Profile: Max and Anna Webb

From their award-winning building on campus to their international leadership in the preservation of Yiddish language and culture, the Webb family of Los Angeles has been an integral part of TAU's history for more than five decades.

For Max Webb, a prominent Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist, supporting TAU and other Jewish and Israeli organizations is a way of expressing gratitude for surviving the horrors of the Holocaust. As a young man he was imprisoned by the Nazis in 18 camps over a period of five years, and participated in the infamous Death March at the end of WWII. Immigrating to the USA in 1952, he prospered in the real estate business, and in 1962 created the Max Webb Family Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of Jewish life in Israel and the United States. "Every Jewish cause is a good cause," says Max, who actively supports universities, yeshivas, synagogues, hospitals, and museums. “But education is my first priority.”

In line with this belief, Max first got involved with TAU in the 1960s, establishing the American Friends of Tel Aviv University’s Western Region chapter to raise funds for building up the fledgling university’s campus.

One of the Webb Foundation’s own contributions to TAU's growth is the Max Webb Family School of Languages Building (pictured below), where more than 20 languages are taught, spoken, and studied. Uniquely designed with an all-glass paneled façade and scenic views of the Mediterranean Sea, this structure attracts enthusiastic architecture tourists, and was awarded the Rokach Prize in 2005.

The Webbs have been passionate about reviving the Yiddish language and donated the Anna and Max Webb Family Chair for Visiting Scholars in Yiddish Studies. The family supports Yiddish language conferences, thereby significantly enriching TAU’s Yiddish curriculum, and enabling the university to host the world’s leading contemporary Yiddish scholars. 

In recognition of their leadership, both Max and his late wife, Anna Hitter Webb, who sadly passed away in September 2011, received honorary doctorate degrees from Tel Aviv University.

 “The Webbs have been outstanding philanthropic role models,” said William Cohen, former National Chairman of the American Friends of Tel Aviv University. "Both Max and Anna – may her soul rest in peace – knew that Jewish education is key to the ongoing survival of the State of Israel — and of the Jewish people.”

"G-d gave me a gift," says Max. "I survived, and I'm not going to take the money with me. So this is my life."

The late Anna Hitter Webb was a prominent California philanthropist and member of TAU Board of Governors. Anna and her husband, Max, have been passionate supporters and advocates of the University for decades. Anna's warmth, spirit and lively intellect were evident in her very successful entrepreneurial career, and shaped her philanthropic vision as well. Born in Poland, her family's odyssey in search of safety in wartime put Israel and Jewish causes very close to her heart.