Tuesday 31 January, 7:30 pm UK, 2:30 pm ET. Edmond Safra was one of the most successful bankers of all time –  but it has taken until 2022 for a biography to be published about him. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Safra was working at his father’s bank in Beirut, engaged in the precious metals and foreign exchange aspects of the business. His family moved to Italy and then obtained citizenship in Brazil. By the early 1990s, Safra’s fortune was an estimated at US$2.5 billion. Right up to his mysterious death in Monaco, he was a major philanthropist, supporting hundreds of projects in 50 countries around the world in education, science and medicine, religion, culture and humanitarian assistance. He built synagogues from Madrid to Kinshasa and supported yeshivot. In April 1992, the Syrian regime dropped the travel restrictions on Jews. Edmond Safra, whose family had old ties with the city of Aleppo, offered to transfer 4,500 Syrian Jews by plane and financed their settling in Brooklyn.

Daniel Gross is an American financial and economic journalist. He will be telling us about his acclaimed new book Edmond Safra: a banker’s journey. Daniel’s  great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Aleppo and Damascus. Recording here.