Who Are the Marcuses? Meet the couple who made largest-ever donation to Israel

A documentary depicting the lives of two Holocaust refugees who made the largest ever donation to an Israeli institution is set to screen at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival next month. 

Who Are the Marcuses? tells the incredible tale of Holocaust refugees Howard and Lotte Marcus, a couple from Long Island, who donated $500 million (£403m) in 2016 to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).

Howard was 104 when he died and Lottie died at the age of 99. They fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s to the United States, but lost their families in the Shoah.

Their historic donation helped ensuring leading-edge development in water science and impacted regional peace through technology exchange.

The movie sheds light on how Howard and Lotte, who lived modest lives modest life until they died in 2014 and 2016 respectively, how they accumulated their wealth and why they decided to donate it.

It also explores the development of Israel’s vital water technology from pre-state to the present, and how Ben-Gurion University’s research has had a worldwide impact throughout the years.

Matthew Mishory, the director of Who Are the Marcuses? said: “Our film has powerful messages about climate change, water technology, the environment, and philanthropy that can change our world. But films are also about storytelling, and this one tells a story so unbelievable and inspiring, it can only be true,”

“Screening at Santa Barbara is a homecoming for me and a dream come true for the production team. The region is both a growing eco-technology hub and fragile coastal ecosystem,” he added.

Chief Executive Officer of Americans for Ben-Gurion University (A4BGU), Doug Seserman, called the Marcuses “humble visionaries who saw the importance of water research not only as vital to Israel’s self-sufficiency but as a strategy to achieve peace through shared natural resources.”

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, Warren Buffet and world-renowned philosopher Micah Goodman are among the guests appearing in the film.

Who Are the Marcuses? premiered the Newport Beach Film Festival in California in October, and also screened at the United Nations climate change conference COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

After screening at the festival in Santa Barbara, the film will be shown in Memphis, Colorado and New York, among other cities.