Rival Talmud Patrons Join Forces

By COLlive reporter

Philanthropic rivals become business partners.

Carmel Wines, one of Israel’s largest and oldest wineries was acquired by a group of well-known Jewish investors and philanthropists from the United States and England.

British real estate investor and billionaire Leo Noe and Jay Schottenstein and Michael Jesselson, the chairman and the Lead Independent Director of American Eagle Outfitters, respectively.

Schottenstein is known in the Jewish world as one of the main contributors, along with his family, to the Schottenstein Edition of the Babylonian Talmud published by Artscroll, a division of Mesorah Publications.

Noe is the lead contributor to the new printing of “The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition,” the monumental translation and commentary by renowned Torah scholar Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael (Steinsaltz). It is being printed by Koren Publishers Jerusalem with full-color illustrations.

The amount of the sale of the historic winery of Israel could not be immediately determined, reported KosherToday.com.

Carmel Winery was founded in 1882 by the French Jewish banker Baron Edmond de Rothschild. It owns the two largest wineries in Israel and has deep underground cellars built by Rothschild in the 19th century in Rishon LeZion Zichron Ya’acov.

Carmel, whose U.S. importer and distributor is Royal Wines, also has two small, state-of-the-art wineries close to key vineyards, to allow production of small quantities of handcrafted wines. These are Kayoumi Winery, situated in the Upper Galilee, and Yatir Winery, in the northeastern Negev.

Schottenstein and Noe will soon be able to raise a glass while learning the daf…