Gov. Josh Shapiro: Proud of His Faith and ‘Getting Stuff Done’

The following is an article that I wrote, which appeared in the April 9, 2025, edition of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent:

Gov. Josh Shapiro
(Photo credit: Commonwealth Media Services)

Governing is not easy. Yet for Josh Shapiro, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania who proudly wears his faith on his sleeve, public service is a calling and he seemingly loves the challenge of helping people and delivering for others.

Josh Shapiro’s Judaism and faith is at the core of his being and he takes it seriously and talks about it openly.

“I stand before you, a proud American of Jewish faith who just took the oath of office to be the 48th governor of this great commonwealth on a bible from the Tree of Life synagogue, the scene just four years ago of the deadliest act of antisemitism in our nation’s history,” he declared during his inaugural address in January 2023.

Judaism played a major role in Shapiro’s upbringing.

“I grew up raised in an observant Jewish home. … I went to day school at Forman [Hebrew Day School in Elkins Park] and then Akiba [Hebrew Academy in Merion Station], now Barrack [Hebrew Academy],” Shapiro said in an interview with the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. “Akiba is actually where I met my wife in the ninth grade. So, we were both raised in similar environments. Every Friday night was reserved for Shabbat dinner, and typically, Saturday morning was spent in shul — we belonged to Beth Sholom Congregation in Elkins Park. 

“We grew up with faith guiding a lot of our daily lives, and it really shaped me in a way that I knew I had to do something in service to others,” added Shapiro. “Now in no way did I think I’d be governor of Pennsylvania, nor did I really think that I’d go into a career in politics, but I knew that because of how I was raised, it would be a life of service.”

For Josh Shapiro and his wife Lori, transmitting the tenets of Judaism to the next generation — their four children — has been paramount.

“We’ve raised our children in many ways the same way that we were raised — an observant Jewish home, a kosher home, and by the way, kosher at our family home and at the governor’s residence. Our kids all went through the same day schools we did and are living observant lives, and we’re very proud,” Shapiro said.

Gov. Josh Shapiro and First Lady Lori Shapiro host a Passover Seder in April 2024.
(Photo credit: Commonwealth Media Services)

Shapiro pointed to Shabbat as one of the Jewish traditions that has been most impactful in his life.

“Shabbat — just knowing that every Friday night we would be together around the table for special family time — that, to me, was always sort of a special moment that I looked forward to. And it’s something Lori and I have tried to give to our kids, and I think they look forward to it as well every week.”

Shapiro’s faith has been his guiding light and moral compass throughout his life and career and it helped shape the person he is today.

“My faith is very important to me. I’m very proud of my faith. I live my life as a proud American Jew,” he said. “Faith has not guided individual decisions I’ve made on policy or what have you, but it has guided the very central question I’ve had to answer in my life, which is, what do you want to be when you grow up? And what do you want to do with your life? I often recite — the vast majority of the time not in front of Jewish audiences — the passage from Talmud that no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it. I think about that multiple times every day. I have a picture of that in the governor’s office, and it really has driven me to want to serve others and to help do my part. I think we all have a responsibility to do tikkun olam and to do our part, and that’s what my faith has taught me.

“I think it is a universal teaching,” Shapiro added. “I’m not someone who ever preaches my faith to others that you have to believe what I believe, but I am someone who’s proud of it, and I speak openly about it, and I find that I’m able to draw connections with people who aren’t Jewish because of the central underpinnings of our faith that teach us to do service for others.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro hands out Chanukah gelt as he joins the Harrisburg Jewish community to light the menorah at the Pennsylvania State Capitol in December 2024. (Photo credit: Commonwealth Media Services)

Shapiro’s relationship with the state of Israel dates back to his first trip to the country, which he took as a high school student.

“Everybody remembers their first trip, and for me, that was in 1989, when I went as an 11th grader at Akiba Hebrew Academy. … I studied there for about six months or so, and that was so impactful for me. … I traveled the country, met the people, ate the food, really dove into the history in a more direct and meaningful way. And that trip had a big impact on my life,” he said.

Shapiro recalled another meaningful trip to Israel — one that ended up changing his life.

“In 1996, I went back. I went back to visit my brother, who was on that same trip as an 11th grader. And I brought my girlfriend with me to visit my brother, and I proposed to her underneath the [Montefiore] Windmill at Yemin Moshe. … That obviously was a pivotal moment because it set in motion the most important decision I’ve ever made in my entire life, which was to marry Lori.”

Shapiro has been extremely outspoken in the face of antisemitism and never hesitates to call out Jew-hatred when it rears its ugly head. As far as he’s concerned, elected officials and community leaders have an obligation to tackle bigotry head-on.

“I think leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity,” he said. “Every leader, no matter what position you occupy, in government or outside of government, has a responsibility to call out hatred and bigotry in all forms and condemn it.

“Simply looking the other way and thinking that you’ve done something because you didn’t contribute to the hatred and bigotry is wrong. I think everybody has a responsibility to speak out against it. I’ve tried to do that as governor. I’ve tried to do that in every position I’ve held. I try and call it out, whether I see it on the political right or the political left, no matter what community is engaging in it, or what individual is pushing it. There should be no place for hate in our communities.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro attends the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s Annual Holocaust Commemoration in April 2023. (Photo credit: Commonwealth Media Services)

Shapiro garnered national attention when he was reportedly one of the finalists to be Kamala Harris’ running mate during the 2024 presidential race. While Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ended up being the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Shapiro felt good about how the process ultimately played out.

“Kamala Harris had a deeply personal decision to make about who she wanted to run with and maybe govern with,” he said. “And in the end, I had a deeply personal decision to make too as to whether or not that was the right thing for me to do. I love serving as governor. I love being in a position where I can chart my own course and do the things that I think are important in service to others. And while I’m not pleased with how the election turned out, obviously, I’m pleased to be where I am.”

The 2024 presidential election was unquestionably a tough one for Democrats, and there’s been a lot of soul-searching in the Democratic Party as to what went wrong and how to rebound from such a stinging defeat. As they search for answers, many Democrats have pointed to Shapiro as one of the leaders of their party and as someone who could be a future presidential candidate. Yet despite the attention and accolades, Shapiro does his best to tune it out and remain focused on his current job as governor.

“I honestly try and ignore all of that, not because the people who are worried about the future of our country aren’t right to be concerned, but because I’ve got a job to do as governor of Pennsylvania, to deliver for 13 million people every day, to try and manage the most critical swing state — a state that swings back and forth in elections, a state with vast rural, urban, suburban populations,” he said. “I’ve got a responsibility to try and bring people together and get stuff done. It is my belief that as I do that work successfully, that can be a model for our party and others to center around common sense, results-oriented leadership that lifts people up and doesn’t tear communities apart, and tries to be a moderate, sensible voice in the community.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro launches the new state tourism brand “Pennsylvania: The Great American Getaway” in May 2024. (Photo credit: Commonwealth Media Services)

Shapiro’s reference to Pennsylvania as a quintessential swing state is well-founded. It’s an inherently complex political state, yet Shapiro has managed to successfully govern in a fractured and partisan political climate. With the need to address a divergence of opinions on a range of topics, Shapiro has focused on bipartisanship as a way of achieving results.

“I think I’ve earned a reputation for being bipartisan, for bringing people together,” he said. “It is quite literally a fact that I can’t sign a bill into law unless it’s passed the House led by Democrats and the Senate led by Republicans, which means I need votes from both parties in order to advance any legislation or budgets. And we’ve done that really successfully.

“I think showing up in communities, whether they vote for you or not, listening to their concerns, understanding their worries, and then delivering for them is critically important and something I focus on every single day,” he added. “I find that by showing up and listening, you end up tearing down the sort of barriers that get erected through our modern-day political divisiveness. And I’m going to keep doing that work.”

The Shapiro family attends a Philadelphia
Phillies game in October 2023.
(Photo credit: Commonwealth Media Services)

Shapiro’s public service career in Pennsylvania started long before he became governor in 2023. He served as attorney general from 2017 to 2023, chair of the board of commissioners in Montgomery County from 2011 to 2017 and a state representative from 2005 to 2011. However, entering the public service arena was not always Shapiro’s plan.

“It was not really planned early on,” he said. “My faith has taught me the importance of serving others and helping others, and I had two great examples in my life: my dad, who is the local pediatrician, and my mom, who was a schoolteacher. … I saw them both as examples of serving others in different ways. And I thought I wanted to be a doctor like my dad. I thought that was really a neat way to help others. But in my freshman year of college, studying pre-med and playing on the basketball team, three things happened that day. One, I flunked out of pre-med. And I was a good student, I studied, I tried. … Two, I got cut from the men’s basketball team, so I thought my life goal of being in the NBA as a doctor was not going to happen. And then someone knocked on my dorm room door that night and asked if I would run for student government. I’d never thought about that before, but I said, ‘yes.’ I did it and really fell in love with service to my community through government and politics.

“That led to me changing my major — I didn’t really have a choice, because I flunked out of pre-med — doing an internship on Capitol Hill, working on Capitol Hill, rising up to be a chief of staff, going to law school at night at Georgetown and then returning to the community I grew up in to run for state representative. … That was a really pivotal moment for me. But it all goes back to the central teaching in my life about service to others. It just helped crystallize for me what the best way for me to serve was,” Shapiro added.

As he climbed the political ladder and ascended to the governor’s office, Shapiro picked up pointers from various individuals that he encountered on his journey.

“I’ve never tried to emulate one person,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of people along the way that I’ve learned a lot from and who taught me different things that have helped me along the way. I’m really drawn to people with character and integrity, people who have to make tough choices, and make good, tough choices … with integrity and with service in mind. Those are the people I’m kind of drawn to and interested in learning from.”

Despite a busy schedule and juggling multiple responsibilities as governor, Shapiro brings a tremendous amount of energy to his job, and he typically exudes a sense of warmth and excitement when entering a room. For Shapiro, it comes down to his passion for public service.

“I believe in what I’m doing, and I feel really passionate about it,” he said. “I asked 13 million people to give me the chance to be their leader in Pennsylvania, and they blessed me with this opportunity. And I feel like it is my job to work hard for them every single day, as hard as I can, and deliver for them. And so, I think that’s probably what you see. You see a guy who’s energized about service and energized about the job I’ve been trusted with. I don’t know how long I’ll do this, but it’s not forever, and so I feel like you want to make every moment count, and you want to deliver the most you can for people every day.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro visits Emmaus High School in Lehigh County in September 2024 to celebrate the historic investments in education secured in the 2024-25 budget. (Photo credit: Commonwealth Media Services)

Since becoming governor, Shapiro, who talks a lot about “getting stuff done,” has quickly made his mark throughout the commonwealth and across the country by focusing on key issues that he believes impact people’s lives in a significant way.

“I think schools, safety and economic opportunity, they’re the three foundational pillars of everything I do,” he said.

“I think education is the foundation of everything, making sure we strengthen our public education system. … I work hard every day to make sure Pennsylvanians are safe. That is one of my most fundamental responsibilities, to keep people safe. So, we’re going to continue to make investments in that area. … Creating jobs and economic opportunity [is important], particularly in communities that have been forgotten and left behind, or for people who have oftentimes been shut out,” he elaborated.

Shapiro added that he’s also focused on “protecting people’s fundamental rights and freedoms.”

“I know a lot of people are worried, especially right now, about forces that want to roll back the progress that’s been made, forces that want to take away their rights and freedoms, and so I’m doing everything in my power to protect them,” he said.

With a deep and abiding faith and pride in his Judaism, a propensity for bipartisanship and an enduring desire to help others, Josh Shapiro is certainly not refraining from the task at hand and is wholly focused on his mission of “getting stuff done.” 

For David Rubenstein, Success Is Serendipitous

The following is an article that I wrote, which appeared in the April 4, 2025, edition of the Baltimore Jewish Times:

David Rubenstein
(Photo credit: Chris Ullman)

As far as David Rubenstein is concerned, success comes with responsibility, and it is not something to be taken lightly.

A successful businessman who co-founded The Carlyle Group, one of the largest private investment firms in the world, Rubenstein, a resident of Bethesda, Maryland, is also a philanthropist, author, host of a TV show and owner of the Baltimore Orioles. Yet with an exceedingly busy schedule amid a range of projects with which he is involved, Rubenstein has made giving back in a multitude of ways a core element of his identity.

Rubenstein’s life story began with his modest upbringing in Baltimore, first in a home on Beaufort Avenue where his family lived until he was 10 years old, and then in a house on Fallstaff Road after they moved. He recalls the area being very Jewish.

“Baltimore was very segregated by religion, and although the United States Supreme Court outlawed restrictive covenants in 1948, Baltimore never seemed to get the word. So, people who were Jewish or Black tended to live in the same areas. … I lived in a kind of Jewish ghetto. … There were three types of Jewish ghettos. There were blue-collar Jewish ghettos, there were middle-class ones, and then there were the very wealthy Jewish ghettos. My father was working in the post office and was in the blue-collar world. And these were very small homes. I think they’re roughly 800-square-foot homes, and that was where I grew up,” he said.

David Rubenstein’s birth announcement in
Baltimore Jewish Times in August 1949

As a child, Rubenstein, whose birth announcement appeared in Baltimore Jewish Times in August 1949, attended Hebrew school at the Rogers Avenue Synagogue. “That was an Orthodox synagogue,” Rubenstein said. “Orthodox in those days did not mean quite what Orthodox means today. Orthodox today seems to mean what ultra-Orthodox might have meant years ago, but it was a segregated by women and men kind of synagogue. I went to Hebrew school there and High Holy Day observances to the extent that I did. And I went to Hebrew school until I was ready to be bar mitzvahed. The rabbi told my mother that he was going to write it out for me phonetically in English, because he didn’t think my Hebrew was so great. So, he did. I can’t remember if I read it from the phonetic English or if I read the Hebrew, but I got it done, and that was my bar mitzvah.”

A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, Rubenstein practiced law in New York in the early 1970s before turning to a career in public service. He began by serving as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments before heading to the White House to serve as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy during the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981.

David Rubenstein, left, with his parents, Robert and Bettie Rubenstein, and President Jimmy Carter
(Photo credit: The White House)

Rubenstein described the path and thought process that led him to ultimately working in the White House.

“In those days, if you were in a blue-collar family, you didn’t generally aspire to go become an extremely wealthy person — the ideas of tech startups, private equity firms, hedge funds, didn’t really exist,” he said. “If you were Jewish and wanted to go into business, you usually went into your family business — the business your father or grandfather had started. In those days, there was a fair amount of, I would say, solid discrimination. So, if you were Jewish, I don’t think you could go work at IBM, Procter & Gamble, and think you were going to rise to the top. And so, people who were Jewish tended, with some exceptions, obviously, to go into more entrepreneurial businesses that were often started by their family members. But if you didn’t want to go into business, you might go into law or medicine or dentistry. And my skill set was probably better in things that led to being a lawyer. I was interested in politics and public service. I did not aspire to make any money, and so I just thought going into public service would be a useful way to spend my life. And so, I ultimately got a law degree, thinking that that would help. And then I did go to work in public service on Capitol Hill briefly, and then in the White House for four years.”

While in the White House, Rubenstein was involved in many different initiatives, but one project stood out and has remained important to him to this day.

“My boss was Stuart Eizenstat,” he said. “He and I — but really, he — sent a memo to the president recommending that we create a memorial for the Holocaust victims in the United States. We didn’t have one. Carter ultimately announced it. Now, as you know, it’s open. It was announced in 1978 and it opened in 1993. … Stuart, my former boss, is now the chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and I have become a good-sized donor to it.”

In 2022, Rubenstein donated $15 million to the museum to support its National Institute for Holocaust Documentation, which was ultimately renamed in his honor.

“The atrocities that have occurred and are still occurring in Ukraine remind the world daily that the lessons of the Holocaust have not been fully learned by those who still have the power to kill others senselessly and those who collaborate with them. So those of us in a position to do more to remind the world of the Holocaust have a moral obligation to do so,” Rubenstein said at the time. “I am pleased to help toward that mission and encourage others to reflect on what more they might be able to do to help remind the world that the Holocaust might be not just a historic tragedy but also a precursor to what could happen again.”

David Rubenstein at the Library of Congress
(Photo credit: Robert Severi)

According to Rubenstein, going from a career in public service to co-founding an incredibly successful investment firm involved a fair amount of luck.

“Like most things in life that tend to be good, they often are by serendipity,” he said. “I worked in the White House for four years. I thought Carter would be reelected. I couldn’t imagine he would lose, but we did have hostages in Iran, we had gas lines, we had high inflation. And despite my telling Carter, ‘Look, you can’t lose to somebody so old — he’s 69 years old,’ when 69 seemed like an ancient age to me … we lost.”

After Carter lost to Ronald Reagan, Rubenstein found himself looking for work.

“The only skill set that I had was practicing law, which I’d done in New York,” he said. “So, I went back and practiced law in Washington for a few years, but I realized I really didn’t enjoy it and I probably wasn’t really good at it. I read about something called a ‘leveraged buyout’ and I decided I would start a leveraged buyout firm in Washington where none had existed and I recruited some people to do it with me who raised a little money.”

As to his decision to walk away from the legal field, Rubenstein said it wasn’t a difficult choice.

“It was mostly because I didn’t think I was very good at practicing law, and I didn’t really want to do this the rest of my life as a lawyer,” he said. “And what lawyers in Washington often did is they would practice law then go back into government and then practice law, then go back into government, back and forth. And I didn’t really think that was something I wanted to do that much. Also, if you did that, if you were a lawyer and you were kind of connected to government, you often had to go raise money for politicians. And I just didn’t want to be in the business of raising money for politicians — it just wasn’t something I was interested in. So, I decided to try to start this firm, and it took off, and obviously became one of the larger ones in the world. But it was by serendipity, and we got lucky.”

David Rubenstein at the top of the Washington Monument
(Photo credit: Tami Heilemann)

As he achieved great financial success, Rubenstein became very involved in various philanthropic efforts. He’s supported institutions such as the Jewish Museum of Maryland and Jewish Life at Duke (Rubenstein graduated magna cum laude from Duke in 1970). In addition, he’s been a major contributor in the area of patriotic philanthropy and made significant gifts to help restore and repair the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, National Archives, Library of Congress, and many others.

“When you get lucky and you make a fair amount of money, you can be buried with it … but I just thought that it was better to do things while you’re alive and help other people,” he said. “What is the most important part of life? I think it’s the pursuit of happiness. And how do you get happiness? No one can really completely define it, but I think it’s probably helping other people.

“I decided when I got financially lucky that I would start giving away the bulk of my money, which I’ve been doing, and I’ve got various causes that I’ve been involved with,” Rubenstein said. “A lot of them relate to history or heritage of the country. A lot relate to education; a lot to medicine. And very often, when I give money to somebody, they will probably put my name on something. And I haven’t been upset with that, because my theory has been that if you come from very modest circumstances, and you get lucky financially, and you’re Jewish, putting your name on something that, let’s say, relates to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, it shows that people who are Jewish are not only giving money to Jewish causes, which is what some people think, and that you can be Jewish and contribute to non-Jewish causes and be actively involved in and supporting the history and heritage of the country, even though a lot of this history and heritage occurred well before people who were Jewish really became prominent in this country.”

In addition, Rubenstein has been supportive of the arts, and specifically the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. However, his lengthy tenure as chair of the Kennedy Center recently came to an end when President Donald Trump removed the Kennedy Center board members and replaced them with his allies. The board then voted to remove Rubenstein as chair and appointed the president as chair.

“I’d been the chair for 14 years and been on the board for 20, and at the end of this past December, I had planned to retire,” Rubenstein said. “And the person who was going to succeed me ultimately decided not to do it. And so, the board asked me to stay another two years, and I was prepared to do that, but President Trump decided that he wasn’t happy with the Kennedy Center for some reason, and so he decided he would make himself the chair. And while no president of the United States has ever been the chair before, I guess he could do that. So, I’m out now. I did give the Kennedy Center about $120 million over the years, and I enjoyed it. But things move on.”

Rubenstein has also been financially supportive of efforts to combat the rising antisemitism that is being seen on a global scale. Noting that antisemitism in Europe “is very, very virulent” and that “antisemitism in the United States is also on the rise,” Rubenstein discussed why he believes it’s become so pervasive.

“The human brain has some flaws, and one of the flaws it has is it says, if you look different than me, you think differently than me, you pray differently than me, then I might not like you as much. … I don’t know that we’re going to correct that flaw in the human brain, and as long as it’s there, if Jews worship differently or think differently than other people, or look differently or dress differently, there’s going to be antisemitism,” he said.

In 2024, Rubenstein became the principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles when he led a group of investors who purchased the team for $1.725 billion. The Baltimore native and longtime Orioles fan saw an opportunity and chose to pursue it as a means of giving back to the community.

David Rubenstein, bottom row center, with his Little League team
(Courtesy of the Rubenstein family)

“I played baseball when I was a boy at Little League. I wasn’t a particularly great athlete — I probably peaked at seven or eight, maybe nine years old. I thought maybe I would be the next Sandy Koufax or something, but when I got to be about nine or 10, I realized I wasn’t going to be Sandy Koufax. … But I, like many people who grew up in Baltimore, worshiped some of the Oriole players and went to as many games as I could afford to go to,” he said, fondly recalling his baseball experiences as a child.

“I recognized that the Orioles ownership was maybe going to get ready to sell at some point,” Rubenstein said. “I had resisted buying sports franchises because I generally didn’t want to take my focus off my main business, which was Carlyle. But as I stepped back from being the co-CEO of Carlyle, I thought I could maybe get involved with some sports teams. And the only one I was really interested in was the one in Baltimore, which is the Orioles, because I knew that franchise a bit.”

The path to Rubenstein’s ownership of the Orioles was a gradual one.

David Rubenstein
(Photo credit: Chris Ullman)

“I was teaming up with Ted Leonsis, who owns the Washington Capitals and the Washington Wizards … and I kind of agreed I would maybe support him if he tried to buy the Orioles, and I would be part of his group. But he tried for a while and it didn’t work out. And then John Angelos came to see me — he knew of me a bit from Ted Leonsis’ efforts — and said maybe I should just buy myself a small part of the Orioles. And I thought about it, and I went back and said I would be interested, but I’d like a path to eventual control. And then to my surprise, he came back and said maybe they’d be willing to sell control sooner than I thought,” Rubenstein said.

For Rubenstein, the decision to become the Orioles’ owner came down to one thing: his love of his native city.

“The reason I did it was in part philanthropic,” he said. “I thought that Baltimore, where my parents were born in, my parents were married in, my parents raised me in — I was born there, my parents were buried there, I’m going to be buried there — I thought I hadn’t done enough for Baltimore relative to what I’d done in Washington, D.C., or other parts of the country. So, I thought if I could buy the Orioles and help be part of the renaissance of Baltimore and revive the team a bit, I could maybe fulfill an obligation to Baltimore that I felt I had. That was the real motivation.”

“I don’t want to lose money, but I don’t expect that it’s going to be my most successful investment ever, and I expect that it’ll be in my family long after I’m gone,” Rubenstein added.

David Rubenstein greeting Baltimore Orioles fans
(Photo credit: Chris Ullman)

“There are 30 teams and only one is going to win every year,” he said. “We haven’t had a World Series championship since 1983. We’ve had three of them. We’ve been to the World Series six times, but we lost three of them. 1983 was a long time ago, so I’m hoping that the team can get energized and win a World Series. But it’s obviously a bit of a crapshoot to get to the final games and win.”

How does someone who’s involved in so many things successfully juggle multiple projects simultaneously? “Well, actually, I’m a triplet and I have two identical other brothers that do some of this stuff,” Rubenstein said jokingly, before taking a serious look at how he manages everything effectively.

“When you’re doing what you want to do, and you enjoy it, it’s not work,” he said. “Work is when you don’t really enjoy something but you feel you need to do it. Everything I’m doing now, I really like, so it’s just a question of, at some age, you can’t do everything you want to do because the body slows down. But right now, I’m not big on vacations, I’m not big on many things that people do to relax, and so everything I’m doing kind of relaxes me. So, reading books, writing books, doing TV shows, interviews, it’s relaxing to me; maybe it keeps my brain sharp, so I enjoy it.

“My father retired when he was 55 years old. I’m 20 years older, and I’m working as hard as I possibly can on things. I enjoy what I’m doing, so I don’t regard it as work. And it kind of relaxes me to do things like this,” he added.

One thing that Rubenstein really relishes is his role as host of “The David Rubenstein Show,” where he engages in conversation with an array of influential leaders in various fields. Over the years his interview subjects have included Warren Buffett, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bill Gates, Sylvester Stallone, Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Elon Musk, Josh Harris, Benjamin Netanyahu, Cal Ripken Jr. and Robert Kraft.

David Rubenstein speaking with Oprah Winfrey during an interview at “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations” event in New York on Dec. 12, 2016.
(Photo credit: Kholood Eid/Bloomberg TV via David Rubenstein)

“Well, it’s always good when you have a live audience, because you can play off the audience,” he said. “If I ask somebody a question in a studio just one-on-one, they might not get some of the jokes I might be asking in the question. So, like when I asked Bill Gates one time in his office, do you think you’d be more successful if you actually had a college degree, he didn’t quite get the joke. But when I’ve asked that question of him in front of an audience, the audience laughs, and then it works better.

“It is said when you get older, you need to keep your brain active,” Rubenstein added. “And there are a number of ways that people are said to be able to do that. One is to do crossword puzzles — I’m not good at that. Learn a foreign language — I have no language skills, which is why I had to do my bar mitzvah probably in phonetic English. Another thing is you learn a musical instrument — I’m tone deaf. So, I substitute all those things for doing interviews, because when you do an interview, you have to prepare, you have to read, you have to engage with the person and you have to be alert. So I do it in part because I enjoy it, but I get to meet a lot of interesting people … a lot of these people probably wouldn’t spend their time with me, but if I’m interviewing them and they want to be on a TV show that I have, then they get to know me and I get to know them. So, I do it for a lot of reasons, but it’s mostly pleasure.”

Rubenstein, who is a student of American history, has amassed an impressive collection of historical artifacts, yet his collection is not for him alone.

David Rubenstein with a 1297 copy of
the Magna Carta which he owns and
has loaned to the National Archives
(Photo credit: Chris Ullman)

“I stumbled into buying [a 1297 copy of] the Magna Carta, which is the only one in private hands and the only one in the United States,” he said. “And once I did that, people started offering me other historic documents. … I think I have the largest collection in the United States of Declarations of Independence, more than the U.S. government. And I lend mine to the U.S. government very often, as I have with the Magna Carta, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, the Bill of Rights, and so forth.

“The reason I do it is because the way the human brain has evolved, it hasn’t yet evolved so that if you see a computer slide of the Magna Carta, it’s the same experience as if you see it in person, because if you see it in person, you’re more likely to be educated by a curator, you’re more likely to read about it afterwards,” he added. “And so, I think as a way of teaching people about history, preserving these artifacts is probably not a bad thing to do. And I kind of got into that. And the same thing with fixing buildings like the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, I just think preserving these things, making it better, gets more people knowledge about American history and so forth. So that’s why I do it.”

Whether it’s his activities in the business sector, with the Baltimore Orioles, in the philanthropic world, or in any of his many other pursuits, Rubenstein enjoys what he does and has achieved great success. Yet despite the enormous amount of effort and energy that he exerts in each of his endeavors, in Rubenstein’s eyes, his success is primarily attributable to one thing: serendipity.

Renowned Philly Restaurant Owners Honored for Steadfast Support of Israel

The following is an article that I wrote, which appeared in the April 3, 2025, edition of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent:

From left to right: JNF-USA CEO Russell F. Robinson, Michael Solomonov, Steven Cook and Steve Dabrow at the JNF-USA gala in Philadelphia on March 27. (Photo credit: Jordan Cassway Photography)

The Greater Philadelphia Jewish community came out in force on March 27 to support Jewish National Fund-USA’s efforts to rebuild northern Israel and to pay tribute to two well-known honorees.

Over 600 people came to the Bellevue Hotel in Center City and watched as Philly’s chef Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook, co-owners of CookNSolo Restaurants and owners of Philadelphia’s Zahav restaurant, received JNF-USA’s Tree of Life Award. The organization’s highest honor was bestowed upon Solomonov and Cook for their enduring commitment to the state of Israel and, in particular, their steadfast support for northern Israel.

Almost immediately after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, Hezbollah began firing a barrage of missiles at northern Israel, which led to mass evacuations in order to protect Israelis from the relentless rocket fire. In an effort to assist the people adversely impacted in northern Israel, JNF-USA launched its “Reimagine” campaign to help rebuild the communities and enable the evacuees to return home. For Solomonov and Cook, supporting JNF-USA and its initiatives to bring positive change in northern Israel has been paramount.

The gala attendees, which included leaders from Philadelphia’s Jewish community and well-known personalities, including culinary author and food journalist Joan Nathan, Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History President and CEO Dan Tadmor, and Marc Zumoff, the former play-by-play announcer for the Philadelphia 76ers, dined on an array of delectable food offerings before heading into the large ballroom for the formal program.

Steve Dabrow, president of JNF-USA’s Eastern PA board of directors, welcomed the crowd and noted that the event raised an incredible $2.7 million, which drew a big round of applause from the attendees.

Lori Dabrow, a JNF-USA Eastern PA board member and a member of the organization’s Task Force on Disabilities, introduced members of the Special in Uniform band, which is comprised of young men and women with special needs that also serve in the Israel Defense Forces. With music playing in the background, the three singers gave a rousing performance, singing several Israeli songs, as well as “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem.

The crowd was on their feet, singing, dancing and waving Israeli flags, as the two young men and one young woman performed.

As he began his remarks, JNF-USA CEO Russell F. Robinson urged the crowd to talk to their elected officials and “demand that our hostages come home now.”

Referring to the atrocities of Oct. 7, Robinson emphatically declared, “We are winning, we will win and the Jewish people are strong and united everywhere, and it’s because of people like you that are standing up and being counted.”

Robinson spoke about the situation in northern Israel, where he said 85,000 people were forced from their homes, noting that JNF has long had a presence in that area. “We’re welcoming them home today and every day,” he said.

“Because we were there, because we know those people, on Oct. 7 and Oct. 8, we were able to go into action,” Robinson said as he referred to the communities near the Gaza border. “Thirty-eight thousand people in 72 hours in the Israel Envelope were evacuated and sent to communities because of Jewish National Fund and because of your support.”

After Cook accepted his award, he spoke about the decision he and Solomonov made in terms of how to brand their restaurant.

“I want to take you back to 2008. It was a few months before Zahav was set to open, and we had a meeting with our public relations team to discuss our communication strategy for the restaurant,” Cook said. “At some point, the question was raised, well, how should we refer to the restaurant? Should it be Israeli, or was it more broadly going to be Middle Eastern, or even safer, Mediterranean? I think we talked for about five seconds before responding, Zahav is going to be an Israeli restaurant.”

“At some point, we realized that the restaurant was no longer just a hot restaurant at the moment, that it was on its way to becoming an institution in the city and beyond, and Mike and I became custodians of that institution, something we took very seriously on behalf of the hundreds and hundreds of employees and the thousands and thousands of guests that have passed through our doors that shared that vision with us. And it all started with that seemingly innocuous decision to call Zahav an Israeli restaurant,” he added.

Marina Furman, executive director of national major donor advancement at JNF-USA, introduced a video that was shown at the event, which centered around a new bomb shelter that was built and beautified in northern Israel in memory of Michael Solomonov’s brother, David, who was serving in the Israel Defense Forces when he was killed in 2003 near the Lebanon border.

During his remarks at the gala, Solomonov spoke about his brother, discussing the origin of the picture that’s depicted on the bomb shelter, which he noted was a painting that his brother made when he was in third grade. The painting hung over his grandmother’s couch in her apartment in Lod, Israel, and after she passed away, Solomonov brought it back to the U.S. It’s been on top of every one of his children’s changing tables, and it currently hangs on the wall in his son’s room.

“For me, it’s a way for my brother to embrace my kids,” an emotional Solomonov said.

Solomonov also spoke about how he and Cook decided after Oct. 7 that they were going to donate 100% of revenues from their restaurants to support Israel.

“I got to show my nephew, who was called back into reserves in Gaza, where he spent 300 days, the video and the pictures of all of you standing outside of our restaurants for eight hours, showing him and showing our family in Israel that we are one,” Solomonov said to a huge ovation from the crowd.