Jewish Businessman Gives $10,000 to Rescued Chilean Miners
A Chilean Jewish mining executive has written $10,000 checks to each of the 33 miners that are being rescued from a collapsed mine in Chile after being trapped for more than two months.
Leonardo Farkas reportedly gave the checks in the miners’ names to each of the families and set up a separate fund to collect donations, The Associated Press reported. The money is more than some of the miners earn in a year.
By early Wednesday afternoon Chilean time, about half the miners had been pulled from the San Jose gold and copper mine, where they had been trapped since its collapse on Aug. 5.
Without complications, all the miners are expected to be pulled to freedom by Thursday, according to reports. The Chilean miners reportedly have survived the longest of anyone buried underground.
Farkas is a well-known philanthropist in Chile who appears annually on a telethon run by the country’s major television networks to raise funds to help children with developmental disabilities. In 2008 he donated about $1.5 million to the cause.
Farkas owns businesses in several industries, with mining comprising the most important of his holdings.
He was sued recently by his Australian partners, accused of inappropriately using company funds for personal charitable donations.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
