Sylvan Adams ( he, סילבן אדמס; born November 1, 1958) is an Israeli-

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

billionaire businessman and philanthropist.

Background and career

Adams was born and raised in

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. He served for close to 25 years as president and CEO of Iberville Developments, one of Canada's largest real-estate development companies founded by his father, Marcel. At the end of 2015, he emigrated to Israel (made

Aliyah Aliyah (, ; he, עֲלִיָּה ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel, which is in the modern era chiefly represented by the State of Israel. Traditionally descri ...

) and settled in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

Philanthropy

He donates money for many sports and educational activities. He established the Margaret and Sylvan Adams Family Foundation to support educational and medical projects in Israel and Canada. The foundation offers doctoral scholarships at the

Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was established in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between Israeli scholars in the sciences and humanities and create a think tank for advising the government on r ...

. The "

Bonei Zion Prize The Sylvan Adams Bonei Zion Prize ( he, פרס בוני ציון; Translation: ''Builders of Zion Prize'') is awarded annually by the Nefesh B'Nefesh organization to formally recognize the achievements of outstanding Anglo immigrants and their co ...

" is given every year with his name by

Nefesh b'Nefesh Nefesh B'Nefesh ( he, נפש בנפש, lit=Soul to soul), or Jewish Souls United, a nonprofit organization, promotes, encourages and facilitates aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel) from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The org ...

. The award recognizes immigrants to Israel from English-speaking countries who have impacted Israel in the fields of science and medicine, education and nonprofit work, national service, business, technology and culture, and arts and sports. It was established in 2013 with Adams assistance and offers each recipient with a $10,000 prize. In 2018, he donated $5 million to

SpaceIL SpaceIL is an Israeli organization, established in 2011, that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) contest to land a spacecraft on the Moon. SpaceIL successfully launched its ''Beresheet'' lander on 22 February 2019 at 01:45 UTC; it ente ...

, the non-profit organization that is working to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the moon. In 2019, Adams was reported to be funding the cost of a performance by Madonna at the

2019 Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest 2019 was the 64th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Tel Aviv, Israel, following the country's victory at the Eurovision Song Contest 2018, 2018 contest with the song "Toy (song), Toy" by ...

. In 2019 he donated 100 million NIS for a new emergency medicine wing at the Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv. He also donated money for a new children's hospital at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon.

Cycling

Adams has a passion for

cycling Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of cycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", or "bikers". Apart from tw ...

, taking it up only in his 40s. In November 2017, he won the World Masters Championship in Manchester, England and has been a world time-trial champion many times. He is co-owner of the

Israel Cycling Academy is an Israeli UCI Continental team founded in 2020 that acts as a development team for UCI ProTeam . Team roster Major results ;2020 : National Under-23 Road Race Championships, Omer Lahav : Stage 1 Course de Solidarnoś� ...

(ICA). The team was founded in 2015 as a UCI Pro Continental team and made the jump up to UCI World Tour level in 2020. The team is now known as

Israel–Premier Tech Israel–Premier Tech () is a UCI ProSeries cycling team founded in 2014 by Ron Baron and Ran Margaliot and based in Israel. The team competed as a UCI World Tour squad from 2020 - 2022 before being relegated to the UCI ProSeries at the end of th ...

. In 2017 the first institute for sport's excellency in Israel was established in

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

and is called the Sylvan Adams Cycling Network.Gilad Adin - Sylvan Adams Sports Institute
June 1, 2017 He also donated money along with KKL-

JNF Jewish National Fund ( he, קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael'', previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Syria (later Mandatory Palestine, and subsequ ...

Canada and others for the Sylvan Adams Commuter Path, a biking path which connects Tel Aviv with surrounding areas to allow people to commute to work by bicycle more quickly and safely. In May 2018, he established the first indoor

velodrome A velodrome is an arena for track cycling. Modern velodromes feature steeply banked oval tracks, consisting of two 180-degree circular bends connected by two straights. The straights transition to the circular turn through a moderate easement c ...

in Israel and the Middle East.Tel Aviv building 1st Olympic velodrome in the Middle East
May 2, 2018 He also donated $2m for the redevelopment of the Bromont Velodrome in

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...

. He was the first to suggest the Giro d'Italia 2018 take place in IsraelThe JC Sylvan Adams - the man behind Israel's biggest sports spectacular
January 4, 2018 and donated 80 million dollars for this purpose. This was the first time that any stage of the Giro tour took place outside of Europe. He was named the Honorary President of the 2018 Giro d'Italia as a result.

Family

His father is

Marcel Adams Marcel Adams (2 August 1920 – 11 August 2020) was a Canadian real estate investor, billionaire, and Holocaust survivor.

, a Canadian real estate investor, philanthropist and

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Sylvan Canadian billionaires Jewish Canadian philanthropists 1958 births Canadian people of Romanian-Jewish descent Canadian real estate businesspeople Israeli businesspeople Israeli cyclists Living people Giving Pledgers 21st-century philanthropists