International businessman and philanthropist Sami Rohr, whose warm heart, vision and financial success enabled him to fund Jewish community centers around the globe and laid the groundwork for a rebirth of Judaism across the former Soviet Union, passed away Sunday in Miami from heart failure. He was 86.

Dearest Sami,

I hear the laugh. I perceive the joy in your eyes. I sense the emotion when you cry at a conversation we are having about family or a description that you intuit is sentimental. I reflect on the ideas you shared and I too laugh if somehow a funny line comes up.

Sami Rohr, a Holocaust survivor and philanthropic supporter of several Jewish causes, was remembered last week for his role in sustaining the rebirth of Jewish life in the former Soviet Union and in assisting a wide variety of Jewish organizations in this country.

In addition to the sense of shock and enormous sadness I felt when I heard of Sami Rohr’s death, my mind somehow immediately turned to an incident at this past year’s Rohr Awards in Jerusalem. The ceremony was ready to start, and all the attendees were seated. But two people were missing, Sami Rohr and Abigail Green, our second place winner, and ‘the author of Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero. I found them seated just outside the room where the awards were being presented.

On Tuesday, Sami Rohr, a founder of The Shul of Bal Harbour and major benefactor of the Chabad Lubavitch movement worldwide, was to have led 30 family members on a multi-generational vacation to Spain.

The peak of the mountain has gone into seclusion behind the clouds of eternity. The illustrious, revered Mr. Sami Rohr of blessed memory, has gone to his eternal rest. His global impact and historical influence will continue to serve as a standard of philanthropy and Jewish activism until the coming of Moshiach and there after.

When Sami Rohr was a young real estate developer living in Bogotá, Colombia, in the 1950s, fundraisers from abroad often came to collect money from the local Jewish community. While Rohr donated to all of them, and encouraged his employees to do the same, emissaries from the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement impressed him more than others.

Sami Rohr, a Jewish philanthropist whose children presented him with an unusual gift six years ago when they created the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, a $100,000 annual award intended to foster the careers of young, unknown writers, died on Sunday in Miami. He was 86 and lived in Bal Harbour, Fla.

I just learned of the death yesterday of Sami Rohr, the businessman and philanthropist powerhouse behind the growth of Chabad around the world.