He continued on to Port Said (Egypt) and from there came again to Jaffa, but directly from the ship he was about to be returned to Odessa. This became known to the Jews in Jaffa, and with help fromf R. Ezekiel Danin (Suchowolski) who went to at the head of Jaffa Ali Khamis, he was taken of the ship and was brought on to land by the coast guards. At first he lived in Jaffa and acquired knowledge of the Arabic language. He then went to work in the vineyards of Nes Ziona and lived in an orchard near Nahal Rubin. Malaria attached itself to him there and remained with him for many years. While working for one day he had to rest for two days because of the high fever. Alternating his days of work and idleness he would study the Torah and the wife Rabbi Chaim Moshe Prize was looking after him as a mother of mercy. Later he worked at the Rishon Lezion winery and lived in a hut built from eucalyptus. During the harvest the head of the winery - the well known Bloch, found him eating from a cart a cluster of grapes and ordered to fire him. Now all his days were filled with pains and fever. When Dr. A. A. Mazia checked it out he immediately tols him to travel abroad in order to save his life. Four years he was at home with his parents, year and a half of which he was with fever bouts regularly, as if there was still a resident of the Land of Israel. He continued to study Torah and to read the Hebrew Enlightenment literature. He made a Zionist propaganda among the youth of the surrounding towns and taught them songs of Zion. He was especially successful after the appearance of Herzl and the first World Zionist Congress, which occurred during that period. When the orthodox in the nearby town found out that the Zionist wanted to make their own minyan, their Rabbi forbade to lend them a Torah. The young Zionists, and Joshua Sofrsky amongst them, received the book of Torah paid by his father, R. Dov Milchan They a threw a parade - a victory parade. Haim Eliezer was also involved in the youth department and organized the reading of Hebrew literature and most of the books for their library were bought with his money, as the most affluent member. In Tr"s he returned to Israel. Worked for a while in Ness Ziona and then bought a plot of land in Rehovot. R' Aron Eisenberg, who knew him from his previous period of employment and suffering in the country, was a great help to him in advice and guidance and even the best man when he married Esther Michele, daughter of Rabbi Mordecai Shlanc from Jerusalem. He continued being busy into an old age in agricultural work, almond groves, vineyards and citrus. He also devoted time to public needs. Elected to the board of the early colony and served as a volunteer for several years as the Board Secretary. Was for 18 years a member and secretary of the winegrowers local council member of the syndicate farmers, member and treasurer of the school, for many years a committee member farmer, member of the local magistrates, spindle assembly's founding (Provisional Committee) after the entry of the British army south of the country during - the first World war. During that war he served in maintaining - a night on call, like other residents. One night shots were fired at him and he miraculously survived. He was elected to the "Yishuv committee" and gave Dr. Chaim Weizmann, head of the commission's a report on the political situation in relation to the English and the Arabs. APA citation Tidhar, D. (1952). Entsiklopedyah le-halutse ha-yishuv u-vonav (Vol. 5, p. 2180). Retrieved from http://www.tidhar.tourolib.org/tidhar/view/5/2180
Arnon Milchan, ex-Israeli soldier, soccer star, shadowy arms consultant, international business entrepreneur and big-time Hollywood producer, does not lack confidence. In a wide-ranging interview, Milchan (pronounced with a soft "ch" as in "China") reminisced about his past, discussed the movie industries in Israel and the United States and spoke of his plans for a Jewish-Arab university in northern Israel. The occasion for the rare interview was last week's gala dinner and show at Paramount Studios, hosted by the Consulate General of Israel and the Los Angeles-based Citizens' Empowerment Center in Israel, with Milchan as the guest of honor. "I usually hate these events. I don't even go to my own premieres, but this is for a good cause, Israel's youth movement," Milchan said. "I'm not personally involved in any way; it's almost like a surprise party." Milchan provided his own surprise for the occasion, when, after accepting the Legacy of Citizens Lifetime Achievement Award, he called tennis champ Serena Williams to the stage and shared the award with her. Milchan was born in Rehovot, near Tel Aviv, 63 years ago as an 11th-generation sabra on both sides of the family (not the Milchan side!). "On one family side we go back to [the great medieval Bible commentator] Rashi, on the other side almost to King David," he said. When he met Yasser Arafat, the late PLO leader, Milchan told him, "I'm more Palestinian than you are." During their meeting, Milchan also discovered another side of the old terrorist. "Arafat told me that he had seen my movie, 'Pretty Woman,' at least 20 times," Milchan said. "A bodyguard took me to Arafat's bedroom, and there was a cassette of the movie." In the early 1960s, Milchan was a star center forward for Tel Aviv Maccabi and the national soccer team. "I had the choice of becoming a professional soccer player or going to the university," he recalled. "I made a mistake and went to school." He has four children, ranging in age from 5 to 40 and five grandchildren "as of yesterday." At age 20, Milchan inherited a debt-laden fertilizer company from his father and turned it into one of Israel's largest agro-chemical concerns. Today, with worldwide business investments and profitable movies, he confirms Fortune magazine's estimate of his worth at $3.1 billion. Milchan served in the Israeli army during the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After getting his feet wet in the Israeli and British movie industries, he was ready to take on Hollywood. Now the founder and head of New Regency Productions, Milchan is credited as the producer of approximately 120 feature films. Among his best known titles are "Once Upon a Time in America," "Brazil," "Pretty Woman," "JFK," "Free Willy," "L.A. Confidential" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Although he is involved in many facets of Israeli life, Milchan takes no part in the country's film industry or, for that matter, in making Hollywood movies on Jewish or Israeli themes. "I have a high regard for Israeli movies, but you've got to specialize," he said. "You can't make a 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith,' which opened in 3,000 American theaters, and then a Hebrew-language film with English subtitles that plays in a few art houses." Milchan doesn't do documentaries or films on Holocaust themes, he said, "although if somebody brought me a great script, like 'Schindler's List,' I might make it. But I'd rather give money to someone else who can do a better job than I could." He does give money to Israeli causes, such as $1 million to the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv, for which he also served as chairman. Milchan said he put up $100 million for a pet project to establish a doctorate-granting university in the Galilee, with a top faculty ("I wished that teachers were the highest paid people in Israel") to attract Jewish, Muslim and Christian students. The project has been stalled for two years, which Milchan blames on "government changes, academic opposition and bureaucracy," but if it doesn't take off, he plans to initiate a major hydraulic energy scheme instead. Milchan is not involved in the L.A. Jewish community "because I only live here, in Malibu, three months each year," he said. The rest of the time he spends in Israel, where he has houses in Herzliyah and Bet Yanai, near Caesarea, or in his London residence. In the mid-1980s, Milchan's name frequently popped up as an "arms merchant" in a criminal case involving the illegal shipment to Israel of 800 krytrons, small electronic devices that can be used for triggering nuclear weapons. Milchan was never charged in the case, but he acknowledges that one of his companies served as a front in the transaction, "with the full knowledge of the Israeli and American governments." Milchan follows Israeli politics closely and is fond of dropping the names of his high-level friends, particularly Shimon Peres ("his first letter he wrote as president went to me"), but also Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Likud Party leader Binyamin ("Bibi") Netanyahu. He recalled that in 1965, he put up $3,000 to help David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan and Peres form the short-lived Rafi Party. As always, he said, he likes to operate behind the scenes and asserted that he helped then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon persuade Peres to join the new Kadima Party. Currently, Milchan said, "I'm trying to make peace among the left, right and center." He is more circumspect about playing any role in American politics. "If I did, I wouldn't tell you, except in private, but I know the players," he said. Toward the end of the interview, Milchan mentioned a just-published 25-page cover story on him in Cigar Aficionado magazine written by its publisher, Marvin R. Shanken. Milchan, who said he no longer smokes stogies, offered to hand-deliver the magazine to the interviewer's home, via his chauffeur. He emphasized that he had vetted the article before publication and that every word was true. Milchan closes out the Cigar interview with some introspective thoughts. "I really, really believe that I have the skills, the courage, the conviction and the know-how to make a difference in the peace process in the Middle East," he said. "I think I can get in a room, no different than I got into a room with Arafat," Milchan said. "I can get in the room and work out a deal.... I can get with the Iranian guy. I think if I really want something, it is to work with the next administration in Israel and the United States, whoever is the president here, whoever is the prime minister in Israel, and get myself hired to be the go-between, between Arabs and Jews. "I will deliver this one," he added. "The point I'm making here, I'm the most qualified person I've ever met to make peace. It will be my best movie, and I can do it. That's my big dream." Milchan was born in Rehovot, British Mandate for Palestine, today's Israel, in 1944, to a father who owned a fertilizer company,[5] which Milchan turned into a successful chemical business.[6] He later diversified his holding company (Milchan Brothers) into plastic, animal health care products, fiber optics and pharmaceuticals. At the height, Milchan owned thirty businesses in seventeen different countries. He also earned a degree from the London School of Economics, before being recruited to LAKAM, a top secret Israeli intelligence organization responsible for obtaining technology and material for Israel's nuclear program, and other highly secretive programs.
is one of the most prolific independent film producers in Hollywood history, having produced over 120 full-length motion pictures [2]. Mr. Milchan is also a former key Israeli intelligence operative from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s.[3][4] Milchan produced many films such as The War of the Roses, Once Upon a Time in America, Pretty Woman, Natural Born Killers, Under Siege, The Devil's Advocate, The Fountain, Unfaithful, L.A. Confidential and many others. He is an Israeli citizen, and a resident of Israel. Milchan was born in Rehovot, British Mandate for Palestine, today's Israel, in 1944, to a father who owned a fertilizer company,[5] which Milchan turned into a successful chemical business.[6] He later diversified his holding company (Milchan Brothers) into plastic, animal health care products, fiber optics and pharmaceuticals. At the height, Milchan owned thirty businesses in seventeen different countries. He also earned a degree from the London School of Economics, before being recruited to LAKAM, a top secret Israeli intelligence organization responsible for obtaining technology and material for Israel's nuclear program, and other highly secretive programs.
|
