Stern Family
Motivated by Change and the Truest Meaning of Tikkun Olam
Montreal philanthropists, Ronit and Noah Stern, are determined to make a difference by doing their parts to help repair our planet, while hoping to show their children that the gifts we make towards that end can be transformative and will impact the generations to come.
Ronit was born and raised in Montreal and was brought up engrained in the Jewish community and the values of support and giving back. Be it through volunteer work or annual gifts, her parents’ belief in supporting education and culture helped Ronit to develop a love of music – after all, it is her parents Hy and Sandy Goldman who founded Klez Kanada- a klezmer music festival promoting and steeped in Yiddish culture.
Noah, an entrepreneur, was born in Israel before moving as a young child to Winnipeg with his mother and father. His parents were divorced when Noah was still very young, and he and his single mother led a modest and somewhat nomadic lifestyle with very little means, but a lot of love. This led Noah to develop a hunger and a drive for business, which was complemented by his mother teaching him how to be resourceful and street smart to get ahead and position himself to succeed. Making use of what they had and not wasting – reusing and recycling were concepts that became engrained in their day to day existence out of necessity. These are values Noah has tried to maintain ever since and to promote to his own children. Noah moved to Montreal and entered McGill for both his undergraduate and law degrees, before meeting Ronit and moving together to New York where Noah practiced law and Ronit studied at NYU before joining the work force there. In 2000, Noah and Ronit returned to Montreal, a city they both love and where they were determined to have and raise a family. Noah left his law practice and entered the fashion industry. He took over and ran his family business and then left to start his own.
As the business grew Noah purchased another clothing company and then with his partners founded Moose Knuckles Canada, a luxury fashion and outerwear brand. Moose Knuckles grew into a global fashion brand and as Noah and Ronit saw the business grow, they realized there had to be more to life than fashion – they wanted to have an impact that went beyond themselves and their immediate family. Together with their kids, they sculpted a family mission – to use their family resources to help promote and proliferate the values of Tikkun Olam – to help heal the world by giving back – to help children get access to education where they otherwise could not (they supported an elementary school in the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh), to donate towards medical research, and most specifically to help fund projects that focus on repairing the planet – the environment, specifically the oceans.
In the vein of making a change and inspired by the technology and innovation of Technion, the Stern family chose to support the X-Coral project led by Technion Researcher and Professor Ezri Tarazi. The X-Coral project is an example of the work conducted to strengthen the marine ecosystems endangered by the collapse of coral reef ecologies – and it has been proven to work! In the Design Tech Lab at Technion, a team of researchers are fabricating coral reefs of various structure, colour, and size in order to systematically study the effects of coral architecture on marine biodiversity.
Ronit and Noah chose to support this project as a result of a family snorkeling trip in St. John over their winter break. Expecting to find colorful coral reefs and myriad species of fish and sea-life that inhabit them, what they actually found was emptiness – dead, colorless broken coral lying at the bottom of the sea. Their youngest son was particularly effected and he chose to write an essay about it at his high school. The family rallied around it as a cause and knew their philanthropic focus needed to be on sustainability and on helping to heal the oceans. Ronit said, “It is hard for this generation to believe we can make a difference, that we can change the path we are on and heal the harm we have caused. But the xCoral project proves that we can and must do something, … with each small step, we can make a difference, we just have to try.”
As the family’s support grows, they implore others to read and watch what Technion does- “these scientists don’t just research and test, they actually implement projects, and they have a real and true impact on our planet – what they are making is real change, it is extremely impressive, and they need our help, they need your help” said Noah.