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David Shapell (February 4, 1921 – February 8, 2015) was a Polish-born American real estate developer and philanthropist from Los Angeles, California. A Holocaust survivor, he was the co-founder of one of the largest real estate development companies in Southern California. He supported Jewish charitable causes in the United States and Israel.

Early life

David Shapell was born as David Czapelski on February 4, 1921, in Wolbrom, a shtetl in Poland. His father was a goose farmer.

During World War II, he escaped Poland and fought in the Polish army under Soviet control throughout the rest of the war. By the end of the war, most of his family members had been murdered by the Nazis, except for one brother, Nathan Shapell, and a sister.

Shortly after the war, he lived in Germany, and emigrated to the United States in the early 1950s.

Career

Shapell first worked for a relative who owned a grocery store in Detroit, Michigan, alongside his brother Nathan.

In 1955, they moved to Los Angeles, California, and co-founded a real estate development company with their brother-in-law, Max Webb. It became known as Shapell Industries, one of the largest developers in Southern California. It was acquired by Toll Brothers in 2013.

Philanthropy

He made charitable contributions to the Friends of the IDF, a fundraising organization for the Israel Defense Forces. He also endowed the Darche Noam yeshiva and the Midreshet Rachel women's seminary in Jerusalem. In 2006, he made a donation for the establishment of the David and Fela Shapell Family Shoah and Heroism Study Center for Youth at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Through the David and Fela Shapell Family Foundation, he has also endowed the David and Fela Shapell Digitalization Project at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. He has also endowed the David and Fela Shapell Family Center for Genetic Disorders Research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

He served on the board of trustees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. In 2013, he made a donation of $15 million to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections and Conservation Center is named in his honor.

From 1979 to his death, Shapell, his wife and family paid an annual visit to Wolbrom or Auschwitz in honor of their relatives who were victims of Nazi Germany. During those visits, they said Jewish prayers, also known as Kaddish, and lit candles in their memory.

Personal life

Shapell was an Orthodox Jew. He was married to Fela Shapell, a Holocaust survivor who was liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of the war, for sixty-five years. They had three children: Rochelle, Benjamin and Irvin. They resided in Los Angeles, California.

Death

He died on February 8, 2015, in Israel after battling lung cancer and pneumonia. He was ninety-four years old. He was buried at the Eretz Hachaim Cemetery near Beit Shemesh, Israel.

References

1. ^ Steve Chawkins, David Shapell dies at 94; immigrant was devoted to Holocaust remembrance, Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2015
2. ^ Jeremy Sharon, David Shapell, philanthropist and Holocaust survivor, dies at age 94, The Jerusalem Post, February 11, 2015
3. ^ David Shapell, developer and philanthropist, dies at 94, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, February 10, 2015
4. ^ Andrew Khouri, Toll Bros. to buy Shapell Industries' home building unit, Los Angeles Times, November 7, 2013
5. The Inauguration of the David and Fela Shapell Family Shoah And Heroism Study Center for Youth, Yad Vashem, October 16, 2006
6. National Library of Israel: The David and Fela Shapell Digitization Project
7. Weizmann Institute of Science: David and Fela Shapell Family Center for Genetic Disorders Research
8. ^ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: The David and Fela Shapell Family: Securing the Past, Building for the Future
9. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections and Conservation Center

• 1921 births
• 2015 deaths
• People from Olkusz County
• Businesspeople from Los Angeles
• Polish Holocaust survivors
• Polish Orthodox Jews
• Polish emigrants to the United States
• American company founders
• American people of Polish-Jewish descent
• Philanthropists from California
• American Orthodox Jews
• Shapell family
• 21st-century American Jews