Memorial candle
Memorial candleThinkstock

Samuel Miller, a Cleveland developer and philanthropist who championed relations between Catholics and Jews, has died.

Miller, the co-chairman of the Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, the real estate development company he helped build into a national giant, died Thursday. He was 97.

He was close friends with a local bishop, Anthony Pilla, and together they coordinated bridge-building programs between the Jewish and Catholic communities. Miller supported Jewish organizations in Cleveland and served on the local boards of Jewish and other organizations. He also backed causes in Israel as well.

In the late 1980s he helped the Cleveland Diocese save 15 inner-city Catholic schools from closing. Miller had several meetings with Pope John Paul II over the years and was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland in 2015.

He would rise early on Sunday mornings to deliver bagels to nuns and firefighters, and reportedly once offered a waiter $6,000 so he could return to college.

Miller was influential in Cleveland and Ohio political circles, as well as in other states where Forest City had projects. Miller stopped coming to the office a year and a half ago, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

He was the son of a junk peddler immigrant from Russia who attended Harvard University to earn his master’s degree on a scholarship.

He is survived by his second wife, Maria, and four children including Aaron David Miller, who served as the senior adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations to Secretary of State Colin Powell.