David Shapell

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. It was acquired by Toll Brothers in 2013. 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.

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.