KORET LADIES (6) Button Luxury Blazer/Coat (Salvador)

KORET LADIES (6) Button Luxury Blazer/Coat (Salvador) Black Check Fabric (6) Button Closure (2) Front Hip Pockets Fully Lined Joseph Koret the man behind the fortune The story of San Francisco businessman and philanthropist Joseph Koret is a real rags-to-riches tale. From an early life of scarcity in turn-of-the-last-century New York to make his fortune in ladies' apparel and real estate aside from his philanthropist endeavors Born in Odessa in 1900, he was brought to New York by his parents as an infant and moved to San Francisco with his family in 1917. As an ambitious young man, he climbed his way up, amassing great wealth. But Koret never forgot the poverty of his youth, nor the lean years when he and his first wife, née Stephanie Shapiro, worked tirelessly to grow their women’s clothing company Today, Joe Koret is known not only for Koret of California (eventually bought by Levi Strauss & Co. for $71 million), but even more so as a beneficent philanthropist who gave to myriad social, civic, and Jewish causes. From its first gift to the Little Sisters of the Poor in San Francisco to Israel’s first and only school of veterinary medicine, which bears Koret’s name, the San Francisco-based Koret Foundation has issued nearly $500 million in grants since its founding in 1979, prioritizing education, hospitals, humanitarian groups, the arts and Jewish life in the Bay Area. It also supports projects in Israel, and in recent years also focused on Jewish life in Poland.