Sami Rohr

Sami Rohr (April 4, 1926 – August 5, 2012) was a German-born American real estate developer and philanthropist. Over his life, he donated at least $250 million to various Jewish causes, particularly the Chabad movement.

Early life Sami Rohr was born on April 4, 1926, in Berlin, Germany. He was the only child Oskar and Perla Gelbard Rohr. His father was a real estate investor, once described as one of Berlin's "leading real estate men".

After meeting with a Chabad representative, Ephraim Wolff, in the 1970s, Rohr increased his support, donating tens of millions of dollars to Chabad Houses and other Jewish institutions.

According to the Forward, Rohr viewed his philanthropy as an investment in the Jewish people. According to Moshe Kotlarsky of Chabad, Rohr invested in Kiruv, Chabad's outreach efforts, towards the same end.

Rohr had a specific interest in restoring synagogues in the former Soviet Union which had been seized or nationalized by the government. He contributed to building campaigns and underwrote the salaries of Chabad emissaries. By 2006, Rohr and his family were paying the salaries of more than 500 Chabad emissaries across the world.

Personal Rohr met his wife Charlotte Kastner in 1952 in Santiago, Chile. Kastner was born in Czechoslovakia, and had lost both of her parents at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The couple married in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1953 and had three children, including George Rohr. Charlotte died in 2007. Rohr died from heart failure on August 5, 2012, in Miami.

Legacy On the occasion of Rohr's 80th birthday in 2006, his children created in Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for emerging writers about Jewish topics. At its inception, the $100,000 prize was the largest literary prize in North America.