José Ephim Mindlin (September 8, 1914 – February 28, 2010) was a Brazilian lawyer, businessperson and bibliophile, born to Ukrainian Jewish parents from Odessa.[1]
Life
Son of dentist Ephim Mindlin and of Fanny Mindlin, both born in Odessa, he graduated from the University of São Paulo law school. He worked as a lawyer for 15 years, until he founded with some friends Metal Leve, an automobile piston company, which went on to become a large international player in the automobile parts industry. After years of successful management of the firm as a Director, the opening of the Brazilian markets in the 1990s has reduced Metal Leve's profits, and he and his business associates had to sell the firm in 1996 to German firm Mahle Group.
Mindlin was married to Guita Mindlin, who died in 2006,[2] and they had 4 children and 11 grandchildren.
He was the owner of the largest private library in Latin America, with more than 38,000 titles. A large number (about half) of the collection was donated to the University of São Paulo in May 2006, mostly regarding Brazilian studies. On March 23, 2013 a building was built in the university's campus specifically to maintain this massive library, named after the Guita and José Mindlin Foundation, who made the donation.[3] Mindlin had said he wanted to keep the library alive through the continuous growth of the collection and scientific contributions by academics.
Mindlin and Antônio Ermírio de Moraes were the only two Brazilian businessmen who refused cooperation with Henning Albert Boilesen in the sponsorship of the so-called Operação Bandeirante - a repressive structure to be created to cooperate with the military dictatorship in Brazil. Its main interface with the military regime and the business world was the businessman Henning Albert Boilesen. It is believed that Henning Albert Boilesen was supported by the CIA.[4][5] The organization was responsible for torture, disappearance and extra judicial killings and kidnappings of numerous Brazilians who opposed the dictatorship.[6][7]
After retiring from the business world, Mindlin began collecting and preserving rare books, beginning with a 1740 edition of Discours sur l'Histoire universelle (Discourse on Universal History) by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet.
