Lazare kaplan maurice tempelsman biography

Maurice Tempelsman (born August 26, 1929, Antwerp, Belgium) is a Belgian American businessman and diamond merchant. He moved to the United States as a child and attended New York City’s public schools and New York University.

Tempelsman is multilingual and has interests in the fields of history, archaeology, sailing, and visual arts.

Personal life

Tempelsman was born in 1929 to a Yiddish-speaking, Orthodox Jewish family in Antwerp’s Jewish community.

Lazare kaplan maurice tempelsman biography wikipedia

In 1940, Tempelsman and his family emigrated to the United States to escape persecution by Nazi Germany during World War II. When he was 16, Tempelsman began working for his father, a diamond broker.

Tempelsman has three grown children by his estranged wife, Lilly Bucholz.

His daughter, Rena, is the widow of Robert Speisman, an executive vice president of Tempelsman’s company who was on board American Airlines Flight 77, when the aircraft crashed into The Pentagon during the September 11 attack