politics and governance | December 31, 2025

Zalman Bernstein’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

IntroBusinessperson
IsBusinessperson 
FromUnited States of America 
TypeBusiness 
Gendermale

Zalman Chaim Bernstein (1926–1999), originally Sanford Bernstein, was a Jewish-American billionaire businessman and philanthropist.

Biography

Zalman Bernstein was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1926. At the age of eighteen, he joined the United States Navy and fought in the Second World War. He then received a bachelor’s degree in economics from New York University, followed by a master’s degree in economics from the Harvard Business School.

He worked as an economic advisor for the Marshall Plan. In 1967, he founded the investment management firm Sanford Bernstein. When he first founded Sanford C. Bernstein, his brother Paul P. Bernstein was his sole partner.

In the 1980s, he became an Orthodox Jew and dropped his English name, Sanford, for his Hebrew one, Zalman. He attended Lincoln Square Synagogue and became an intimate of its rabbi, Shlomo Riskin. In 1989, he made aliyah and moved to Israel. He also founded the Jewish organizations Avi Chai Foundation and Tikvah Fund, and he donated to the Shalem Center.