When Oron Maher began building his Southern California real estate business four years ago, he turned to the Los Angeles Business Journal for the scoop on his industry, and what he found disturbed him.
As he combed through its pages, he discovered what felt like too many stories about Iranian-American businessmen being accused of fraud, Ponzi scheming and other unsavory acts. And to make matters worse, the accounts of wrongdoing within the community almost always described the accused as “a member of the prominent Iranian-Jewish community of Los Angeles,” Maher explained.
“That was kind of an alarm to me.” He couldn’t ignore the hard, plain print. “We have a business ethics problem in our community,” he said.
Maher joined the board of the local Iranian-American civic action group 30 Years After and, along with fellow board member and Orange County Assistant Area Director for AIPAC Jason Youdeem, created the Maher Fellowship, a leadership training program for Iranian Jews, ages 21-35. The six-month program is a primer on Israel advocacy, community leadership and public speaking, and includes an all-expenses-paid trip to the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C. Maher offered the lead gift for the program, which was subsequently named for him. “I can think of no better cause than to cultivate Jewish leaders,” he said.
In addition to running his real estate development company, California Real Property Inc., Maher, a 34-year-old lawyer and real estate broker, mentors aspiring business leaders. Four years ago, he founded the L.A. Business Executives Forum, a group that focuses on business education and development, and serves as a chair for the real estate section of the Beverly Hills Bar Association. “I get a huge sense of joy and fulfillment from my businesses, but business, at the end of the day, for me, is a means to an end. What drives me is the Jewish community.”
Maher said he observes the biblical practice of tithing, the mandate to donate 10 percent of one’s income to charity. It is lessons like those, among other business values, such as honest dealing and the integrity of one’s word, that he hopes to impart to the young Iranian Jews in the Maher Fellowship, as well as students he mentors from CSU Long Beach, his alma mater. He blamed a communal emphasis on materialism, which has become a symbol of immigrant success, for why some feel compelled to cheat. “I’m not opposed to people buying nice things,” he said, “And I’m not advocating being moderate or not being moderate. But if you live with higher consciousness and are really connected with your true self, you don’t have to cut corners in business in order to satisfy an urge.
“That’s what’s missing in the Persian community,” he continued, “that drive for higher consciousness and self-actualization. If we’re more focused on those things, we’d realize there’s a much higher form of happiness that comes [from inside].”
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