By the time he sold his first four hospitals to NME in 1969, he was a power in the field--ready to open five more during a frenzy of deal-making. One, in Paramount, prompted a bitter legal fight with NME, which said he violated an agreement not to build so close to the hospitals he sold.
But another of the new facilities proved to be one of those turning points in his life--for it was in the tiny city next to Long Beach.
Hawaiian Gardens got its name from the thatched roof "punch" stand of a 1920s bootlegger. Though the name suggests a breezy paradise, it became a prototype of California sprawl. Today, 14,000 residents are crammed into rows of stucco bungalows--along with a strip of pawnshops and burrito stands--in 0.9 of a square mile off the 605 Freeway.
The city has long fought an inferiority complex. Whereas neighboring Cerritos had dairy land that later provided space for upscale subdivisions, Hawaiian Gardens got "housing that was built for the [cow] milkers," said former Councilman Don Schultze. So when Moskowitz built his hospital there, the city celebrated Irving Moskowitz Day in 1972.
Moskowitz treated area residents until 1980, when he leased his remaining hospitals to the Charter chain and moved to a spacious waterfront home in Miami Beach.
There he received a call in 1988 about a new opportunity. Hawaiian Gardens faced a crisis: Its charity bingo hall was closing after the operator faced criminal charges in Orange County. The city, which got 1% of the gross, stood to lose more than $200,000 a year. The bingo also financed a food giveaway run by the husband of Councilwoman Kathleen Navejas.
Plenty of groups offered to take over the games, because the 800-seat bingo hall was one of many around California that stretched the definition of "nonprofit." But most hardly seemed civic-minded--a principal in one proved to be a fugitive from New York's French Connection heroin case.
Moskowitz said a city official asked him, "Do you have a charitable foundation?," the prerequisite for running bingo. He did have one, as well as a long record of philanthropy, including giving $65,000 to start a Long Beach Jewish Community Federation.
On Sept. 13, 1988, the Hawaiian Gardens City Council named the Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation to take over the bingo games. Declared Navejas: "Whatever [Moskowitz] does turns to gold."
The Games Add Up
Signs around the cavernous room call it "The Fastest Game in Town." Through the haze of cigarette smoke, players peel off single after single for $1 bingo cards and pull tabs. The buy-in is small and so are the prizes, $250 per game, because of state limits that cover all but Indian bingo halls. The law does not say how many games you can play, however, so the caller shouts out a new number every four seconds. A game is over in minutes and a new one starts . . . for up to 10 hours.
By 1991, The Bingo Club was taking in $33 million a year, according to foundation tax returns.
That was hardly all profit: $24 million in prizes were given out, along with the city's 1% fee and salaries for a large security force. But even with such costs, the bingo quickly transformed the Moskowitz Foundation into a major giver.
Records show that the foundation gave away $57,000 in 1987, the last year before bingo. By 1991, it was able to dole out $1.5 million. The figure rose to $4.3 million by 1994--the last year for which detailed accounting was filed--and $6 million in 1995, according to the foundation's attorney.
Some of the money stayed in Hawaiian Gardens, with $30,000 a month going to the food bank and other funds supporting an anti-gang program and the like.
But the giving more often reflected Moskowitz's interest in Israel. "It's obvious," he said, "that it's allowed me to be more active."
He says the foundation is "not buying the land," merely supporting groups "for humanitarian purposes, for scholarships . . . [for students] studying to be rabbis."
Many beneficiaries, however, are American "pass through" organizations designed to help Israeli counterparts, including groups involved in the property purchases and settlements in contested areas.
Foundation records show that the largest single amount in 1994, $1.03 million, went to American Friends of Everest, which Moskowitz set up "to acquire an important religious building in the holy city."
And the leading recipient through 1994, getting $2.35 million, was American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, which supports a yeshiva in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem. Members believe they have a God-given mission to buy property and protect Temple Mount, revered as the site where Abraham offered to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and the site of the First and Second Jewish temples, the latter destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
Ateret Cohanim members believe that the rebuilding of the temple, and the coming of the messiah, are imminent. But that would mean tearing down the third-holiest site in the Islamic world, the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque, built over the temple ruins.
