Talk:Howard Jonas

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Howard Steven Jonas (born June 2, 1958) is an American businessman and philanthropist. His flagship public company, IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT), helped to develop and commercialize significant communications technologies including voice over internet protocol (VoIP) telephony. Under Jonas’ leadership, IDT has spawned a half dozen other public companies including two (Net2Phone and Straight Path Communications) that achieved valuations over $1 billion.

Early Life and Education

Howard S. Jonas was born on June 2, 1956 in the Bronx section of New York. Jonas is Jewish, raised unaffiliated, to American parents, later in his life engaging in an Orthodox outlook and way of life. He has two younger siblings, Joyce and Amy.

His first informal business was his makeshift hot dog stand, which he proudly started at 14 years old, stationing it strategically on a Bronx street corner between Van Etten Hospital and a bar. He attributes his high school debate team for influencing him to leap into the business world. By the time he graduated high school, he had already started his first company, an ad agency.

Howard met his wife Debbie in high-school, the Bronx High School of Science, from which they both graduated in 1974. They both matriculated at Harvard where Howard majored in economics. Debbie put her career on hold to raise the Jonas’ nine children and teach in public schools before graduating from the Cardozo Law School where she was a member of the Immigration Justice Clinic and the Criminal Defense Clinic. She is currently a Bronx Public Defender and member of the Family Defense Project. Both Howard and Debbie avoid leading public and extravagant lifestyles. Howard is known for wearing jeans to work, driving a Ford and from time-to-time bringing the family dog to the office.

Career Jonas began his entrepreneurial career at the age of 14, opening a hot dog stand outside a methadone clinic not far from his family home in the Bronx. In his business autobiography “On a Roll”, he attributes much of his subsequent success to lessons learned from this first business venture.

In 1990, after running a series of start-ups, Jonas founded IDT (originally International Discount Telecommunications) to provide automated call re-origination and other innovative telecommunications services. IDT has operated as a scrappy upstart in an industry dominated by giant telecoms since its inception.

In 1996, Jonas took IDT public. IDT’s Net2Phone subsidiary helped to pioneer and was an early provider of voice over internet protocol (VoIP) calling services. In 2000, Jonas sold Net2Phone to AT&T for approximately $1.1 billion in cash. (He subsequently repurchased Net2Phone from AT&T for a fraction of that price.)

At the helm of IDT, Jonas utilized the cash generated by telecom operations and the Net2Phone sale to incubate a diverse portfolio of business ventures for subsequent sale or spin-off to IDT’s stockholders. These included: Corbina, a Russian telecom business -- Sold for $130 million in 2006; IDT Entertainment -- Sold to Liberty Media in 2007 for $220 million in cash plus stock and other considerations; CTM Media Holdings (now IDW Media Holdings [OTC: IDWM]) -- Spun off to IDT stockholders in 2009. IDW Media has become a leading publisher of comics and graphic novels and distributor of tourist information; Genie Energy (NYSE: GNE) -- Spun off to IDT stockholders in 2011. Genie Energy has become a global competitive retail energy provider with operations in the US and overseas; Straight Path Communications -- Spun off to IDT stockholders in 2013. Straight Path held communications IP and spectrum licenses. Jonas sold the business with its spectrum licenses to Verizon for $3.1 billion in 2018; Fabrix Systems -- Sold to Ericsson for $95 million in 2014. Fabrix developed an integrated, scalable platform for media storage, processing and delivery; Zedge (NYSE AMERICAN: ZDGE) -- Spun to IDT stockholders in 2016. Zedge is a popular app-focused content distribution platform; Rafael Holdings (NYSE AMERICAN: RFL) -- Spun off to IDT stockholders in 2018. Rafael Holdings was comprised by IDT’s real estate and its interests in two pharmaceutical companies including Rafael Pharmaceuticals, a clinical stage pharma company developing novel therapies that target the unique metabolism of cancer cells.

Jonas has remained as the Chairman and controlling shareholder of IDT and each of its operating spun-off companies, and serves as CEO of Rafael Holdings and IDW Media. Today, IDT provides innovative communications and payment services to businesses and consumers, primarily through its net2phone and BOSS Revolution brands. True to its heritage, IDT continues to manage and invest in several promising, early stage businesses to drive its long term growth.

Philanthropy / Charities

Jonas is an active supporter of several charities nationally and in his community. He serves as a trustee on numerous university, hospital, religious and social service organization boards. These include New York Presbyterian Hospital, Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, Meshi, Yad Ezra, The International Rescue Committee, The Riverdale Y, SAR Academy and the Bronx Jewish Community Council.

Their family foundation supports health and hospitals, education, poverty relief, addiction treatment, religious outreach and the disabled, primarily in the Jewish community in Israel and in the U.S.

Publications

Jonas has authored several books including:

On A Roll: How a Kid from the Bronx Started with Hot Dogs and Wound Up Making a Fortune: 1998 I’m Not The Boss I Just Work Here (Insights and lessons from the founder of America’s #1 telecom company): 2004 Faith and Depression: 2012

2604:2000:1383:701:41D6:C701:F42:18CC (talk) 17:49, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Reply 25-MAR-2019
In the collapsed section below titled Request edit examples, I have illustrated two: The first shows how the edit request was submitted; the second shows how requests should be submitted in the future.
 * Your edit request could not be reviewed because no references have been provided.

INCORRECT Please add the following to the first paragraph of the article's "Sun and Moon" section: "The Sun's diameter is 864,337.3 miles, while the Moon's diameter is 2,159 miles. The Sun's temperature is 5,778 degrees Kelvin."

In the example above there are no references provided with the claim statements. The lack of references would make verifying this information difficult. Using references, your edit request should resemble the following:

CORRECT Please add the following to the first paragraph of the article's "Sun and Moon" section: The Sun's diameter is 864,337.3 miles, while the Moon's diameter is 2,159 miles. The Sun's temperature is 5,778 degrees Kelvin. Which displays as: Please add the following to the first paragraph of the article's "Sun and Moon" section:
 * The Sun's diameter is 864,337.3 miles,[1] while the Moon's diameter is 2,159 miles.[2] The Sun's temperature is 5,778 degrees Kelvin.[3]

References

^ Sjöblad, Tristan. . Academic Press, 2018, p. 1. ^ Harinath, Paramjit. , Science, 51(78):46. ^ Uemura, Shū. . Academic Press, 2018, p. 2. 

In the example above the references have been provided and correctly formatted for placement in the article, showing the author, the source's name, date, etc. As Wikipedia is a volunteer project, edit requests such yours are generally expected to have the article's referencing and formatting needs completed before the request is submitted for review.

Kindly rewrite your edit request so that it aligns more with the second example shown in the collapsed section above, and feel free to re-submit that edit request at your earliest convenience. If you have any questions about this formatting please don't hesitate to ask myself or another editor. Regards, Spintendo  20:00, 25 March 2019 (UTC)