Adam Milstein
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Adam Milstein (Hebrew: אדם מילשטיין; born 1952) is an Israeli-American investor and philanthropist. He is a managing partner at Hager Pacific Properties.
He founded and funded organizations supporting Jewish causes, and organizations advocating support for Israel, including countering what he regards as anti-Israel initiatives such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. He and his wife, Gila, founded the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation in 2000. He is a co-founder of the Israeli-American Council (IAC) and served as chairman from 2015 to 2019.
Early life and education
Milstein was born in Haifa, Israel, the eldest child of Eva (née Temkin), a homemaker, and Hillel Milstein, a real estate developer. He served in the Israeli army during the Yom Kippur War with Ariel Sharon's brigade.
Milstein has a Bachelor of Science degree from the Technion and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Southern California. He moved with his wife and children to the United States in 1981.
Investment career
Milstein is a managing partner of Hager Pacific Properties, a commercial real estate firm that specializes in acquiring, rehabilitating, and repositioning industrial, retail, office, and multi-family properties.
Philanthropy and political donations
Milstein and his wife, Gila, founded the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation in 2000. The organization sponsors education of students and young professionals to identify with their Jewish roots and gain knowledge to advocate for the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
Milstein co-founded the Israeli American Council in 2007 and was named chairman of the group in 2015, serving until 2019. He sits on the boards of StandWithUs and Hasbara Fellowships. He previously served on the boards of Israel on Campus Coalition, Jewish Funders Network, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) National Council. He joined Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban in June 2015 to organize the inaugural Campus Maccabees summit, which opposes Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) groups and activities on college campuses in the United States. He strongly opposes the BDS movement, and has had several opinion pieces published on the subject.
In 2011, he and his wife launched Sifriyat Pijama B'America, which until 2016 provided free monthly books in Hebrew to Israeli-Jewish American families in the United States, in partnership with IAC. They started The Impact Forum in 2016, an initiative which "fights antisemitism, strengthens the state of Israel, and protects American democracy".
Personal life
Milstein pled guilty to tax evasion involving his donations to the Spinka Hasidic sect in 2009 and served three months in prison, was required to do 600 hours of community service, and paid a $30,000 fine.
The Jerusalem Post selected him for its list of the 50 most influential Jews in the world in 2016. Algemeiner Journal named him to its list, "The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life" in 2015 and 2016. In Gil Troy's book, The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland—Then, Now, Tomorrow (2018), he identified Milstein as a contemporary leader of cultural Zionism for his vision to "invigorate Zionism and Jewish identity" worldwide.
He withdrew from speaking at the 2019 AIPAC conference after he posted tweets connecting Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to the Muslim Brotherhood. Milstein said his views as expressed on Twitter had been "mischaracterized."
He lives in Encino, California, with his wife. They have three daughters and three grandchildren.