Aaron Feuerstein

Aaron Feuerstein was the CEO of Malden Mills in Massachusetts.

When the Malden Mills factory burnt down in 1996, Feuerstein decided to not only to use his insurance money to rebuild it, but to also pay the salaries of all the now-unemployed workers while it was being rebuilt. By going against common CEO business practices, especially at a time when most companies were downsizing and moving overseas, he achieved a small degree of fame.

Feuerstein claimed that he couldn't not take his chosen course of action due to his study of the Talmud and the lessons he learnt there:

"I have a responsibility to the worker, both blue-collar and white-collar. I have an equal responsibility to the community. It would have been unconscionable to put 3000 people on the streets and deliver a deathblow to the cities of Lawrence and Methuen. Maybe on paper our company is worthless to Wall Street, but I can tell you it's worth more."

—(Parade Magazine, 1996)

Despite this, however, Malden Mills declared bankruptcy a few years after reopening.