Spielberg’s Latest Fortune Puts Vision Into Practice ‘Schindler’s List’ Proceeds Bankroll New Righteous Persons Foundation

As a child, Steven Spielberg charged neighborhood children 25 cents to attend screenings of “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier,” “War of the Worlds” and other movies he rented. Then he donated the proceeds to a local charity.

Now he makes the movies, but he remains a philanthropist. His newest philanthropic venture is the Righteous Persons Foundation, established with his earnings from the movie “Schindler’s List.” In Hebrew, the words for “righteous persons” and for “charity” are derived from the same root, tzedek, which means justice.

“The idea to give away the money came before I made the movie,” Spielberg said. Referring to the longtime president of MCA, he added: “As I said to Sid Sheinberg, my mentor, I could not accept any money from ‘Schindler’s List’ - if it even made any money. It was blood money, and needed to be put back into the Jewish community.”

Spielberg could have channeled all of that money into another of the philanthropic projects that he is already deeply involved with, like the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation to record testimony of Holocaust survivors. He is chairman of that project and has contributed $6 million of his own money and is raising more from others.

But he wanted to have a broader impact on modern Jewish life, and hopes to do that through the Righteous Persons Foundation.

The foundation does not have as much of a Spielberg signature as other projects he has taken on. But after more than nine months of preparation, it has begun to distribute grants to a roster of projects and people that Spielberg hopes will accomplish his goals - from Bill Moyers, the television commentator and producer, and Elizabeth Swados, the author and choreographer, to a Jewish “peace corps” and a project to rethink the modern synagogue.

“We’ve all got a lot riding on Spielberg,” said Eli N. Evans, president of the Charles H. Revson Foundation, which devotes some of its money to Jewish philanthropy and education. “He’s not restrained; he can do whatever he wants to do. He’s a fresh breeze.”

Other Hollywood stars, like Paul Newman and Barbra Streisand, are also active philanthropists, giving money to everything from camps for children with cancer to political activism.

And other big Jewish philanthropists, including businessmen like Charles R. Bronfman, cochairman of the Seagram Co., and Leslie Wexner, chairman of the Limited Inc., the retailing company, have set up their own foundations to contribute to the vitality of Jewish life.

Spielberg’s philanthropic vision reflects both the strong feelings he experienced in making “Schindler’s List” - a powerful movie about how a Roman Catholic businessman rescued Jews from the Holocaust - and the alienated feelings he had growing up as a Jewish boy in virtually non-Jewish Scottsdale, Ariz.

“My parents didn’t keep kosher and we mainly observed all the holidays when my grandparents stayed with us,” he recalled. “We didn’t have lobster at Passover, but it was close. I knew I was missing a great deal of my natural heritage, and as I became conscious of it, I began racing to catch up.”

So far, the foundation has made 30 grants totaling nearly $10 million, including six Holocaust-related commitments that Spielberg made after finishing “Schindler’s List.”

The largest are to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, the Shoah project to videotape the testimony of Holocaust survivors around the world and the new memorial to the Holocaust in New York City.

The Holocaust, however, is not the main focus of the foundation’s grant-making. Although it has given other Holocaust-related grants, most of its new awards have been built around core themes like creating meaningful experiences for Jewish youth and training leadership committed to the revitalization of Jewish life.