Businessman David Azrieli, known to all from the Azrieli shopping mall chain, passed away today (Wednesday) at the age of 92.
Azrieli's health has recently deteriorated, and last week the Azrieli Group, which he headed, decided to appoint his daughter Dana Azrieli as interim chairwoman.
Azrieli was born in 1922 in Makov, Poland. He lost his parents in the Holocaust, but managed to escape across the Russian border - from there he reached the Land of Israel via Uzbekistan and Iran.
Azrieli described what he went through during these years in a book called 'One Step Forward.'.
In 1942 he arrived in Israel, studied architecture at the Technion, and served in the Seventh Brigade in the War of Independence.
In the 1950s, he immigrated to Canada and established a large real estate company that operated in Canada and the United States. Azrieli's activities contributed greatly to the real estate market in Canada, and he received a medal of honor from the Canadian government for this.
Azrieli established the first mall in Israel in 1982, and since then he has opened an extensive network of malls throughout the country - the most famous of which is the geometric mall in Tel Aviv.
Azrieli donated many millions to various organizations, and founded the Graduate School of Jewish Administration and Education at Yeshiva University, which is named after him.
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