Mark Cuban And Sheldon Adelson Put Differences Aside — For One Night

Image by Getty Images

By Nathan Guttman March 28, 2017

Politics were set aside when Mark Cuban was honored Monday evening by Sheldon and Miriam Adelson in a gala dinner fundraiser for the Adelson Educational Campus in Las Vegas.

“A good person with good values, though he is totally opposite of us in his political views,” is how Miriam Adelson described Cuban, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Cuban is an outspoken critic of Donald Trump while the Adelsons are among Trump’s largest donors.

According to the report in the Review Journal, which is owned by Adelson, Cuban showed up at the formal gala event sporting a polo shirt, jeans and sneakers, explaining that he did not carefully read the invitation. The Dallas Mavericks owner who made his fortune in early internet TV initiatives, took questions from students, parents and teachers including one about his Jewish upbringing.

“Being Jewish,” Cuban responded, “has given me a foundation for everything I am and everything I hope to be.”

The Adelson Educational Campus is the largest Jewish day school in Las Vegas. Previous recipients of the school’s Pursuit of Excellence award included Elie Wiesel, Rudi Giuliani, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected]

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO