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Lev Leviev
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Lev Avnerovich Leviev (born on July 30, 1956 in Tashkent, Soviet Union) is a Chabad Orthodox Bukharian Jewish billionaire. Leviev is ranked 210th among the world’s wealthiest people, with an estimated personal net worth of $6.5 billion , although his associates put the figure closer to $8 billion.
Leviev was born in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR in 1956, and today lives in England. His parents, Avner and Chana Leviev, were prominent members of the Bukharian Jewish community.
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Encyclopedia
Lev Avnerovich Leviev (born on July 30, 1956 in Tashkent, Soviet Union) is a Chabad Orthodox Bukharian Jewish billionaire. Leviev is ranked 210th among the world’s wealthiest people, with an estimated personal net worth of $6.5 billion , although his associates put the figure closer to $8 billion.
Biography
Lev Leviev was born in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR in 1956, and today lives in England. His parents, Avner and Chana Leviev, were prominent members of the Bukharian Jewish community. In 1971, when he was fifteen, his family immigrated from Uzbekistan to Israel. Shortly afterwards, Leviev began to work as an apprentice in a diamond polishing plant, learning the 11 steps of the diamond cutting process. After serving in the Israel Defense Forces, he established his own diamond polishing plant.
With the fall of Communism in the early 1990s, Leviev expanded his business endeavors into Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He received the blessings for success in business and personal support of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson for his philanthropic activities, which include "an army of some 10,000 Jewish functionaries from Ukraine to Azerbaijan, including 300 rabbis. Most of the 300 rabbis are Chabadniks" - adherents of the Brooklyn-based Chabad Hasidic group. In particular he sponsors many of the activities of the Jewish Learning Initiative.
Leviev moved to Hampstead, London, with his wife Olga and their daughter, Ruthie, in 2007. However, as a keen follower of golf, Leviev maintains a house in the beach resort of Ponte Vedra, Florida
Business interests
He is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of Africa Israel Investments Limited, an investment company with enterprises in Israel and around the globe aiming for a market value of $7 billion by the end of 2007. Leviev purchased the company a decade ago for $400 million. It is his only publicly traded company.
Lev Leviev has investments in the diamond industry, real estate and chemicals. He owns Israel Plus, an Israeli Russian-language TV channel, and is chairman of Africa Israel Investments, an international holding and investment company involved in residential real estate, shopping malls, energy, fashion, telecom, and media. Leviev owns diamond mines in Russia and Africa, and is a major competitor to the De Beers international diamond cartel.
Leviev is a major supporter of Jewish philanthropic causes and president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (FJC), an umbrella body representing Jewish communities across the former Soviet Union. He is the founder of the Ohr Avner Foundation (named for Leviev's father).
In 2005, Leviev's company completed a $230 million 5,800 apartment project in Modi'in Illit, for the Haredi sector.
Leviev recently opened a luxury jewelry store on Old Bond Street in London. He has plans to invest billions in the Far East, and is considering investments in Argentina, Brazil and Russia.
Angolan diamonds
As De Beers came under fire during the blood diamonds furor, Leviev increasingly came to dominate the legal Angola diamond market. Leviev says he presented Angola with a plan to reduce smuggling and increase revenue by funneling diamonds through only one source, while others claim the deal was clinched through Leviev’s connections with obscure Russian businessmen and his friendship with the president’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos. Leviev focuses on the benefits his company brings Angola, arguing that before his involvement in 1998, Angola’s tax revenue from diamonds was under $10 million but raised to $49 million by 2001: “The government of Angola has obviously profited from this venture.” When critics query how his company benefits not just the government but the people of Angola, he answers that the Leviev Group's heavy investments in Angolan diamonds "will change the informal way of doing business into a more formalized, educated system that helps individual families...We want to help people who work with their hands. We want Angolans to develop many different new skills.”
Israeli settlements
Leviev is involved in the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Leviev’s Danya Cebus company, a subsidiary of Africa-Israel, subcontracted the construction of Mattityahu East to Shaya Boymelgreen. Danya Cebus is also building part of Har Homa and Maale Adumim . In 1999, Leviev's company Danya Cebus announced plans to build new homes in the settlement of Ariel Through another subsidiary, LIDAR, Leviev appears to be the sole realtor/developer of the settlement of Zufim.
Leviev's devotion to settlement construction have drawn protest from outside the Old Bond Street store in his London home, to the Leviev-owned jewelry store in New York City, and has impelled Oxfam to make it clear that Leviev has not donated to the charity. UNICEF has also advised Leviev that they will not partner with or accept any contributions from him due to the controversy. In a press release, a spokesperson for Leviev described the protests as "politically motivated" and accused protesters of "deliberately neglect[ing]... extensive humanitarian and philanthropic work, which includes building schools, orphanages, and fostering economic development in communities around the world." Anti-Defamation League head Abraham Foxman condemned UNICEF's decision as "selective political discrimination" that "only gives legitimacy to those who would seek to promote a boycott of the State of Israel and its supporters."
Views on Jewish life and Israel
- "We have become completely confused. We are discussing something that we don't have to discuss - globalization, democratization. We need Judaization. First of all to know that we're Jews and that Jews have to live. And the moment we understand what our internal values are, everything will work out for us."
- "What is secular Judaism? Are you familiar with such a thing?...The moment you ask a child in Israel what Yom Kippur means to him, and he answers the Yom Kippur War, or a fun day on a bicycle - then I don't know if that is Zionism or whatever you call it, but it has certainly become bankrupt."
- "We have become somewhat confused in our democracy, we've forgotten that in order to have a prime minister in the country, we have to let him lead the country...He's a king, you have to let him work and not drink his blood day and night in investigations."
- "I think that Putin was a wonderful leader when it comes to faith and freedom of religion, for all the nations here...I wish the Jews themselves would appreciate the Jews the way Putin knows how to appreciate them. That's our problem in Israel."
- "In my opinion, a Jew who doesn't live in Israel has no right to decide its future. Only Jews who live in Israel do, for good or for ill."
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