Israeli billionaire and philanthropist Morris Kahn, the financial powerhouse behind Israel’s attempt to land on the moon and a range of social, medical and cultural endeavors, died Thursday at age 95.
Kahn, a native of South Africa, moved to Israel in 1956.
He co-founded Amdocs, a management-and-billing software firm for large telecom outfits, as well as Golden Pages, which publishes business telephone directories. He founded the Eilat underwater observatory in 1974.
In recent years, he increasingly focused on philanthropy and venture philanthropy in the scientific and medical fields. Among his many philanthropic efforts, Kahn set up LEAD, an organization to develop young leadership in Israel, and supported nonprofits such as the Movement for a Quality Government, sea watchdog Zalul, and Save a Child’s Heart, which brings children from developing countries for surgery in Israel.
He also served as the chairman of SpaceIL, which aimed to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon.
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In 2019, Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft, co-developed by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), crashed into the moon’s surface and dashed the country’s dreams of putting a lander onto the Earth’s satellite.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his wife Sarah and South African philanthropist Morris Kahn watch the launch of the Beresheet spacecraft from the Yehud command center on February 22, 2019. (SpaceIL)
By 2021, Kahn began plans for a second attempt, saying at the time, “The Beresheet project is my life’s mission, so I decided to take it up again. I plan to do everything that is within my power to take Israel back to the Moon.”
But in 2023, he canceled the project. During an interview with the Calcalist outlet this year from his villa in Beit Yanai, central Israel, Kahn explained, “It’s a luxury to pursue a project like this now, when the country has other, more urgent needs.”
He also spoke of his philanthropic work and facing death.
“What could be more important than saving a life? That’s the only thing that gives real fulfillment. Otherwise, what is life? You’re born, live, and die. I don’t want to be the richest man in the cemetery,” he said at the time. “I plan to leave my children a reasonable amount, not everything. The rest will go to philanthropy.”
Last month, Hebrew media reported that former defense minister Yoav Gallant has been living for the past year free of charge in a private compound owned by Kahn in Beit Yanai. Gallant and his wife were forced to leave their own villa in Amikam due to security warnings during Israel’s war with Hezbollah in 2023-2024. Shortly after doing so, they moved into an apartment in Kahn’s compound.
Gallant lived there while he was an MK, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired him as defense minister in 2024. Gallant resigned from the Knesset in 2025 and has remained in the Kahn compound since.
Visitors at the Underwater Observatory in the southern Israeli city of Eilat, on July 25, 2022. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Kahn was born in March 1930 in Benoni, South Africa. His Jewish parents were immigrants from Lithuania. He moved to Israel in 1956 with his wife Jacqueline and their two sons, Benjamin and David.
His major business successes came in the late 1970s with Golden Pages and then Amdocs, established in 1982.
In 2019, he was honored with lighting a torch at Israel’s annual Independence Day ceremony.
He is survived by his two sons. His wife Jacqueline died in 2011.
Details for Kahn’s funeral were not immediately published.
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