On September 11, President Volodymyr Zelensky met in Toronto with Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist James Temerty. Zelensky thanked him for his long-standing support for Ukrainians and spoke about one of Ukraine’s most urgent problems today: daily Russian air attacks, their impact on civilian life, and the need to keep Ukraine in the focus of international attention.

For many Israelis, the name James Temerty may not yet be familiar. Yet part of his story is already physically present in Jerusalem, between the Knesset and the Supreme Court.

Temerty was born in Donbas in 1941. His family history was marked by the Holodomor, Stalinist repression and the upheavals of World War II. The family eventually settled in Canada, where Temerty later built a remarkable business career — first in technology and then in energy.

He worked for IBM, developed ComputerLand in Canada and in 1987 founded Northland Power, which grew into a major international energy company.

Together with his wife Louise, he created the Temerty Foundation. The scale of their philanthropy is substantial: in 2020, James and Louise Temerty and their foundation donated C$250 million to the University of Toronto. Its medical faculty now bears the Temerty name.

But Ukraine had been part of Temerty’s work long before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

He supported Ukrainian education, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Holodomor research, community institutions and cultural projects. After February 2022, much of that support naturally became more practical: generators, humanitarian assistance, help for students and academics, and reconstruction.

According to the Office of the President of Ukraine, Temerty provided $500,000 through the Olena Zelenska Foundation for generators, critical infrastructure and assistance in liberated areas of the Kharkiv region, and donated $1 million toward rebuilding a children’s creative and sports center destroyed in Borodyanka.

In August 2025, Zelensky presented him with the National Legend of Ukraine award.

For an Israeli reader, however, another part of Temerty’s biography may be even more interesting.

The Ukrainian-Jewish conversation

James Temerty is one of the founders and a major supporter of Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, or UJE.

The initiative grew out of discussions in 2007–2008 involving Temerty, historian Alti Rodal, Berel Rodal and Adrian Karatnycky.

The idea behind the project was both simple and difficult: Ukrainians and Jews had lived on the same land for centuries, but they often inherited very........

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