Mayer Matalon

Business, Politics and the Jewish-Jamaican Elite

Diana Thorburn

This biography of Mayer Matalon, an influential Jewish Jamaican, traces his path from humble origins to innovator, public servant, political insider, and leader of his family’s conglomerate, from the 1940s to the end of the twentieth century. Mayer Matalon was not born into the Jewish-Jamaican elite who traced their ancestry in Jamaica back hundreds of years and who were successful entrepreneurs, prominent intellectuals, and politicians. Mayer Matalon’s father, Joseph, was one a handful of Jews who came to Jamaica in the wave of turn-of-the-century Levantine emigration, and his mother, Florizel Madge Matalon, was a young, beautiful, poor Jewish-Jamaican girl. A failed businessman, Joseph’s legacy was eleven children who created their own legacy in Jamaican business and politics.

The Matalon siblings built a conglomerate, venturing into businesses and experimenting with business models that had never been tried in Jamaica, enjoying success for the first twenty years, struggling to retain viability for the next twenty years, and fighting to keep the family together throughout.

Matalon rose to wealth and prominence through his talent for numbers, his innovative ideas, and his extraordinary emotional intelligence. He was one of Prime Minister Michael Manley’s closest confidantes, in and out of power, and he advised every Jamaican premier and prime minister from Norman Manley to Bruce Golding, with only one exception. That one exception resulted in a sidelining that had a blowback that set Jamaica back decades and that sealed his family’s business’s fate.

This is a story of race, class, and power in postcolonial Jamaica. Through the lens of Mayer Matalon’s life, the book outlines Jamaica’s political and economic trajectory over the sixty years before and after independence. This biography peels back the surface layers of the many citations and public accolades, and goes beyond the often uninformed speculation on the Matalons’ beginnings, revealing in rich detail the unusual life of an extraordinary Jamaican.

Hamilton Books

Pages: 154 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-0-7618-7114-9 • Paperback • July 2019 • $38.99 • (£30.00)

978-0-7618-7115-6 • eBook • July 2019 • $37.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Jewish, Religion / Judaism / History

Mayer Matalon

Business, Politics and the Jewish-Jamaican Elite

Paperback

eBook

Summary

This biography of Mayer Matalon, an influential Jewish Jamaican, traces his path from humble origins to innovator, public servant, political insider, and leader of his family’s conglomerate, from the 1940s to the end of the twentieth century. Mayer Matalon was not born into the Jewish-Jamaican elite who traced their ancestry in Jamaica back hundreds of years and who were successful entrepreneurs, prominent intellectuals, and politicians. Mayer Matalon’s father, Joseph, was one a handful of Jews who came to Jamaica in the wave of turn-of-the-century Levantine emigration, and his mother, Florizel Madge Matalon, was a young, beautiful, poor Jewish-Jamaican girl. A failed businessman, Joseph’s legacy was eleven children who created their own legacy in Jamaican business and politics.

The Matalon siblings built a conglomerate, venturing into businesses and experimenting with business models that had never been tried in Jamaica, enjoying success for the first twenty years, struggling to retain viability for the next twenty years, and fighting to keep the family together throughout.

Matalon rose to wealth and prominence through his talent for numbers, his innovative ideas, and his extraordinary emotional intelligence. He was one of Prime Minister Michael Manley’s closest confidantes, in and out of power, and he advised every Jamaican premier and prime minister from Norman Manley to Bruce Golding, with only one exception. That one exception resulted in a sidelining that had a blowback that set Jamaica back decades and that sealed his family’s business’s fate.

This is a story of race, class, and power in postcolonial Jamaica. Through the lens of Mayer Matalon’s life, the book outlines Jamaica’s political and economic trajectory over the sixty years before and after independence. This biography peels back the surface layers of the many citations and public accolades, and goes beyond the often uninformed speculation on the Matalons’ beginnings, revealing in rich detail the unusual life of an extraordinary Jamaican.

Details

Hamilton Books

Pages: 154 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-0-7618-7114-9 • Paperback • July 2019 • $38.99 • (£30.00)

978-0-7618-7115-6 • eBook • July 2019 • $37.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Jewish, Religion / Judaism / History

Author

Diana Thorburn is a Jamaican researcher, writer, and editor, and is the director of research at the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI), an independent public policy think tank based at the University of the West Indies, Mona.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Landmarks

Chapter 2: Beginnings

Chapter 3: Early Years in Business

Chapter 4: The Numbers Man

Chapter 5: The Growth of ICD

Chapter 6: Housing

Chapter 7: On the Inside of Political Decision-Making, 1950–2010

Chapter 8: Jamaica’s Chairman of the Board: Bank of Nova Scotia and Cable & Wireless

Chapter 9: The End of an Era

Chapter 10: The World of Mayer Matalon

Bibliography

Sources

Appendix: Further Reading

Postscript

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Mayer Matalon

Business, Politics and the Jewish-Jamaican Elite

Diana Thorburn

Mayer Matalon

Business, Politics and the Jewish-Jamaican Elite

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