Meet the Honorees: Mitch Julis - Recipient of the Service to Humanity Award

Mitchell R. Julis is Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canyon Partners, LLC, a leading global alternative asset management firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Canyon specializes in value-oriented investments for endowments, foundations, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors. Mr. Julis is a graduate of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (B.A., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa), Harvard Law School (J.D., magna cum laude) and Harvard Business School (M.B.A., honors).  He serves as a Trustee of the Brown University Corporation, on the Board of Governors at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, on the Board of Trustees at Yeshiva University and as Trustee Emeritus at the Asia Society. He previously served on the Board of Trustees at Princeton University. He is currently a member of the Advisory Council for the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and a member of Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science Leadership Council. Furthermore, he sits on the Lincoln Center Theater Board of Directors. Also noteworthy is his active role in establishing the Harvard Law School Program on Jewish and Israeli Law. In 2019, Mr. Julis received an Honorary Fellowship from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

EM: First, thank you for taking the time. Could you tell us a little about yourself—your Greek Jewish heritage and how you connected with it?

Mitch Julis: I was born in 1955 in the Bronx. We lived between Fordham Road and Tremont Avenue in a pre-war apartment building near the Bronx Zoo. My grandparents, Ralph (Raphael Jules) and Esther (née Dalven), born in Greece and came here in the early 1920s, lived right next door.

My father, Maurice—dark, black-haired, brown-eyed—was Greek Jewish; my mother, Ashkenazi, light-skinned, blue-eyed, originally a Rabinowitz. It was an intermarriage back then. She was engaged to an Ashkenazi man named Murray before meeting my father, who she tutored in speech to help him pass the teacher’s certification exam. She dropped Murray for Maury.

I grew up surrounded by Greek words, food like lamb, okra, stuffed peppers, and Sephardic traditions. My grandmother kept a coin box for the Sephardic Home for the Aged, run by her cousin Joe Dalvin.

Our family roots trace back to Ioannina, Preveza, and Arta in northwestern Greece, with connections to Corfu and even Cairo. Recently I discovered cousins in Paris, Tel Aviv, and Finland, which expanded my understanding of our family history. We’re working to republish The Jews of Ioannina by Ray Dalven, Joe’s sister, with expanded content.

Through my grandparents I felt that deep Greek Jewish connection, and over the years we’ve enriched it with family gatherings, synagogue visits in Ioannina, and programs rekindling Greek/Turkish Jewish identity.

And so as I got older I realized more and more the value of what I grew up with, and all this has become even richer over. In the mid-2000s, we  did a family history reunion at Kehila Keodsha Janina Synagogue and Museum in New York. We brought everybody, both sides, the Russian Polish side and the Greek Romaniote side. 

Serendipitously, my best friend, my brother from Princeton, Dave Aroesty, also turned me on to the broader Greek Jewish and Sephardic Community. He's a Monastirli and related to Sarah Aroesty the singer. I had the chance to meet Dave’s grandmother, who was born in Monastir, and they all became like a second family to me. I got to understand and value both the Sephardic and Romaniote cultures over the years.

A few years ago, we took our kids to Janina and all over Greece to let them see where they came from. We went to Preveza, Ioannina, Athens, and we visited Zakynthos. I’m proud to say my kids know that side of the family. And then they went back to the shul in Janina a number of years later as part of the Kivunim Gap Year program before college. I have a picture of my daughter Rose, also opening the Ark in the Synagogue of Ioannina, which is really wonderful to have.

EM: What specific Greek Jewish customs do you remember? What do you remember from your grandparents growing up?

MJ: Not so much customs, but stories. My parents’ 1952 wedding was officiated by a Romaniote rabbi. My Ashkenazi grandfather yelled in Yiddish, “This isn’t a kosher wedding!” and brought in his rabbi too. But the families got along beautifully.

My grandmother Esther wasn’t strictly observant but had deep, passionate faith. My grandfather Ralph fought in World War I with Pershing’s army, and he was wounded right before the debacle in the Argonne Forest and had a severe chest wound. But when returned home after WWI, the immigrant backlash started to come back in full swing, and that upset him deeply after fighting for his new country that he loved. He later protested the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and went to pro-immigrant rallies in New York let by the International Lady Garment Workers Union (which had many Sephardic leaders from Greece and Turkey). They both have tremendous faith and connection to the Almighty. And so that made an impression on me. 

My father, a WWII vet in Europe, and my uncle Marcus was in the Pacific. Can you imagine what it is for my grandmother, Esther? She said her hair turned white during World War II. Both boys were in the service.

When my father was in the US military government after the war in Germany, my grandmother hadn't heard from him and was distraught. So she made a long-distance call in 1945 to his installation. And she said it cost her my grandfather's salary for the whole week, something like 70 bucks - a lot of money back then! But she said she didn't care, she said “I wanted to speak to my Pasha!” There was nothing like growing up with Ralph and Esther Julis.  They were just amazing people, very giving. The whole family, you know, the Dalvins, the Julis, there's everybody at that time, just incredibly warm people.

My father later studied at Columbia on the GI Bill and also protested injustices on campus, in which he told me stories about the antisemitism he faced from peer students; he tried to fight back against it. That sense of standing up for others ran through our family.

Growing up with Ralph and Esther was unforgettable—they were warm, generous, and deeply connected to their Greek Jewish identity.

EM: What are some of your favorite Greek Jewish foods from childhood?

MJ: Definitely Lamb— it was unbelievable and we had a lot of it, especially on the holidays. Bamya - Okra. My grandmother baked sponge cake and made kaltsonya (cheese pastries) and Greek butter cookies - kourambiethes. My grandfather oddly loved making chocolate syrup.

Years later, friends of mine at Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue made lamb exactly like my grandmother’s—it took me back instantly.

MJ: Why do you care so much about your Greek Jewish identity?

It’s unique. Romaniote Jews trace back to Hellenistic times, one of the oldest communities alongside Syrians and Iraqis. That ancient connection matters, especially when people question Jewish ties to land and history.

Our history with Greece is complicated—sometimes love, sometimes tension—but we must remember the righteous Gentiles, like the Orthodox bishop and mayor of Zakynthos, who saved Jews during the Holocaust. That legacy of courage and faith is powerful.

EM: Finally, tell us a little about your career—law, finance, and how your Jewish background shaped it.

MJ: I stumbled into it. I chose Princeton over Harvard because my best friend from childhood went there. Princeton exposed me to people of diverse backgrounds. Influences like Uwe Reinhardt, who taught accounting as a civic language of accountability - he told me directly that in a democracy, accountability is crucial, and Fred Greenstein, who studied presidential leadership, shaped me.

I went to Harvard for law and business. By chance I focused on bankruptcy law, then met the Drexel team in Los Angeles. Lowell Milken saw I could merge legal and financial knowledge, and in 1983 I joined Drexel. That was transformative—the Drexel diaspora went on to reshape modern finance.

Alongside my career, I deepened my Jewish learning. Outreach movements like Aish HaTorah and great teachers kept me connected. A rabbi once told me the trifecta of Jewish life: always have great teachers, great partners, and always teach. That’s guided me.

If you like to continually learn, which as you get to a certain age is your only way for growth, then you can always grow and better yourself. And Judaism is an amazing platform for continuous learning. There's so many great ideas to explore.