Josef Buchmann, survivor who built a music school and law faculty in Tel Aviv, dies at 96

Josef Buchmann, the German-Israeli real estate developer and philanthropist, died on 19 September 2026 at the age of 96. Tel Aviv University, where he was vice chair of the board of governors and is regarded as one of its founding fathers, announced his death on 23 September, calling him a visionary leader and a cornerstone of its community.

Buchmann was born in Poland in 1930, the fifth child of Eliezer and Haya Sara Buchmann. He survived the Holocaust and was liberated from Bergen-Belsen in 1945 as an orphan. He rebuilt his life in Germany, where he became a successful international property developer based in Frankfurt, and spent the following decades giving much of his fortune to education, culture and medicine in Israel and to Jewish life in Europe.

At Tel Aviv University he founded the Buchmann Faculty of Law, named in memory of his parents. A longtime supporter of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, he formed a close friendship with its music director Zubin Mehta, and in 2005 the two established the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music as a joint venture of the university and the orchestra. In 2008 he flew 90 of its students to the United Nations in New York, where Mehta conducted them in a concert for the International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust. More recently he set up an international programme at the school for outstanding foreign music students.

Buchmann also created a doctoral scholarship fund linking Tel Aviv University with Goethe University Frankfurt, where he was an honorary senator, as a bridge between German and Israeli scholarship. He supported medical centres that bear his name, the restoration of the cemetery of the Lodz Ghetto, Jewish museums, the welfare of Israeli soldiers, and health and education programmes for children in Tel Aviv. His honours included an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University in 2002 and Poland's Order of Merit. He is survived by his wife, Bareket, and his daughters.