Dr. Irving Moskowitz and his wife, Cherna, were married for 66 years. He once told me that although he ran many businesses, worked with many people, and supported many projects, he only had one partner – Cherna. She was his devoted wife, lifelong friend, and helpmate in everything he did. Over the years, I wrote two private memoires for the Moskovitz Family. Mrs. Moskowitz recounted:
“When I met Irv, I was barely twenty. All he talked about was Israel. He was obsessed with Israel. I never knew anyone like him. Hardly anyone spoke about Israel in those days. Certainly not non-stop the way Irv did. I was fascinated by it. For example, if we went to a party and someone said, ‘This is good orange juice,’ Irv would start talking about the oranges in Israel. I would joke with him about it, saying, ‘Irving, sometimes people want to talk about things other than Israel,’ but he simply couldn’t control himself. I was seventeen when we met, and nineteen when we married. Irv was 22. He would say, ‘I am going to be wealthy, and I am going to make a difference in Israel.’ That was his thing. It may seem strange, but we never spoke about making Aliyah on a permanent basis. We visited, we stayed for some extended periods, we bought a place in Netanya and took the kids every summer. We bought our own place in Jerusalem too. But Irv’s passion was creating and developing businesses so that he could help Israel. For him, this was the right thing to do. Irv didn’t see how he could use his skills to make money in Israel, so he concentrated all of his business endeavors in the United States.”
As the expression goes, “Behind every great man there is a great woman. That was certainly true with Irving Moskowitz. While his wife Cherna had a quiet, low-key, smiling demeanor, she was as sharp as her husband when it came time for her to take over his business enterprises and the Moskowitz Charity Foundations. I knew Cherna for over 40 years. On several occasions I stayed at the Moskowitz home in Florida while writing two private memoirs which they wanted exclusively for their children and grandchildren, so they would know the true story of their projects, rather than the misinformation and slander that was often printed in the media and on a poisonous “Stop Moskowitz” website. While the memoirs relate the love story between the Moskowitzes and the Land of Israel there is also the compelling love story between Irving and Cherna themselves. Just as their staggering philanthropic endeavors on behalf of the rebuilding of Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael is a source of inspiration and example, so too, their respect, caring, and devotion for each other is an inspiration and example for all couples to follow.
Cherna told me:
“Irv was one of 13 children, three of whom died in infancy. He was in the middle. He grew up in a kosher home. The family wasn’t wealthy by any means. Irv was closer to Menachem, his oldest brother, than to any of his other siblings. When Menachem joined a Shomer HaTzair camp in America, Irv tagged along with him. Their father was strictly religious and very pro-Israel, but in those days Israel was a dream, before the Medina, a place to be buried, not to live. Menachem fell in love with a non-religious girl. Both of them were very Zionistic. They left America to live in Israel. Menachem’s passion for Israel is the thing which influenced Irv the most in his youth, especially Menachem’s tales about the country and its pioneer spirit.
“My family, the Wassermans, was less religious than Irv’s, but we kept kosher. There were no kosher stores in our town, so we had to drive to Milwaukee for kosher meat. My parents raised chickens in the basement and they would take them to Milwaukee to slaughter.”
In those days, like today, religious Jews would arrange shiduchim to find a marriage partner for their children. But Cherna’s parents weren’t so religious. They left their daughter to look around for herself. So where did a nice Jewish girl like Cherna meet a nice Jewish boy like Irving? At a Jewish Center dance, of course.
Cherna was visiting her aunt and uncle, Ida and Max Wasserman, who lived in Milwaukee. She was seventeen years old, the age when girls of her day started to think about boys. One of her girlfriends in the city invited her to a slumber party, but her uncle said that if she really wanted to have a good time, she should go to the dance that a friend of his organized every Saturday night at the Jewish Center. Uncle Max even offered to take her there himself and introduce her around so she wouldn’t feel like a stranger.
“I was extremely shy,” Cherna recalls. “I never did anything like that in my life. Going to a dance with boys was for other girls, not me. I never went to any strange place by myself, let alone a dance. But obviously, it was birshert.”
Cherna called up her friend and told her she couldn’t sleep over. True to his word, Uncle Max drove her to the Jewish Community Center and introduced her to his friend, who was in charge of the dance.
“The hall was filled with young people, but since I was a newcomer, I attracted a lot of attention. A lot of guys flocked around, and then I remember very clearly that somebody said, ‘Oh, here’s Irving. He always gets the best grades.’ So I was interested in him the most.”
“Even that very first night, he talked about Israel. All around, there was music and people dancing, and here he is carrying on about Israel. Obviously, he was not a regular guy. After the dance, he insisted on taking me back to my uncle’s place, and all the way home, he didn’t stop talking about Zionism. He spoke a lot about his brother, the kibbutznik, and the way that Ben Gurion was running the State. I had never thought about Israel that way, as a real, down-to-earth country. For me, Israel was some remote place, something mystical, like a dream – not a real place with a government where people lived and worked. For one thing, it was so far away – not like today when jets make travel so easy. Listening to him, I was fascinated. He seemed to know so much about what was going on in the country. On that very first evening, he said he wanted to make money so he could help Israel. For all the decades we’ve been together, this has been his first and foremost goal. With everything he’s done, whether it be his medical practice or getting involved with the casino in Hawaiian Gardens, Israel is always in the back of his mind. This has giving an extra special importance to everything we’ve done.”
“Irv would go around with the blue pushka charity boxes, collecting money for the Jewish National Fund. As years passed, he became more and more enthused about Israel. He certainly succeeded in influencing me. I was very young when we married. I always saw my future as a housewife with six children in a little home in the small town where I was raised. That was my vision for my life. Irv turned that all around. He totally converted me to his way of looking at things and educated me in worldly matters. I always supported him in doing whatever he wanted. Sometimes he would tell me an investment he wanted to make was pretty risky and that he was putting a mortgage on the house, which we could lose if things didn’t work out. It wasn’t always easy. We went into debt so he could buy the first hospital in America. He borrowed money from people we knew, and when that wasn’t enough, he convinced his brother Al to lend him his nest egg of $50,000, his life savings, which he needed for his family. Irv promised to double the sum for him. Al came to me and said, ‘Cherna, I love my brother, but if something happens to Irv, will you also double the investment?’ I thought to myself, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ How could I make a promise like that? I didn’t have a job. I was taking care of my eight children. It was a difficult decision. I didn’t even want my husband to buy the hospital in the first place, because he was working so hard in his family medical practice. But I told Al that I would honor Irv’s promise. Fortunately, things worked out, due to Irving’s extremely hard work. Thank G-d, Al eventually received double his money.”
At the beginning of the first chapter of the Mishna “Pirkei Avot” Shimon HaTzaddik states that one of the foundations of the world is “gemilut hasidim” meaning acts of kindness or charity. This teaching is exemplified by the Moskowitz Foundation which has donated over the years several hundred millions of dollars to charitable organizations in Israel with the goal of furthering the re-building of the Jewish Nation in the Jewish Homeland. As Cherna Moskowitz started to take a more active part in the philanthropic activities of the family, the private Cherna Moskowitz Foundation was established to handle the constant stream of new and diversified projects which the Moskowitz Family supported. Fittingly, one of the Moskowitz projects in Israel was the purchase of an abandoned lot and building in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood (Sheik Jarrah) in East Jerusalem, and the restoration of the house, so that Jews could move in to what had become an Arab neighborhood. Just as the High Priest of old, Shimon HaTzaddik, taught that charity is one of the pillars of the world, the philanthropic activities of the Moskowitzes in Jerusalem and Eretz Yisrael are pillars of the rebirth of and resettlement of Zion in our time.
Cherna related that while the focus of their philanthropic efforts were to help mega-projects in Israel and hundreds of Israeli children, teenagers, families, and terror victims in distress, their Foundations also supported a wide range of charities in the United States. For example, they gave a great deal of money to Hawaiian Gardens, the small California community where their lucrative casino facilities are located, above and beyond their annual contractual commitment which they made with the city when they received the license to run the bingo and casino operations. They built a library, sports center, parks, a food distribution center, a medical complex, established a college scholarship program, and supplied computers for kids in school. The Moskowitzes literally transformed a poverty-stricken town into a showplace community, one of most financially stable towns in the entire State of California.
One of Cherna’s pet projects was to help Hesder yeshivot in Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem, seeing it as another way of strengthening the Land of Israel. In a candid confession, she explained the reason for her focus on Religious Zionist education in Israel: “Generally, I don’t give to yeshivot in America. I pay for my children’s religious education, but I don’t donate to their schools because those institutions will find other people to help them. Jews in America love Israel, but, on the whole, they give their money to the local shul where they daven or to the schools of their children. Not enough people give to the special, off-the-beaten-track projects in Israel that we are involved with, so that’s why our contributions go there.”
When Dr. Irving Moskowitz became ill in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, his wife was forced to take command of their multi-faceted businesses and charitable projects. Cherna related:
“Around 1999, Irv got a license to operate a casino from the State of California. It was very, very rare – you can’t get one today. But the license was only good until the end of 1999. If the casino wasn’t operating by then, we would lose the license. So we had this deadline looming over our heads right from the beginning. Irving had two plans – for a temporary building and a permanent one. He had a contractor ready, but he couldn’t decide which option was best. His advisors were divided on the issue as well. Uncharacteristically, Irving couldn’t make up his mind. This was so untypical of him that I started to worry that something was happening with him. I urged him to decide, reminding him that we had to start operating the casino before the start of the year. Otherwise we could lose the opportunity. So he said that he would fly to California and sit everyone around a big table, listen to all the opinions, and then decide what to do. I was greatly relieved.
“So he flew to the Coast and got all of his attorneys and advisors together for a pow-wow. When he returned to Florida, I asked him about his decision – what had he decided to do? He replied that he still didn’t know. At that point I realized that we were in big trouble. There wasn’t time to put up a permanent structure, so we started with something like 15 gambling tables in a caravan. From that point on till 2003, Irving lost his way – that’s the only way I can describe it. From the beginning of our marriage, he was the path breaker. He made the decisions. He led the way. He would discuss things with me, but when it came to purchasing properties and developing them, he was the boss. I was perfectly happy with that. I had my hands full with the children. But as his medical condition grew worse, he had trouble making decisions about everything. At the time, I was running a very small business, an art gallery near the beach that I enjoyed very much. But under the circumstances, I had no choice but to travel to Hawaiian Gardens to see what was happening. Our attorney in California said that in light of Irving’s condition, he was going to set up a board and appoint himself as its head, in order to run the casino. I told him, no, ‘I am going to run the casino.’ Believe me, I had no idea how to run a casino, but I realized that it was not a wise idea to let him and some board be in charge of the operation. He looked like he was going to fall off his chair when I told him. But he had no choice. I owned the casino. My name was on all the papers. From that point on, he started giving me a lot of problems, so I found another attorney. Then, when it became clear that Irving had Alzheimer’s, and that his situation wasn’t going to get better, I had to take over everything. There was no other choice. I can’t describe the personal hardship, both for Irv and myself, but our mission was bigger than both of us, much greater than our own private lives, so I continued running everything when my husband was no longer able to, not only because I knew that Irv would want me to continue, but because I knew it was the right thing to do. It was obvious to me that our work had to go on, both in California and in Israel.”
Fortunately for thousands of people, even tens of thousands and more, from Jerusalem to almost every community in Yesha, in building schools, yeshiva dormitories and study halls, synagogues, hospital wings, youth centers, and much much more throughout all of the country, Cherna Moskowitz remained faithful to her husband’s mission, his lifelong helper, during their marriage and long afterwards, a true woman of valor and builder of Am Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael, and the Torah. May her memory be for a blessing.
