Some of the biggest names in New York real estate turned out for a glatt kosher Real Estate Networking event at the Mandarin Oriental this Tuesday night to benefit Met Council’s kosher food program – America’s largest. Met Council’s inaugural event was sold-out with over 450 attendees who munched on delicacies including dim sum and mini-pastrami sandwiches while doing business and helping the neediest at the same time.

“We are fortunate to have some many charitable people in the real estate community who care about feeding the hungry,” said David G. Greenfield, CEO of Met Council. Greenfield announced that the event was the most successful Met Council fundraiser for food in its nearly 50 year history – raising over $1.5 million in advance of Met Council’s renowned Pesach food distribution program. “What makes us unique is that every segment of the community benefits from Met Council. We will be delivering free food this Pesach to over 120 organizations from Satmar in Brooklyn to Tomchei Shabbos in Queens to COJO in Staten Island to the JCC in the Bronx. We are proud to be the largest free kosher distributor of food in the United States.”

The guest of honor Tuesday evening was renowned philanthropist Jeffrey Feil, CEO of The Feil Organization, who supports many tzedakahs across New York. Jeffrey was presented with a seder plate by Met Council Co-President Joseph Allerhand in recognition of that fact that his support of Met Council means that “this Pesach everyone will be able to feast like kings at the seder table,” as Mr. Allerhand described it. Later that evening, Richard Mack, Chair of Met Council’s board of directors announced plans to dramatically increase Met Council’s kosher food network to serve thousands of more families.

Many prominent charitable and real estate leaders turned out to support Met Council including David Lichtenstein, Chairman, and CEO of The Lightstone Group, Ralph Herzka of Meridian Capital, Philanthropist Merryl Tisch, Met Council Co-President Ben Tisch of Loews Corporation. Eliot & Debbie Gibber of Deb El. Stanley Chera of Crown Acquisitions, Lloyd Goldman of BLDG, Ziel Feldman of HFZ Capital, Abraham Fruchthandler of FBE Limited, Mitchell Hochberg, Chairman of The Lightstone Group. David Herzka. Scott Domansky of PRD Realty Corp, George Klein of Park Tower Group. Joseph Shenker, Scott Weiner of Apollo Global Management. Lynne Koeppel, Stacy Scheinberg, Jon Estreich of Estreich and Company, Willy Pilku of Core Scaffold, Gary Barnett and Raizy Haas of Extell Development, Michael Davis of Plymouth Group, Darcy Stacom of CBRE, Simon Ziff of Ackman-Ziff, Linda and Jerome Spitzer,Moshe Caller of The Marcal Group, Steven Hurwitz of CAVU, Jay Kriegel of Related Companies and Lawrence Cohen of Pembroke Companies.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)