Ruth and Baruch Rappaport promise to donate a third of their wealth to the advancement of medicine * Baruch Rappaport: "I will turn the faculty into the Mayo Clinic of the Middle East to promote peace"
On the wall of the entrance room to Baruch Rappaport's office in Geneva hangs a textual poster with an invitation to an event where a study on ubiquitin was presented to the scientific community. The event in question took place at the Technion in 1984 and among the organizers of the event were Prof. Avraham Hershko and Prof. Aharon Chakhanover. No, he or his people did not take the poster out of the archives on the occasion of winning the Nobel Prize. He was always there to remind Ruth and Baruch Rappaport of the significance of their contribution to the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion.
"The shrouds have no pockets, so no one takes anything with them to the next world, it is better to give the money in warm hands, that's why we decided to donate at least a third of our possessions for the purposes of promoting medicine and for welfare purposes." That's what Ruth and Baruch Rappaport told us with openness. On the penthouse floor of the bank operated by the Rapaport family on the shore of Lake Geneva, near the famous Mont Blanc bridge. Ruth Rapaport also knew how to tell that during the laying of the cornerstone for the building that houses the Ruth and Baruch Rapaport Faculty of Medicine and the Rapaport Research Institute, Baruch said: "Look, one day we will receive a Nobel Prize." Indeed, there is no disputing that when Hershko and Cchenover walk the steps of the magnificent hall in Stockholm, there will be one couple who will feel an inseparable part of the class, almost like the researchers themselves. These are Ruth and Baruch Rappaport who have contributed to this day many tens of millions of dollars to build the faculty and to continue conducting research there.
Intermediate: Bridge to peace
We managed to get one scoop from Baruch Rapaport: he wants to turn the Faculty of Medicine and the Research Center named after Rapaport at the Technion into a center for medical studies and regional support for all Middle Eastern countries, whether Arab countries with which Israel has diplomatic relations, and he is even willing to volunteer his connections with countries that do not yet recognize in Israel The institute will train doctors from Arab countries, bring patients for treatment in Haifa from all over the Middle East and establish a team from the Technion faculty of medicine to guide doctors from Arab countries to establish research centers similar to the Rapaport Research Institute in their countries. He quotes the words of the former prime minister, and his friend Shimon Peres who told him that diseases know no borders and therefore medicine can be a bridge to peace.
"If Arab countries asked me to establish such an institute, I would willingly donate." Rapaport says.
The announcement of the awarding of the Nobel Prize to the two researchers from the Faculty of Medicine was received by Ruth and Baruch Rappaport in their car on the coastal road between their home and Caesarea in the center of the country from their daughter Vared, who lives in Israel, but happened to be in Milan and heard about it from her brother-in-law, Dr. Prof. Benny Drenger, director of the anesthesia department at Ramb. M.
Rapaport has so far refused to be interviewed by the press in general and the Israeli press in particular. One of the reasons for this was his business with Arab countries that supply oil to the two largest refineries he owns - in Belgium and the Caribbean. But after receiving a Nobel Prize from two senior researchers from the faculty under his tutelage to which he has donated many tens of millions of dollars to date, he wants this donation to be written about for one reason only - to encourage other donors around the world to do the same. The word "and we gave" says Rapparot, can be read both from right to left and from left to right. "He who gives, God gives him back."
Gerald Bichonsky, Baruch Rapaport's chief investment officer, who also speaks Hebrew, accompanied the visit we made to Rapaport's office, on the shores of Lake Geneva. He said that receiving the Nobel Prize was the valuable return that Baruch Rappaport received for his contribution to the Technion. Indeed, the return was the greatest that any philanthropist could receive for investments. It should be remembered that this is a young faculty of medicine, and an achievement achieved in its early days.
The Technion was initially opposed to the establishment of a Faculty of Medicine, "What are we to do with it" says Rappaport from the Technion senior officials of the 1969s. The medical school itself was established as an independent institution in 1969, but its leaders realized that in order to move forward they needed the patronage of an academic institution. The universities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem opposed the establishment of another institution and claimed that they were able to satisfy the entire need for doctors. August 69, the Branson Committee met which included Judge Branson, MK Rosen, Prof. Sheba, Prof. DeFries, and Prof. David Erlik (the first dean of the faculty) initially rejected the request but later agreed to authorize the school to accept students for the fourth year In coordination with the universities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the Minister of Health at the time ordered to check the demand for doctors. In the same year, the faculty began its operation in the monastery in the courtyard of Rambam Hospital. After that, it became an academic branch of the Technion after a meeting in August 69 with Technion President Sasha Goldberg who decided in favor of cooperation without financial responsibility. In December XNUMX, the Executive Committee of the Curatorium decided to establish an academic snuff.
In 1972, Attorney Tonik (who later became the State Comptroller) created the connection between the leaders of the faculty and Baruch Rappaport.
Mr. Rapaport: "How are we preparing to raise this amount of 2.5 million dollars?"
Prof. David Erlik: explains the needs and plans.
Mr. Rapaport: "You are a surgeon, right? Why don't you practice surgery and stop wasting your time raising small sums. I will donate the shortfall to you - 2.5 million dollars, and you will stop running around."
In June 1974, the cornerstone was laid (see frame). Due to a difficult economic situation following the war, the government issues a construction freeze order for all public institutions. Construction resumed only in 1975.
Summer 1977 - Ruth Rapaport: "I saw the construction progress, but it seems too slow to Baruch, he is not satisfied and does not want to see any of you."
Baruch Rappaport: "I will complete this amount, but they finally finished the building"!
Today the aim of the institute is to encourage excellence and innovation in biomedical research at an international level at the Baruch and Ruth Rapaport Faculty of Medicine for the sake of human health; Center for Adult and Vascular Biology; The stem cell research center for tissue regeneration in collaboration with the Technion and Rambam Medical Center, and other institutes.
Ruth Rappaport: "Seven-eight years ago Aronchik invited us to his laboratory, showed us test tubes and told us - this is the research I am conducting to find a cure for cancer. He said he needed 350 thousand dollars. gave him. After a year, Baruch asked him how the progress was. Aronchik laughed and told him: This is not a study whose progress can be seen over a year. It takes at least ten years."
Baruch Rappaport was born in Haifa in 1922 to a family that immigrated from Ukraine only a few years earlier. Aviv Issachar was one of the founders of the Nesher cement factory and later his brother Jacob also worked there. His brother Yitzhak founded the post office in Haifa and his sister Rivka founded MDA Haifa. Sister Rachel was also on the way and Baruch was the son of the elders. In the army he founded the military police and as a jurist he also founded the military prosecutor's office and even served as a military judge.
In a speech he gave a few years ago, when he was awarded the title of beloved of the city of Haifa by the mayor at the time, Amram Metzna, Rapaport said: "At the outbreak of the war I went to Africa, and then to the Persian Gulf (on behalf of the British army AB) and in 1945 I married my dear wife Ruth At Cafe Werner on Halutz Street. The commander of Golani at the time was Moshe Montag from Mehravia. We continued for a while in the fortifications in the Upper Galilee and I contacted the command of the Halaniyat (6th Air Born Division), then I was called with three friends to form a service and then a corps of military police. I served as a lieutenant general and a national administrative officer and was transferred to establish the first Supreme Military Court of Appeals in Kirya."
He insists on his Hebrew name and says that he was called Bruce in the British army. Rapaport qualified as a lawyer in 1953, after military service in the British Army and the IDF. In 1957 he arrived in Switzerland and built worldwide businesses in banking, shipping and oil. Over the years Rapaport has financed and built 74 large ships, including fuel tankers and huge container ships. He owns two large refineries - in Antwerp in Belgium and in the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda in the Bahamas. In Israel, he previously owned the national oil drilling company Lapidot, but sold it a few years ago.
His volunteer activities include the Inter-Maritime Foundation which focuses on ongoing support in the fields of education, health and scientific initiatives around the world. The Rapaport Family Medical Research Institute and the Ruth and Baruch Rapaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion in Haifa, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester express Mr. Rapaport's long-term commitment to medical research.
I asked Baruch Rappaport how he founded his empire in the fields of banking, shipping and oil, which allows him and his wife to contribute to several medical faculties around the world and dozens of volunteer projects.
"I came here in 1957 with the aim of starting a banking career, when Zim approached me and asked me to get her financing for the purchase of new ships. And I happened to meet a representative of Bern Union Bank in Switzerland. He agreed to finance for Zim a million pounds for the purchase of ships and even connected me with the government company for foreign trade insurance of the British government (Export Credit Guarentee Department). I received a commission of 150 thousand dollars, in a bill to be paid six months later.
Since I needed the money earlier, to get established and bring my wife and children, I tried to redeem it. At first I approached a Jewish banker, who owned a bank called Swiss-Israel (although the Israeli government was not involved in it at all). He claimed that Zim is not a strong company and offered me the money 3 months later at nine percent interest. It was the landlord of the one-room office I rented at 16 Bru de Mont Blanc who saved me when he introduced him to his classmate who at the time ran Union Bank Switzerland. That friend was actually impressed that Zim was a good company and gave him the money immediately and with a deduction of only 4.25 percent. "I gave the money to the Navy and then I decided to establish an international company here to supply ships."
And so the business started. Here, in Geneva, I met a Jew from Romania named Zalmanovitz, who ran a company for quality inspection services for products that arrived by ship. He did this after exporters in Romania claimed that the buyers in the Ruhr area (Germany) in France claim that the goods arrived damaged and thus avoid paying for them. Back then it was not yet acceptable to pay by letter of credit. Zalmanibutz's company was called SGS - Societe Generale de Surveillance. The headquarters of the company was not far from here, in Geneva. I offered him a partnership in a company that would provide supply and loading services, which would help ship owners fight the phenomenon of bribes that captains would demand from cargo owners and suppliers in order to favor them over others.
"We called the company IMS - the initials of International Maritime Supplies and later International Maritime Services, but the truth is that the meaning of the initials is the phrase I Must Succeed (I must succeed).
Today, INTER MARITIME Bank (its full name is Bank of New York - Intermaritime Bank, Geneva) occupies two buildings on Queai deu Mont Blanc street next to the famous bridge, the value of these two buildings is 100 million dollars, Rapaport says and opens the balcony door of his office on the sixth floor. The balcony overlooks Lake Geneva and his house in a prestigious neighborhood across the lake. In the background is the fountain that has become one of Geneva's symbols, but when a senior official from an Arab country visited him for business purposes, he told him "come here, you have a big water pipe burst here." One of the old Janbais told him: 'We old people have the right bank or the left bank of the river and the lake. You have both.' I got angry, what does it matter, I did everything according to the law and I have no debts. "As a native of the country, I did many things for the country, and I made my fortune honestly. If anyone finds any fault in my actions, I will give a reward of $100 to the best charity of their choice."
As mentioned, he is now seeking to expand the donation to the medical school in Haifa so that it will serve the entire Middle East, and today, after winning the Nobel Prize, he hopes that there will be someone who will listen to him. "Maybe Shimon Peres was right. We need a means to promote peace, help the neighboring Arab countries, heal them, send doctors to them, bring good candidates to study medicine with us. It requires a lot of money. All of this can be used to bring them closer to us, and to realize that they need us more than we need them and then you will have real peace in almost the entire Middle East. First of all, a committee of people without political influence should be established. They will be the right advisors to decide on a budget and how to use it, but with the goal that it will not only be for Israel, but also a certain amount for the friendly Arab countries, so that they understand that if you come to help them with medicine, they will respond positively and give you back and not just take .” Rapaport also promises to help with the good relations he has with Arab countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
"I am especially happy that we achieved Rehovot", said Ruth Rapaport in the context of the competition between the Weizmann Institute and the Technion - which research institute will be the first to bring the Nobel Prize in Science to Israel. "My wife and I founded our foundation which has done a lot in many parts of the world, but the concentration is in the country. In 1979, together with the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, we opened the "Rappaport Institute" for medical research and the medical school that has been doing well ever since. I remember at the beginning I said that I hope that the institute will help put the city of Haifa as "the city" on the map of the country in particular, and the world in general, and our hands are still bent." As mentioned, Ruth Rappaport also remembered that he said that this institute would also bring a Nobel Prize.
For Rappaport, the two biggest activities in his life are related to his family name - he managed to avoid the IDF's demand in the early days of the state to transfer the name to Israel because he claimed that it was a Hebrew name meaning port doctor. So at least part of the fortune he made from the ships he contributed to the advancement of medicine. "You see, how did you think like me, dare and succeed?" He concludes.
