David Magerman is a man on a Jewish mission.
Since 2016, he has donated upwards of $38 million to build Kohelet Yeshiva, a K-12 Orthodox Jewish day school in Merion Station. And last year, he announced the formation of TheFutureIsCalling.org, a one-stop resource to help American students matriculate at colleges and universities in Israel.
Magerman believes that the golden age of Jewish life in America is over. That makes it urgent for American Jewish day school students to get on a path to aliyah.
A Sabbath-observant, Torah-learning Jew, Magerman hasn’t quite left behind his former life as a technologist and researcher for hedge funds. He still runs a venture capital firm called Differential Ventures, which invests in AI and technology startups.
But philanthropy is the initiative through which he tries to implement his worldview. So, how did David Magerman, who lives in Merion Station and is a member of Lower Merion Synagogue, get to this point?
2Magerman’s Upbringing
“I was brought up in an unobservant Conservative Jewish home, with the proverbial Jewish values,” Magerman said.
Magerman’s parents were both Jewish, and the family hosted seders, attended shul on the High Holidays and lit Chanukah candles. But they never kept Shabbat.
The future philanthropist did have a bar mitzvah, attend confirmation classes and participate in BBYO. As a senior in high school, he also decided to attend Alexander Muss High School In Israel.
“I was a bit of a rebellious kid, and the school said I couldn’t do it,” Magerman said, laughing.
Magerman went “not really knowing much about Israel,” he recalled. That quickly changed. At the time, the program focused on touring Israel, teaching Bible stories and exploring Jewish history through both Torah and archaeology.
“We read something in the Torah and went to see the site where it actually happened,” Magerman recalled. “I was moved.”
The Jewish teen returned home and started learning Torah and wearing a kippah. He wanted to become kosher, too, but it was all a little too much rebellion for his mother.
“She had some negative experiences related to Torah Judaism growing up,” he said.
Magerman said the program “had a profound impact on me that didn’t really last.”
“But it may have planted the seeds for what I did later in life,” he added.
1The Seeds Germinate
Magerman turned his life back toward, as he put it, “academic and material success.” He got a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University, built a career at a hedge fund and helped it grow into the $10 billion range.
Magerman and his wife, Debra, also joined a Conservative synagogue on Long Island and started gathering with friends for the occasional Shabbat dinner. But it wasn’t until Magerman went back to Israel for the bar mitzvah of his cousin’s son that he felt those old feelings again.
His cousin was ultra-Orthodox, and the family lived in a Torah-focused community.
“The kids, the friends’ kids, the parents, all these different people getting together, celebrating, being happy,” Magerman recalled. “The community I was part of at that time didn’t really have that togetherness.”
Magerman started his Torah study when he got back from that trip. Shortly after, the family moved to Philadelphia because Magerman wanted to leave his company. They considered the area because the technologist had fond memories from his time as an undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania.
But they stayed because they found Jewish community. The family initially joined Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley, a Conservative synagogue, and made friends with other young couples with kids around the same age. They would get together for Torah study and meals.
“They turned into lifelong friends,” Magerman said.
Magerman eventually increased the amount of time he spent studying Torah and added Talmud study and Sabbath observance to his life. That prompted a move to Merion Station so he could walk to shul, which in recent years includes his new synagogue, The Merion Shtiebel.
“We evolved from being more observant Conservative Jews to being a Shomer Shabbos Orthodox family,” he said.
It was around this time that he got involved in Jewish philanthropy. His efforts started with Perelman Jewish Day School, Kosloff Torah Academy High School for Girls and Politz Hebrew Academy. They eventually evolved into Kohelet, for which he became the key donor in 2016 with a $30 million gift.
One of Magerman’s four children has made aliyah, while another is planning to do so this summer. The youngest still attends Kohelet. Magerman said he won’t be making aliyah himself until his youngest is out of the house. His wife still prefers to visit Israel and live in America.
“When my wife lets me,” he said, laughing.
When he looks back on his journey, Magerman has no regrets. He feels his upbringing was right for him.
Without it, “I wouldn’t be the person I am today,” he said.