David Azrieli

In 2020 the Azrieli Foundation created an emergency fund to be allocated to meet urgent needs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 1 October 2020, the Foundation pledged CAD $8.6 million for pandemic-related initiatives, including food relief, hospitals and long-term care institutions and support for the vulnerable including Holocaust survivors, people with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, and students.

In 1957, he married Stephanie Lefcort. They have four children: Rafael, Sharon, Naomi and Danna. For the last 10 years of his life, Azrieli and his wife resided in Herzliya, Israel, for five months per year, and in Westmount, Quebec for the rest of the year. He died on 9 July 2014 at his lake house in Ivry-sur-le-Lac, Quebec, aged 92.

In 2010, he took the Azrieli Group public in the largest ever IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. It is now the largest real estate company in the country. Its projects include a number of Israeli commercial centres, including the first enclosed mall in Israel – the Canion Ayalon in Ramat Gan –  as well as the Jerusalem Shopping Mall (Canion Yerushalayim) in Malha, Jerusalem, the Beer Sheva Shopping Mall (Canion ha-Negev), Beersheba. He also built the eponymous Azrieli Center in Tel Aviv, the largest real estate project in Israel, which includes three skyscrapers in the heart of Tel Aviv and has become an architectural landmark at the core of Israel's business activities.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that "What you won’t find on either the [Azrieli] foundation’s or company’s websites is that in 2010 the Azrieli Group apparently donated NIS 30,000 (CAD $10,000) to Im Tirtzu" even though the Azrieli group "claims it has no political agenda." The donation was made specifically "to a project to stop the academic boycott of Israel."

Azrieli established the Azrieli Foundation in 1989, and on his passing, bequeathed the bulk of his estate to the Foundation.

The Azrieli Foundation was established by David Azrieli in 1989 to support initiatives and develop and operate programs that promote access to education and the achievement of excellence in various fields of knowledge and activity.

Azrieli’s early philanthropy established the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration at Yeshiva University in New York City and supported schools and educational institutions in Canada and Israel. His aim to support education in multiple and diverse ways guides the Azrieli Foundation to this day. The Foundation has disbursed over CAD $450 million since 1989. Notable donations in that time include: the Azrieli Schools of Architecture at Tel Aviv University and Carleton University; the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine at Bar Ilan University, the creation of the Azrieli Institute for Educational Empowerment, Azrieli Institute for Systems Biology at Weizmann Institute of Science, Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies at Concordia University, and the School of Continuing Studies at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

In 1969, the heirs of Canadian railway magnate William Cornelius Van Horne put up for sale the Van Horne Mansion in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. A buyer was not found until 1973, when developer David Azrieli bought the land. His intention to raze the mansion was met with fierce opposition from many groups opposed to the demolition spree of the Golden Square Mile, including Rene Lepine, another big-time real estate developer who owned the building next to the Van Horne Mansion and who wanted to buy it back from Azrieli to restore the mansion instead of developing the land. However, Azrieli remained committed to demolishing the historic landmark and did so on 8 September 1973. The Sofitel Montreal now stands on the property which is the building Azrieli built.

He completed a Bachelor of Arts at the Thomas More Institute in Montreal (now part of Bishop's University) in 1956. At the age of 75, he earned a Master of Architecture degree from Carleton University.

Between 1943 and 1946, Azrieli studied architecture at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, but did not complete his studies at that time. He fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In 1954, he immigrated to Montreal, Quebec.

David Joshua Azrieli, CM CQ (Hebrew: דוד יהושע עזריאלי; 10 May 1922 – 9 July 2014) was an Israeli-Canadian real estate tycoon, developer, designer, architect, and philanthropist. With an estimated net worth of US$3.1 billion as of March 2013, Azrieli was ranked by Forbes as the ninth wealthiest Canadian and 401st in the world.

David Azrieli was born in 1922 into a Jewish family in Maków Mazowiecki, Poland. He fled Poland for the USSR early in World War II and eventually made it to British Mandate Palestine in late 1942. He was smuggled along with a shipment of arms. Except for Azrieli and a brother, his entire family perished during the Holocaust.