Elie Wiesel, Richard Joel and Jack Lew
Marion and Elie Wiesel (seated), with Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert, and Simcha Stern
William Rapfogel and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein
Leon Wildes	Leon Charney and wife Tzili

YESHIVA UNIVERSITY
White House Chief Of Staff
Equal To Spain’s Abarbanel

STORY AND PHOTOS BY TIM BOXER

R

ICHARD JOEL, president of Yeshiva University, bestowed honorary degrees on four accomplished individuals at the 88^th convocation in December at the Waldorf-Astoria. He presented honorary degrees of doctor of humane letters to Stanley Raskas, Moise Y. Safra and Dianne Wassner.

Jack Lew, President Barak Obama’s former chief of staff, received an honorary doctorate of laws. "You are one of the highest ranking Orthodox Jewish advisers to a head of state since the Abarbanel," Joel said. [Don Isaac Abarbanel, 1437-1508, a financial genius and biblical commentator, served as royal treasurer to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain prior to the expulsion.]

Stanley Raskas, chairman of Yeshiva College board of overseers, was a member of the fourth generation of a family that operated Raskas Holdings, the nation’s largest manufacturer of private-label cream cheese. Founded in 1888 in St. Louis, the family enterprise was sold in 2002 to Schreiber Foods for close to $100 million.

Stanley, 68, can claim his grandfather was born in America, his father born in Europe, and Stanley born in America.

It turns out that Stanley’s grandfather, Louis Raskas, left St. Louis after his bar mitzvah to continue his studies at the Slobodka Yeshiva in Kovno, Lithuania. That’s where Stanley’s father was born. His father returned to St. Louis, where Stanley was born.

Moise Safra was born 77 years ago in Beirut into a Jewish banking family from Aleppo, Syria. Arab riots following the creation of Israel drove the family to Brazil where they established their banking empire. Today Moise oversees M. Safra & Co. in Sao Paulo and New York.

Diane Wassner was born in Lvov, Poland. When her family was arrested in the Shoah, she sneaked morsels of food to her father and uncle. She was the only one of her family to survive the Holocaust. Joel commended Wassner, the national vice president of Yeshiva University Women’s Organization, for her extravagant support of scholarships.

The YU dinner following the convocation raised $3.8 million.