Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 18, 1994                   TAG: 9403220024
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ARTHUR TAUBMAN

Here, he turned three unprofitable auto-parts stores into what today is the multistate, 372-store Advance Auto Parts chain, with annual sales estimated at $320 million. His business acumen was matched by his interest in community - and world - betterment.

Unlike John W. "Jack" Hancock, another Roanoke pillar who died this month, Arthur Taubman was not widely known for a great side interest in politics. But like Hancock, he played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the effort that led to the peaceful racial integration of public facilities in Roanoke in the early 1960s, and quietly went about the business of bettering the community and the world around him with his attention to the cause of economic development and to cultural, charitable and humanitarian endeavors.

Before turning Advance Stores Inc. over to his son in 1969 and retiring to Boca Raton, Fla., Taubman helped found the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the predecessor organization to the United Way of the Roanoke Valley. He played leadership roles at Temple Emanuel and Beth Israel Synagogue, in the United Negro College Fund, and for many area institutions, including Dominion Bankshares Corp., Roanoke Memorial Hospital and North Cross School.

He was also a former director of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, and was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1992.

Taubman is credited with helping save 500 European Jews from the Nazis during World War II. Jewish refugees trying to escape to the United States were required to have a relative here willing to sign an affidavit promising financial support. Taubman signed 500 such affidavits, declaring that each applicant was his first cousin.

In 1951, he led a nationwide effort by Jewish businessmen to raise $1.5 million to build a tire-manufacturing plant in Hadera, Israel. The plant eventually employed 2,000 people, and Taubman maintained close personal and business Israeli ties throughout his life. He served as state president of B'nai B'rith, was listed in Who's Who in World Jewry and, in 1966, received the first brotherhood award of the Roanoke chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Taubman's death Tuesday in Florida at age 92 prompts memories of the achievements of his life - and a reminder of how much current generations owe the now-passing generation that ultimately prevailed over an economic Depression and a global war. Roanoke has been proud to claim this world citizen as one of its own.