NIS 240 million in Bank Leumi shares belong to Holocaust victims

One percent of the shares of Bank Leumi, equal to NIS 240 million, are still in the name of tens of thousands of Jews who were killed during the Holocaust, according to a report submitted last week to the Custodian General. It had previously been estimated that thousands of Jewish Holocaust victims held accounts in Leumi, but it is now apparent that about 20 percent of the shares of the Jewish Colonial Trust (JCT), Bank Leumi's parent company, are in the name of Holocaust victims.

A law passed last year stipulates that stocks in the name of Holocaust victims are to be transferred to a state company, the Organization for the Restitution of Assets of Holocaust Victims, which is to transfer it to the heirs. The chairman of the company's board of directors, Avraham Roth, proposes selling the shares and using two-thirds of the proceeds for immediate aid to needy Holocaust survivors. He proposes keeping the remaining third for heirs, since he believes heirs will not be found for more than one-third of the shares. He proposes the company and the state seek out the living and deceased owners of the stock, and at the same time sell the shares on the open market; two-thirds of the JCT stock is now worth more than NIS 300 million.

The JCT was founded in 1899 on the initiative of Theodor Herzl as the financial arm of the World Zionist Organization. To raise capital, Herzl initiated an issue of shares to Jews who supported the Zionist idea. He first approached wealthy Jews but when he was turned down, shares, he called on Jews everywhere to purchase stock. The issue was a dizzying success, as Jews from Eastern Europe and elsewhere purchased about 250,000 shares at one pound sterling each. In 1902, the JCT established the Anglo-Palestine Bank, which later changed its name to Bank Leumi.

After World War II, communication was cut off with most JCT shareholders. In 1960, JCT-Trust was established and the names of all the missing shareholders were collected. JCT-Trust holds about 40 percent of JCT stock, which is formally managed by the Custodian General.

The report on the JCT shareholders was written by Professor Yossi Katz of Bar-Ilan University, who as far back as 1997 found that many JCT shareholders had been killed in the Holocaust. Only recently, however, following a demand by the state organization for restitution did the Custodian General permit Katz to examine the shareholders' lists.

The number of shareholders stands at about 83,000, after a few hundred thousand shareholders cashed in their stock over the years. Almost 56,000 (68 percent) of those who purchased shares were Jews living in countries later occupied by the Nazis; their stock is classified as property belonging to victims of the Holocaust. Because they held fewer shares, however, their collective share in the stock capital is only 47 percent of the total JCT stock. The largest number of shareholders came from the former Soviet Union (34,300), followed by the United States (11,100), Britain(8,087), Poland (7,676), Lithuania (5,270) and Romania (3,884).

Katz recommends transferring 47 percent of JCT stock to the organization for restitution and 52 percent to the state by means of the Custodian General.

The JCT stock is "just an example of the extent of assets of Holocaust victims in Israel that were concealed through the years," Roth told Haaretz, adding that he intended for the state and the company to cooperate with regard to all the JCT stock.