GOLDSMITH, HORACE WARD

GOLDSMITH, HORACE WARD (1894–1980), U.S. businessman and philanthropist. Goldsmith was born in Chicago, but moved to New York as a youth and in 1927 he bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and founded the brokerage firm of H.W. Goldsmith and Company. He held the Stock Exchange seat for half a century until his retirement in 1977 to Phoenix, Arizona, where he died. Goldsmith was a generous benefactor of many Jewish institutions in the United States and Israel. Appointed a member of the international board of governors of the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, he established the Goldsmith Institute of Industrial Microbiology there. Other benefactions in Israel included the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Grace Goldsmith Physical Education Center at Boys' Town Jerusalem. His benefactions in the United States included the Goldsmith Hall at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Horace Goldsmith Mathematics Building at Brandeis University, and contributions to the Scholarship Foundation of NYU. He is said to have contributed at least $250,000 annually for the last 40 years of his life and in his will made provisions for further generous bequests.