Michael Steinhardt first visited Israel in 1962, when he was 22. It was a watershed event in his life, as he witnessed up close what he calls the Jewish miracle of the 20th century.
“It was a place where you felt you were important, where each person meant something,” says Steinhardt, co-founder of New York–based hedge fund Steinhardt Partners, which he ran for 28 years before retiring in 1995. These days Steinhardt travels three or four times a year to the Holy Land, not because he’s religious (he’s an atheist) but because he feels a cultural connection. “I really enjoy going to Israel,” he says. “I feel so much of...