Jan 12, 2021
In recognition of his contributions to the United States, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1998. He received honorary doctorates of law from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and also Hofstra University Law School, where he endowed the Siggi B. Wilzig School of Banking Law. He retired as president and chief executive in 2002. Prior to his death in 2003 from multiple myeloma, he gave testimony for the Steven Spielberg Shoah Foundation. Running more than ten hours, it is the longest survivor testimony in the Foundation’s collection. In 2003, the Trust Company of New Jersey, “The Bank With Heart,” was sold to North Fork Bank for $726 million. He is survived by his three children and four grandchildren. Siggi’s achievements enabled him to support a number of charities. He endowed the Wilzig Hospital, a state-of-the-art medical facility and part of the Jersey City Medical Center; the Daughters of Miriam Home for the Aged; and the Jewish Home and Rehabilitation Center.
Jan 12, 2021
In addition to his business interests, Wilzig was active in humanitarian and philanthropic causes, particularly those related to the Holocaust. In 1980, he was appointed as a founding member of the Holocaust Memorial Council in Washington. He was the first Holocaust survivor to lecture at West Point. He was a founding director and fellow of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Jan 12, 2021
Siggi was elected chairman and CEO of the Trust Company of New Jersey in 1971. In 1974 he was elected the bank’s president. For his support of the state of Israel, he received the Prime Minister Award in 1975.
Jan 12, 2021
In the early 1960s, Siggi began investing in stocks. One stock that particularly caught his interest was Wilshire Oil Company of Texas. With help from friends and relatives, he led a proxy battle and in 1965 was elected to the Wilshire board of directors. Six months later, at the age of 39, he was elected president and chief executive of the company. During his tenure, Wilshire acquired a large interest in the Trust Company of New Jersey, a full-service, commercial bank. Siggi became a director in 1969 and was elected chairman and president two years later. Over the next thirty years, he grew the bank’s assets from $181 million to more than $4 billion.
Jan 12, 2021
His first job was shoveling snow in the Bronx after a heavy blizzard that winter. In the 1950s, he held numerous jobs including working as a bow tie presser in a Brooklyn sweatshop, a traveling leather-bound, loose-leaf binder salesman and a furniture store manager. He met Naomi Sisselman, nine years his junior, and the two were married in 1954 with a celebration at Little Hungary Restaurant in NYC. The couple had three children over the course of their marriage: sons Ivan and Alan and daughter Sherry.
