Jack N. Mandel, the eldest of three Cleveland brothers who amassed an industrial fortune and devoted much of it to educational and Jewish causes, died Thursday at age 99 at his home in Lyndhurst, Ohio, The Plain Dealer writes.
Mr. Mandel and his brothers, Joseph and Morton, bought a Cleveland auto-parts store in 1940 for $900 and built it into Premier Industrial Corporation, which became part of a London conglomerate in 1996 in a $2.8-billion deal.
The brothers started a family foundation in 1953, pledging to give away much of the $1.8-billion they received from their firm’s merger, and become a force in Jewish philanthropy, supporting educational, cultural, and other causes in the United States and Israel.
They have also been major benefactors of Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University and Brandeis University near Boston, whose former president, Jehuda Reinharz, will become president of the Mandel Foundation later this year.