Lev Avnerovich Leviev

Lev (Levi) Leviev (born July 30, 1956) is an Israeli diamond magnate, investor and philanthropist.

Leviev was born in Samarkand, Uzbek SSR in 1956.

Leviev lived in Israel between 1971-2007 and moved to reside in London.

He is a noted philanthropist for Chabad Lubavitch causes in Eastern Europe and Israel.

His family moved to Israel in 1971 where he lived until 2007 when he moved to London.

His parents, Avner and Chana Leviev, were prominent members of the Bukharian Jewish community, and Leviev is a practicing Orthodox Jew.

He is a supporter of the Chabad movement, but as a Bukharan Jew he was brought up in the Bukharan liturgy.

In 1971, when he was fifteen, his family emigrated from Uzbekistan to Israel.

Alisher Usmanov's father was the prosecutor in Tashkent who helped facilitate the Leviev's departure for Israel.

Shortly after moving to Israel, Leviev began to work as an apprentice in a diamond polishing plant, learning the 11 steps of the diamond cutting process.

After serving in the communications directorate of the Israel Defense Forces, he established his own diamond polishing plant in 1977.

in 1980, he acquired 12 competing factories that suffered from credit shortage due to the recession in the diamond industry.

The acquisition was done with the help of his father in law's family.

After the Revolutions of 1989, Leviev expanded his business into Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

He received the blessings for success in business and personal support of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson for his philanthropic activities, which include "an army of some 10,000 Jewish functionaries from Ukraine to Azerbaijan, including 300 rabbis. Most of the 300 rabbis are Chabadniks" - adherents of the Brooklyn-based Chabad Hasidic group.

In particular he sponsors many of the activities of the Jewish Learning Initiative.

He is a prominent member of the Bukharian Jewish community, and is president of the World Congress of Bukharian Jews.

In the 1990s, Leviev avoided being directly involved with the Yeltsin family, and nurtured ties with Vladimir Putin.

In 1992, he moved to Russia and purchased Russia's oldest jewelry factory, Ruis Diamonds Ltd. of Moscow which specializes in fancy cutting and high-end ideal cuts of larger diamonds and competes with Smolensk Cristal, and the Moscow Jewelry Factory (Московский ювелирный завод (МЮЗ)).

Valery Rudakov (Валерий Владимирович Рудаков), a representative with the Main Directorate of Precious Metals and Diamonds (Glavalmazzolot) and the former head of the Yakutskalmaz trust, facilitated Leviev's ownership of Ruis Diamonds.

Leviev was the Chairman and majority shareholder of Africa Israel Investments, a diversified conglomerate, between 1997-2018.

Leviev organized the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR) (Федерацию Еврейских Общин России (ФЕОР)) in 1997 for Russian Jews.

Leviev is involved in the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Leviev's Danya Cebus company, a subsidiary of Africa-Israel, subcontracted the construction of Mattityahu East to Shaya Boymelgreen.

Danya Cebus is also building part of Har Homa and Maale Adumim.

In 1999, Leviev's company Danya Cebus announced plans to build new homes in the settlement of Ariel.

Through another subsidiary, LIDAR, Leviev appears to be the sole realtor-developer of the settlement of Zufim.

Leviev's devotion to settlement construction have drawn protest from outside the Old Bond Street store in his London home, to the Leviev-owned jewelry store in New York City, and has impelled Oxfam to make it clear that Leviev has not donated to the charity.

UNICEF has also advised Leviev that they will not partner with or accept any contributions from him due to the controversy.

In a press release, a spokesperson for Leviev described the protests as "politically motivated" and accused protesters of "deliberately neglect[ing]... extensive humanitarian and philanthropic work, which includes building schools, orphanages, and fostering economic development in communities around the world."

Anti-Defamation League head Abraham Foxman condemned UNICEF's decision as "selective political discrimination" that "only gives legitimacy to those who would seek to promote a boycott of the State of Israel and its supporters."

By an agreement, signed in October 2006, Leviev hoped to get into the incarceration business, as a concessionaire for the first private prison in Israel.

In April 2009, following public pressure for a boycott, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced that it would not be renting its Tel Aviv embassy from Leviev's Africa-Israel company.

In 2013, the Norwegian finance ministry, after a review of Africa-Israel's activities, announced that Norway's oil fund was now allowed to re-invest in Africa-Israel.

However, on January 30, 2014 Africa Israel Investments Ltd was placed on the exclusion list, based on "Serious violations of individuals' rights in situations of war or conflict", and has remained there since.

Leviev is an investor in the diamond industry, real estate and chemicals.

Later, in October 2016, Kushner used this space as a basis for a $285 million loan from Deutsche Bank.

The ties between Trump family real estate deals and Russian money interests attracted the justice department's special counsel, Robert Mueller while Mueller was investigating alleged Russia interference in the 2016 presidential election.

According to an article published in The Guardian on July 24, 2017, Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner sealed a real estate deal in 2015 worth $295 million to purchase space in the former New York Times Building on 43rd Street near Times Square from Leviev's firms Africa Israel Investments and Five Mile Capital.

In 2018, Leviev had a net worth of US$1 billion according to Forbes.