A Conversation with Michael Steinhardt

LISTEN TO A CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL STEINHARDT

Michael Steinhardt

Michael Steinhardt is a very successful investor and Jewish philanthropist who parlayed a $ 5,000 bar mitzvah gift of stock from his mostly-absent father into a multi-billion dollar hedge fund.

After 35 years he retired from investing and he has devoted his life and 100 million dollars to the Jewish Life Network, a series of projects intended to counter the ever increasing assimilation that threatens the very existence of the non orthodox American Jewish community.

Michael Steinhardt's life exemplifies one of the themes of ONLY IN AMERICA - those who started with very little and who made it big, often under difficult circumstances.

Michael Steinhardt, like many sons of immigrant Jews, was blessed with a loving, supportive mother. His father was more complex. He was a professional gambler. His father and mother were divorced after only a year of marriage. His father showed up irregularly flashing wads of cash, dispensing what turned out to be important advice and support at critical moments in Michael's life. His father was also the source of acute embarrassment: he was serving long prison sentence while Michael was at Princeton.

Michael Steinhardt is a self-proclaimed atheist who has devoted his later life to the welfare of American Jews and the State of Israel and what he calls "Judaism without God."

This program, based on his book, "No Bull: My Life in Markets," offers a glimpse of a fascinating, self--made man who has used his wealth to create a better world according to his personal vision.