ARAD, Israel, May 23 (JTA) — Mack Ness of Watchung, N.J., was a simple man who believed in working hard, and he cared deeply about the State of Israel. Those who knew him — a bachelor farmer with no formal ties to the Jewish community — said that he would have been very proud on May 10, when a business development fund bearing his name was inaugurated in a ceremony at the Arad science center in Israel’s Negev Desert. The fund was with an allocation of $1 million, part of a gift of at least $5 million that Ness unexpectedly bequeathed to the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey, Arad’s partner community under the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership 2000 program. The surprise gift from Ness will underwrite a fund that is intended to help new businesses get their start in the Negev, a region that suffers from high unemployment. Appropriately enough, many farmers will benefit from his contribution. “The Mack Ness Business Loan Fund will help young farmers get their start,” said Dov Litvinoff, the mayor of a town in the region that will benefit from the loan program. “Support for rural settlers from the government and the Jewish Agency has tapered off, creating a void that had not been filled until now. This money will help people cultivate crops, thereby cultivating economic growth.” “I think that he would be thrilled that his money was going to help people in Israel work and improve their lives, because he liked seeing people improve themselves,” said federation financial resources director Amy Cooper, a member of the New Jersey contingent who traveled to Israel for the ceremony. Ness’ connection with the federation began two years ago, when he walked into Cooper’s office. Ness had made a great deal of money in tax-free municipal bonds while living on his farm in once-rural Watchung. He had never made a donation to the federation before, but he decided that he wanted to donate all his money to Israel. When federation staff and lay leaders visited his farm, they learned that he had never married or joined a synagogue. It was only after he died in January 2004 at 93 did they learn that his land and his investments were worth millions. In his will, Ness asked for a memorial Israel to his mother, his brother and himself be established in Israel. The federation’s executive vice president, Stanley Stone, suggested that the best memorial would be modeled after Maimonides’ principle that the highest level of charity is to make someone self-sufficient. Arad’s mayor, Moti Brill, said the Ness fund will give the people of his town a strategic advantage that will help them succeed. Brill hosted a dinner in honor of Victor Rizzolo, the attorney who serves as executor of Ness’ estate. Rizzolo was close with Ness for decades; from the time when Rizzolo was in law school and Ness gave him free board at the farm. Rizzolo said that Ness had been a minimalist who found joy in earning money legally, paying as little in taxes as he could legally and thinking about eventually giving everything he had to the Jewish state. “I’ve never met anyone like “him,” Rizzolo said. “It was always his heart’s desire to give his money to Israel. He never waxed eloquently about anything but whenever he talked about Israel, he had a smile on his face.” The federation’s president, Eleanor Rubin, never met Ness, but she lives in Watchung, not far from his farm. She said she passed the vegetable stand on his property countless times but she never thought that its own would day would offer the federation its largest single bequest. “It was shocking when it happened,” Rubin said. “It proves that when push comes to shove and you want to do something meaningful, the Jewish soul emerges. Something happens to older people who had no connection to their Jewishness. Suddenly they begin to remember what is at the core of their being.” Cooper said Ness had old-fashioned values, and he admired the perseverance of the Israeli people. Before he came to the Central New Jersey federation Ness had gone to another charity, but he didn’t give them any money because they treated him disrespectfully, he told Cooper. But he liked the way he was treated by the staff of the federation. The contribution “is a once in a lifetime story, and it’s been great to be a part of it," Cooper said. “Ness didn’t look like a man who has millions of dollars. So the moral of the story is to be nice to everyone.”
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