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Morris Kahn (; born 5 March 1930) is an Israeli
billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000, one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultr ...
entrepreneur. He is the founder of Golden Pages Israel,
Amdocs Amdocs Limited is a multinational telecommunications technology company headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri. The company specializes in software and services for communications, media and financial services providers and digital enterprise ...
, the Aurec Group, Coral World and other companies. Through Coral World, he founded several marine parks around the world, including an underwater observatory in
Eilat Eilat ( , ; ; ) is Israel's southernmost city, with a population of , a busy port of Eilat, port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on what is known in Israel as the Gulf of Eilat and in Jordan as the Gulf of Aqaba. The c ...
, Israel. As of March 2022, his net worth is estimated at US$1.0 billion. He received the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...
,
Honoris Causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
from the
University of Haifa The University of Haifa (, ) is a public research university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963 as a branch of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation as an inde ...
, 2024


Early life

Morris Kahn was born in March 1930 in Benoni, South Africa, to a Jewish family. He is the eldest child of Philip and Beattie Kahn. He was an active member of the
Zionist Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
youth group, Habonim. In 1956, Kahn moved from South Africa to Israel with his wife, Jacqueline (Jackie) Maloon, and their two sons, Benjamin and David.http://www.sajr.co.za/docs/default-source/pdf/2009/10-july-2009.pdf


Business ventures

Kahn’s business career in Israel began with a few business ventures, including a bicycle factory in
Beit Shemesh Beit Shemesh () is a city council (Israel), city located approximately west of Jerusalem in Israel's Jerusalem District. A center of Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodoxy, Beit Shemesh has a population of 170,683 as of 2024. The city is named afte ...
in partnership with Kibbutz Tzora; and a cattle company in the Northern
Galilee Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). ''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...
. In 1978 Kahn and Shmuel Meitar founded the Aurec Group, an Israeli-based private equity firm which started with investments in the cable and telecom sectors. This led to the installation of a fiber optic cable from Israel to Italy, which connected Israel to the rest of the world. His first major success began with the establishment of the Golden Pages telephone directory in Israel in 1968, which led to the co-founding of Amdocs in 1982, together with Shmuel and Tzvi Meitar. Amdocs provides customer relationship management and billing software for big telecommunications firms. The company, which is traded on NASDAQ (revenue in fiscal 2015: $3.6 billion) currently serves more than 300 clients in more than 90 countries, and has about 26,000 employees. Aurec also owns Golden Channels, Israel's first cable company, founded in 1989 and Golden Lines, Israel's first international communications company, founded in 1996. In 1997 the Aurec Group acquired 50% of Netcom, the launch of AIG Golden Insurance and Alpha Visa-Card. He is a principal investor in Aurum Ventures and the clean tech water company Atlantium, that uses UV rays to disinfect water, and N-Trig, a manufacturer of multi-touch screens for computers. In 2016 Aurum Ventures invested $3 million in a new method of diagnosing cancer developed by Noklaiks (Nucleix) Israel. ''Time to Know'' is a digital education platform which Kahn first launched as a nonprofit organization focused on improving grade school education. Kahn, a former diver, founded Coral World International, a group of aquariums around the world in
Eilat Eilat ( , ; ; ) is Israel's southernmost city, with a population of , a busy port of Eilat, port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on what is known in Israel as the Gulf of Eilat and in Jordan as the Gulf of Aqaba. The c ...
, Israel; Maui, Hawaii; Perth, Australia; St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands; Coral Island Nassau, The Bahamas; Oceanworld in Manly, Australia; and elsewhere.


Philanthropy

Kahn supports the work of Save a Child's Heart (SACH), an organization that brings israeli doctors around the world to perform life-saving surgery and medical monitoring for children of all races, religions, nationalities, and economic status. The Morris Kahn Initiative is a $4 million program to help develop pioneering cancer research at Tel Aviv University. The initiative’s aim is to develop 3D cancer modeling of live cancer tumors. "Big Data Maccabi", founded with contributions from Kahn, aims to help medical professionals diagnose illness using the information collected during blood tests, imaging and other diagnostic testing. He supports ''Serious Fun'', a camp for children with terminal illness, and a therapeutic horse-riding camp for the disabled. Kahn founded Zalul in 1999, a non-profit foundation which cleans bodies of water in Israel. Kahn was also the main donor of SpaceIL, the first private company that managed a lunar mission - Beresheet. Beresheet was the first Israeli mission in deep space, the spacecraft was launched on the
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...
Falcon 9 Launcher and it was aimed to land on the Moon on 11 April 2019. The attempt was unsuccessful, the spacecraft crashed into the Moon. The mission was still seen as a success. Kahn is a supporter of Ben-Gurion University and the National Institute for Biotechnology of the Negev. The Morris Kahn Institute for Human Immunology was funded by Kahn. In conjunction with the Weizman Institute, he founded the Kahn Family Research Center for Systems Biology of the Human Cell. Kahn supports the Morris Kahn and Maccabi Health Data Science Institute, to create a database for the 2.5 million members of the Maccabi Healthcare Services organization. He sponsors an Omo Valley and Jinka,
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
-based project, Jinka Eye Camp, for volunteer Israeli surgeons to perform operations to restore eyesight to people living in rural villages suffering from eye diseases such as
cataract A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens (anatomy), lens of the eye that leads to a visual impairment, decrease in vision of the eye. Cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes. Symptoms may include faded colours, blurry or ...
s and
trachoma Trachoma is an infectious disease caused by bacterium '' Chlamydia trachomatis''. The infection causes a roughening of the inner surface of the eyelids. This roughening can lead to pain in the eyes, breakdown of the outer surface or cornea ...
.


Honours

Kahn was named honorary president of the 20th Maccabiah by
Maccabi World Union Maccabi World Union is an international Jewish sports organisation spanning five continents (Africa, North America, South America, Australia, Europe) and more than 50 countries, with some 400,000 members. The Maccabi World Union organises the Macc ...
Chairman Yair Hamburger in November 2016, and opened the Games in July, 2017 in Jerusalem.
Bar-Ilan University Bar-Ilan University (BIU, , ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic university institution. It has 20,000 ...
awarded Kahn an honorary doctorate for his support, bringing state-of-the-art labs and equipment to the university. In 2018, Kahn was given a Bonei Zion Prize Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2023, Kahn was awarded an honorary doctorate by
Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...
.


Personal life

Kahn has two sons, David and Benjamin Kahn, a marine biologist, who was a
Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...
hero for his work on the environment. Morris Kahn was married to his late wife, Jacqueline, until the time of her death in 2011. He lives in Beit Yanai, north of
Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...
.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kahn, Morris 1930 births Israeli billionaires Israeli Jews Living people People from Benoni, South Africa South African emigrants to Israel South African Jews Bonei Zion Prize recipients