Benoliel Brothers - Establishing a Career

Heat. Heat. [Music] Everybody's interested to know Chicago, Seattle, growing up, learning. How did you get to Brooklyn? What were some of the early years defining moments including some of the difficulties you may have faced? Uh as I said uh my first uh yeshiva experience was in uh Chicago. Yes. I came there for the uh last two years of high school and then three more years in what we call bet midrash. So a total of five years in u in the Chicago yeshiva betmash lra. It was a wonderful experience and um u one of my ram one of my main teachers later became my father-in-law ramen Kaplan Zatsal u who's uh passing away. We've 40 years since his passing we're been observing lately and he had a tremendous uh influence on me. in uh opening up my eyes to Torah and to a life of Torah and the u the concepts of Msar and and a link to the uh to the great uh yeshivot of Europe before um so uh knowing his background my father-in-law's background from from Yeshuat in Europe uh I got to uh to know some of the people from Mir that is that as he had done with the family uh came through Shanghai during the war years and um and so I developed a uh an interest in joining the basalmud which was established from some the by some of the great uh rabbanim of of Mirisha and Uh that was a a major turning point in my life you know to uh to join up with the the base of Talmud in in what we call East New York. East New York is you like East Brooklyn. And uh it's around that time that I got married uh to u to uh Sirill my my shalom my father-in-law's oldest child. And um um there we are. So uh it was interesting that uh during all the years that I was uh in Basa Talmud approximately 10 years total about five years in the coal and five years teaching there uh I had very little contact with sphartic communities. Uh now it's very interesting that my father-in-law right took an interest in my future. He knew that I can't be sitting in Cole or even teaching uh uh there for uh um you know for for for a long length of time and he took the initiative to find out and to introduce me to the Sephardic community. So uh through Randol my father-in-law I discovered that there's a a Syrian community in Brooklyn. Actually, my first introduction to the uh community was like this. Um, I was called on uh to travel while I was still in Basma to to go to St. Louis to uh fill in for a rabbi that had passed away, one of our rabbis that had gone to to raise money for the yeshiva. So, while in St. Louis, I visited the local yeshiva and there was a young boy there um by the name of Charlie Semach. Look at that. Look at that. And he says, "Who are you? Who am I?" "Oh, you're Seattle." And I'm right. He says, "When you get back to Brooklyn, I want you to to look up Rabbi Murray Masleton. Just look him up." Right? And I looked him up and we became lifetime friends. And that was really my introduction together with my father-in-law uh doing his re research and introducing me to the community. That's that's amazing, Rabbi. And that's wonderful to know that Charlie Se has a big big boys and girls school in Lakewood. And Rabbi Rabbi Murray was a trailblazer. Everybody that hears his name will know what kind of great man he was. book on a special man. I did not know that you had met him early on in the early years when you were just getting introduced to the Syrian community in Brooklyn. You didn't even know you didn't even know we existed. You didn't know there was a whole community that came from Aleppo and then Damascus. And that's wonderful. Okay, we'll we'll move on now. We'll hold it at that point of of of your life. Uh Joel, now you have a law degree. You did your uh duties for the army. Thank God you didn't have to go over to Vietnam and all the things we've heard and saw over the years. Uh what was next for you? How did how did you move on? And did you face any real resistance in in those years moving to the next stage of your life? No, I I didn't. I was very fortunate that uh I was very fortunate that uh uh a a a small law firm in in Seattle um for whom I had uh I had won a scholarship uh that they sponsored uh written an essay and uh went in for an interview and I met them while I was a law student. And um I had the good fortune that not only did I get awarded their scholarship, but they also asked me to come in during the summer and uh uh do some work for them. So I I was able to earn money to go back to school uh to finish school. Um that worked out well enough that they had a standing offer for me that as soon as I passed the bar exam, which was 1971, they hired you. I became an attorney in the firm and uh shortly thereafter became a partner in the firm and and my career launched from that point and the way to understand it is to understand that everything comes in a the number seven. seven years in that law firm, sitting at my desk one day. Um, and I get a unsolicited phone call from a very prominent local sphartic businessman whom I had never met but certainly knew his name. His last name was Ben Aoya. He was a real estate developer and uh over time he became uh the largest individual uh developer in the states of Washington and Oregon commercial and commercial properties. He invented the idea of large business parks, warehouses and office buildings. and uh he introduced himself on the phone and said that he'd heard about me from a mutual friend that he was looking to uh to bring somebody in house in his company and um one thing led to another and I retired from the law firm and became the general counsel at the Jack A. Benoya company. Seven years later, he decided to sell the company and uh he did and I ended up it was purchased by um at that time uh we closed the transaction uh was the largest property sale in the history of the West Coast. Wow. And um after running that transaction and meeting all the people on the buyer's side um they approached me and asked me to come to work for them. The managing partner of the venture that bought uh uh the Republic pension funds involved in in the transaction from California. But the managing partner was the company out of Dallas by the name of Treml Crow Company. Yeah, we heard of tremolo crow u you know one of the largest in the country and uh there were certain aspects of the portfolio in Seattle that they were not familiar with and they knew I had been there and they asked me to come in and and u uh become part of their company and uh but not as a lawyer. They wanted me uh um they wanted me as a real estate developer and so I said yes and that started another seven years. So this was the third seven. Got it. And so uh uh at the point where uh we were very successful. I was building commercial buildings and and uh shopping centers and and warehouse parks. Uh I was approached by uh a man that I knew briefly uh who was ahead of me in law school and college. His name is Jeff Braman Shalom. He was the chairman of a recent startup by the name of Costco. Oh boy. And he said, "I need somebody to come in and run both the legal department and real estate development." And I understand that you have a background in both. So one thing led to another. I said yes. Now that one was 37s. I was there 21 years. So we have 42 years. 37s before, 37s after. I retired uh 11 years ago. 2014. Uh after 21 years with the company, I became a senior vice president, member of the executive committee, uh chief legal officer. I ended up running uh many many departments in the company and uh it was a a rocket ship, a dream of a lifetime. Wow.