Bernard “Bernie” Marcus, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia who co-founded The Home Depot and became a major donor to a wide variety of causes, including many Jewish ones, died on Monday in Boca Raton, Fla., his family said. He was 95.

Marcus served as chairman of the Marcus Family Foundation, through which he and his wife, Billi, have donated to a wide array of organizations, Jewish ones and non-Jewish ones including many in his adopted hometown of Atlanta, such as the Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the United States, to which he donated $250 million to construct. He also helped fund the expansion of the Marcus Jewish Community Center in Atlanta, which bears his name.

“His tremendous philanthropy shaped the Marcus JCC’s past and present and has inspired countless individuals and future generations to celebrate their Jewish values and connect with each other. His legacy lives on in the spaces he helped create, the lives he impacted and the community he strengthened,”  Jared Powers, the JCC’s CEO, said in a statement.

Marcus was a signatory of both The Giving Pledge and the Jewish Future Promise, committing to donate to charity the majority of his personal fortune, which was most recently estimated at $11 billion by Forbes. 

“I was able to do things my parents could only dream about… and have focused on helping those I will never meet,” Marcus wrote in his 2022 memoir, Kick Up Some Dust: Lessons on Thinking, Giving Back and Doing It Yourself.

Born in 1929 and growing up in a tenement house in Newark, N.J., Marcus hoped to become a doctor — and was even accepted to Harvard University — but settled to study pharmacy at Rutgers University, where he joined the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, as his family couldn’t afford to send him to medical school due to Harvard’s quota on Jews. He later moved into retail, becoming CEO of the Handy Dan Improvement Centers home improvement chain. In 1979 — together with Arthur Blank, Pat Farrah and Ken Langone — Marcus co-founded The Home Depot, which quickly took off. 

“Bernie was an inspiration in many ways. He was a master merchant and a genius with customer service,” The Home Depot wrote about Marcus in a statement. “Together with Arthur Blank and Ken Langone, Bernie helped create a nation of doers who could tackle any project, large or small…. More than anything, he deeply believed in the company’s core values, particularly that of giving back. He never lost sight of his humble roots, using his success not for fame or fortune but to generously help others.” 

Marcus has long and heavily donated to causes related to Jewish life and Zionism, supporting some existing organizations, such as Birthright Israel and Hillel International, and launching new initiatives. The latter includes RootOne, which subsidizes trips to Israel for Jewish teenagers. Marcus provided $20 million to launch the initiative in 2020 and donated another $60 million to expand it a year later.

“We want young people stepping onto their college campuses with deep connections to Israel and strong Jewish identities,” Marcus said when he first funded the project.

Marcus’ philanthropy focused primarily on American Jewish institutions, though he also helped found the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), a Jerusalem-based think tank, contributing $5 million to its construction and millions annually toward its operations. Marcus also served as the group’s international chairman and as chairman of its “American Friends of” organization, which raised millions for the organization each year.

“The State of Israel lost one of its greatest friends, and I have lost my wisest mentor. No one had a more intuitive grasp of the fundamental challenges facing Israel than Bernie did, and no one did more to face these issues head-on,” IDI President Yohanan Plesner said in a statement.

The institute acknowledged that despite Marcus’ conservative politics in the U.S., he kept out of Israeli partisanship with his support for IDI, which has over the years opposed the initiatives of right-wing Israeli governments, such as the current coalition’s judicial overhaul plans. “A man of strong political views in the U.S. context, he maintained a disciplined nonpartisan bearing born of ’Ahavat Israel’ [love of Israel] when it came to Israel,” the institute said in a statement. “Behind closed doors he always spoke his mind and was known for his candid exchanges with prime ministers, rabbis and businessmen.”

In the last 10 years, Marcus has donated roughly $30 million to both Hillel International and to the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. During the same period, he also gave some $14 million to Birthright Israel and nearly $10 million to ImpactIsrael, which supports Yemin Orde, a youth village for at-risk Israeli youth.

In addition, Bernie and Billi Marcus donated $35 million — more than a quarter of the total cost — to help construct Israel’s Marcus National Blood Services Center, a massive reinforced blood bank that is designed to operate through nearly any emergency.

Marcus has donated millions of dollars to support American Jewish religious life, including more than $5 million to the Union for Reform Judaism and more than $4 million to Atlanta’s Chabad.

He has also supported efforts to bring non-Jews to Israel, providing $1.7 million each year to Passages, which has been dubbed the “Christian Birthright” and roughly $1 million annually to iTrek, which brings graduate students to Israel.

Alongside his support for Jewish and Israel-related causes, Marcus has also been a longtime donor to the Republican Party.

“Creating an engine of hundreds of thousands of American jobs is a monumental legacy, in itself. But Bernie rightly took greatest pride in honoring the Jewish calling of ‘tzedakah’, making a tremendous difference for worthy causes – from autism and cancer research to veteran and community support,” U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement. “Countless lives improved and saved are an enduring testament to Bernie Marcus’ generosity.”

Marcus backed former President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020 and in his current run for president, though in this election cycle Marcus expressed dissatisfaction with Trump, saying he would have preferred another GOP candidate.

“Bernie Marcus embodied the American Dream, founding Home Depot and dedicating his life to philanthropy,” wrote Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on X. “Ann and I are praying for his family, and our hearts go out to his wife, Billi, and everyone mourning his loss.”

Though Marcus did not see eye-to-eye with his business partner Arthur Blank — a major Democratic donor — the two have continued to collaborate over the years, most recently on an initiative to combat political polarization, One Small Step Program, which brings together people with opposing viewpoints for civil conversations.

Marcus has also made large donations to medical-related causes, including a recent $25.9 million grant in September for stroke treatment research at Emory University.

Marcus is survived by his wife, Billi, his son, Frederick Marcus, and his stepson, Michael Morris. He is predeceased by his daughter, Susanne Marcus Collins, who died in 2021.

Ed. note: An earlier version of this article claimed that Marcus had funded the construction of Atlanta’s Jewish Community Center; he had funded an expansion of the center.