Abe Pollin, basketball owner and Jewish philanthropist, dies at 85

Abe Pollin, a longtime supporter of Israel and Jewish causes, has died at the age of 85.

Pollin, best known as the owner of the Washington Wizards basketball team and the Verizon Center the team played in, had served on the boards of AIPAC, Hillel, and The Israel Project, and was involved in numerous philanthropic activities outside the Jewish community.

He also was an activist for Soviet Jewish refuseniks in the 1970s and ‘80s, pressing the issue in meetings with government leaders and in other venues.

More recently, Pollin was one of three Washington real-estate developers in 2004 who bought and restored the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, the former home of the Adas Israel synagogue, before it could be turned into a nighclub. The facility is now a magnet for the city’s younger Jews, sponsoring a variety of Jewish and cultural programming, and is in the same neighborhood Pollin revitalized when he built the Verizon Center.

Pollin changed the name of his basketball team from Bullets to Wizards as a statement against gun violence after the assasination of his longtime friend Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

“Abe was a longtime leader of AIPAC and giant of America’s pro-Israel community,” said AIPAC in a statement. “As a member of AIPAC’s board of directors and friend of many of our country’s most influential policy makers and elected officials, Abe never missed an opportunity to stress the importance of America’s special and unbreakable bond with the State of Israel.”