* From Hot 96.7 FM: “L.A. business man Shlomo Rechnitz saw 400 American troops about to eat their brown bag lunches at an airport in Ireland earlier this month. He chose to buy them all a HOT meal instead. He gave each of them $50 to get whatever they wanted at the food court. That’s $20,000.”
* Jewish Journal 2013: Philanthropist donates $250,000 to Mount Zion cemetery repair
Shlomo Rechnitz, a Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist, has donated $250,000 to restore the badly vandalized Mount Zion Cemetery in East Los Angeles.
* Jewish Journal 2013: Doheny Meats buyer Shlomo Rechnitz on business, philanthropy
Fifteen years ago, Shlomo Rechnitz co-founded TwinMed, a wholesaler of medical supplies serving nursing homes. Since then, Rechnitz has founded, or bought, and grown a number of other businesses, including Brius Healthcare, now the largest operator of nursing homes in California.
Along the way, Rechnitz, 41, also became a major philanthropist, giving away millions of dollars — to Jewish charities and also directly to people in need. On more than one occasion he’s come to the aid of a major Orthodox organization, offering gifts or loans in times of crisis.
It was a combination of these two attributes — business expertise and an expansive view of philanthropy — that led Rechnitz to buy Doheny Glatt Kosher Meat Market, the scandal-ridden Los Angeles kosher meat distributor and retailer that closed its doors last month.
“The Rabbinical Council of California [RCC] approached me and said, ‘Shlomo, could this be one of your charity things?’ ” Rechnitz recalled in an interview with the Journal earlier this month. “Kosher meat is expensive enough.”
…Rechnitz calls himself “a nondenominational giver” and said that at times he reaches out to those who aren’t coming to him. Last year, Diana Aulger, a pregnant woman in Texas, decided to have her doctors induce labor so that her husband, Mark, who was dying of cancer, could meet their child. Mark got to hold their daughter, Savannah, for 45 minutes before he died.
Rechnitz saw the story online and sent Aulger a check for $20,000.
He also sends $10,000 checks to the families of police officers who are shot while on duty in Southern California. Those gifts are inspired in part by an urge to assist individuals who put themselves into harm’s way for the public good, but Rechnitz said he’s also driven by another motive.
“I don’t think that [non-Jews] should ever look back at the Jewish people and say, ‘You only care about your own,’ ” he said.
* From Wikipedia: Rechnitz reportedly spends half of his day overseeing the Shlomo & Tamar Rechnitz Charitable Foundation which distributes funds to over 1,100 institutions yearly. He is known in the Los Angeles area for opening his home every Saturday night to listen to the needy and to hand out charity.[7] Rechnitz donated $5 million to the Mir Yeshiva in November 2011 when the head of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, died suddenly, leaving the institution with $15 million in debt. Rechnitz donated $5 million to support the yeshiva and encourage others to come to its aid. Soon after Rechnitz’s donation others followed suit and the debt was paid in full within three months.[1][8] In December 2011, Rechnitz purchased a creditor’s note against Chabad of California’s headquarters in Westwood for $2.35 million in order to help the organization avoid foreclosure[1] After Hurricane Sandy, Rechnitz gave $1 million to aid in the rebuilding of Orthodox Jewish day schools and to assist the families whose children attend those schools.
