Max Tannenbaum Dead at 74

Max Tannenbaum, a steel magnate and a major owner of real estate, died here last week at the age of 74, three years after suffering a debilitating stroke. He was active in Jewish communal life, was a leading philanthropist and was chairman of the United Jewish Appeal in Toronto in the 1960’s.

Born in Poland, he was brought to Canada by his family when he was four years old. His father, Abraham Tannenbaum, a founder of the Eitz Chaim Talmud Torahs in Toronto, owned a scrap metal yard. Max Tannenbaum, who left school at the age of 12, and his brother, Joseph, helped their father in his business and expanded it into major construction and steel corporations.

Max Tannenbaum operated in a very personal, old fashioned style, without a secretary, keeping account of most of his investment and speculations in his head. As a result, when he was struck by illness, which left him paralyzed, speechless and brain-damaged, much of his $200 million fortune seems to have eluded accounting. His family set up a committee and the courts, at the request of other heirs, have asked his wife and sons for an accounting of how Tannenbaum’s financial empire crumbled.

In 1978, Tannenbaum purchased a $1.5 million American-owned collection of Asian sculpture for the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in gratitude for the opportunity he found in this country. An editorial in the Toronto Globe and Mail described Tannenbaum as follows: “One of Canada’s richest and most influential property and stock market speculators, he was a one-man show, relying on his acumen and his personal contacts.”