Morris Schinasi

Morris Schinasi (; born Musa Eskenazi; April 27, 1855 – September 10, 1928) was an Ottoman-born wealthy American businessman in the tobacco industry.

He was born in 1855 in Manisa, Ottoman Empire to relatively poor Sephardic Jew parents. At the age of nine, he contracted diphtheria. He was treated by a Muslim physician named (Shinasi or Schinasi in European languages) and regained his health. His parents named him henceforth as a gesture of gratitude. He had two brothers Solomon (also known as Shlomo) and Yaakov, and a sister, Sultana.

He was forced to leave the school and worked in a Jewish cemetery as a guard. At the age of fifteen, he left Turkey for Alexandria, Egypt, where he lived until he was nearly thirty. It was then that Garaffolo, a successful Greek tobacco merchant, who informally adopted Schinasi in Alexandria, determined that Schinasi should seek his fortune in America. In 1890, he immigrated to the United States.

Career In 1893, Morris Schinasi exhibited the cigarette made with his patented cigarette-rolling machine at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Schinasi then returned to New York City to found Schinasi Brothers with his brother, Solomon, who had also came to the United States. Together, the Schinasis produced ready-made cigarettes under the brand name "Natural" at their factory on 120th Street and Broadway using imported Turkish tobacco rather than Virginia-grown leaves. They became highly successful. In solidarity with their roots, the brothers invited about 200 Turkish Jews from their homeland to work in the factory.

In 1916, the brothers sold the cigarette factory, worth $2 million, and all commercial rights for the business, to the American Tobacco Company for $3.5 million, and retired from active business life. Morris Schinasi died on September 10, 1928, at the age of 74. A large portion of his wealth, well over $5 million, was designated to charity. A one-million dollar fund was entrusted to the Chemical Bank and Trust Company of New York for founding a hospital in Manisa, the town of his birth. With the remaining sum, bonds were acquired, of which interests are regularly transferred to the hospital needed for health-care costs. Opened on August 15, 1933, the hospital is still operational.

An international association for children's health based in Turkey, "", bears his name.

His family mansion built in 1907 at West 107th Street & 351 Riverside in Manhattan, New York City and called the Schinasi House today, is designated as a New York City Landmark and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Many of the rooms in the marble building, architecturally inspired by the French Renaissance, were decorated in Turkish style.