IF YOU WILL IT IS NO DREAM - III

 

North Jersey was seriously over-banked and competition was fierce. But Siggi made sure that TCNJ offered customers a more satisfying experience than any of its competitors. Customers were so appreciative of the personal and respectful attention they got, regardless of the size of their bank account, that they called the Trust Company, “Siggi’s bank”. He treated his employees with the same personal attention as his customers. As a result, employees remained loyal to him and to the bank. Three department heads worked for TCNJ for more than fifty years.

Siggi opened his heart to all employees, customers, friends, acquaintances and, although over-overworked, he spent hours, sometimes weeks, helping others - at the expense of the business and his own family. Not for nothing was the bank”s motto “The bank with a heart”. He even took time out of his business schedule to give customers, large and small, free investment advice. Not surprising that, though the 1970’s was an era of high inflation and low returns for other banks, TCNJ was growing.

In spite, of his success in running his multifaceted empire, he still found the time for philanthropic and community activities. In one event which he organised, more than $2.5 million was raised for Israel Bonds. At the same event, Siggi was given  the Prime Minister’s medal, Israel’s highest civilian honour.

One of the crowning points in his remarkable career was an invitation to address the cadets at West Point, the most prestigious US Military Academy. WWII was a common topic of study for the officers-in-training. They were accustomed to images of war but, this time, they would be hearing a first-hand  description of the Holocaust. Instead of enlarged images of battlefield footage, Siggi showed them horrendous pictures of the concentration camps. He also told them of the shameful behaviour of the U.S. government which knew of what was happening in the concentration camps as early as 1943 - but chose to cover it up. He received a ten-minute standing ovation.                                                                                                                                                             

“I’ve met four American presidents,” an interviewer was told twenty-five years after his West Point speech, “Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. Naturally, I would say it was an honor. But nothing could ever take the place of what happened at West Point. By scheduling that one talk, the US. Military Academy did more than anyone can imagine, to preserve the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

The TCNJ bank now had branches in five counties, a presence which led to relationships with most of the local candidates for public office. To those politicians whom he respected the most, he delivered the North Jersey Jewish vote. The present Governor Brenden Byrne stated, “If you want to be in politics in New Jersey, you have to go through Siggi.” Byrne was instrumental   in granting Siggi’s  wish to be the first Jew to serve on the New Jersey Banking Advisory Board.

The appointment was one more affirmation for Siggi that Hitler had lost his campaign to wipe out world Jewry, and that Jews had not only come back from the edge of extinction, but were breaking down barriers that had been in place for as long as anyone could remember.