Jacob Safra - Biography

Jacob Safra was the father of Edmond Safra, a Sephardi Jewish banker from Aleppo. The Safras were bankers and gold traders engaged in the financing of trade between Aleppo, Istanbul and Alexandria. When the Ottoman empire fell apart, Jacob Safra, the former partner in Safra Freres, set up a separate banking business under his own name in Beirut in the year 1920. With its base in the Lebanon, the Jacob E. Safra Bank became the bank of choice for many of Syria's and Lebanon's rich Sephardic Jewish families, who trusted the Safras to manage their business and personal financial interests with care and discretion. Later when he moved to Brazil with his son, they founded their first Brazilian financial institution in 1955.

Safra Square in Jerusalem is named in honor of him and his wife Esther.

See also

• Edmond Safra

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