Navigate to News section

Report: Some Jews, Mostly Men, Are Very, Very Wealthy

Forbes recently published its annual list of the world’s billionaires, and 11 of the top 50 are Jewish. Yada, yada, yada.

by
Rose Kaplan
March 04, 2016
Shutterstock
Shutterstock
Shutterstock
Shutterstock

This week, Forbes released its annual list of the world’s richest people, and 11 of the top 50 on the list are Jewish (cue the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories). Every single one of them—surprise, surprise—is male. Rich men! Let’s meet them!

There’s Mark Zuckerberg, the fresh-faced 31-year-old CEO of Facebook, who’s worth about $45 billion. Zuckerberg, of course, took on the Herculean task of moving much of our social world onto the Internet. And thanks to him, it’s easier than ever for more people than ever to know what you’re up to all. the. time. It’s also easier than ever to post pictures in which you look your best, thus creating a new you, like a shiny orange. Some recent news about Zuck: Last December, he and his wife announced that they would donate 99% of their Facebook shares to charity.

There’s also Larry Ellison, 71, who comes in just after Zuck at a net worth of about $43.6 billion. Ellison made his money by founding Oracle, a tech company, in 1977. He’s also really, really into sailing. Some recent news: Ellison has donated a lot of dough to a Rubio super-PAC.

And, of course, there’s Michael Bloomberg, the 74-year-old, three-term Mayor of New York City who made a fortune with his business and financial news company, Bloomberg LP. He’s worth about $40 billion. But if he had a dime for every time he said he may be considering a run at considering a run at the White House, he might have a little bit more.

And don’t forget about Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, that search engine you share your deepest, darkest secrets with that is the world’s most valuable company. In other words: Your searches=$$.

Sheldon Adelson, 82, is worth $25.2 billion. Mostly because of his casinos in Vegas. But the real question is: Who will he endorse in the 2016 Presidential race? Can you imagine a Trump-Christie ticket backed by Sheldon Adelson? What is happening?!

And then there’s—OK, let’s learn about some of the women, so here are the rest of the men: George Soros, Michael DellJoseph SafraCarl Icahn and James Simons.

As JTA reported, “Jewish women are far outnumbered by their male counterparts.” (Women in the U.S. make less than men, which is ridiculous, and unfair. The gender pay gap must be stopped.) They include: “Israeli businesswoman and Carnival Cruise heiress Shari Arison ($3.9 billion), Pritzker family scion Karen Pritzker ($3.8 billion), Lynn Schusterman ($3.4 billion), Joan Tisch ($3.3 billion) and Gap co-founder Doris Fisher ($2.6 billion).”

Rose Kaplan is an intern at Tablet.