Palm Beach Resident Leaves $17.4 Million to Americans for Ben-Gurion University
Palm Beach Resident Leaves $17.4 Million to Americans for Ben-Gurion University
December 27, 2011
Palm Beach Daily News — Ben-Gurion University of the Negev was a favorite charity of Eric Ross, who supported scholarships, capital projects, the President’s Discretionary Fund, and community service programs for disadvantaged residents in the Negev region.
Ross fled Nazi Germany in 1938 and arrived in the United States with $10 in his pocket. He started a business manufacturing plastics and vinyl products for the flooring industry, as well as compounds for the medical industry.
Eric Ross received an honorary doctoral degree from BGU in June 2010.
He later sold the business and embarked on a life of philanthropy.
“In Germany, I grew up in a very poor environment Research,” Eric Ross said in a 2009 interview with the Palm Beach Daily News.
“My father had no money, but when he saw poor people on the street, he put his last 10 pfennings in their hats. That’s something you don’t forget.”
“Eric Ross was a quintessential American Jewish success story,” said Doron Krakow, executive vice president of the American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
“He escaped the Nazis, arrived with nothing and built a company with his own two hands. But his story is even more noteworthy for the direction it took into philanthropy. His remarkable bequest will assist countless BGU students and help the university achieve one of its major goals: to provide access to higher education for all.”
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