Max M. Fisher, a wealthy Detroit industrialist whose philanthropic and diplomatic efforts made him among the most politically influential Jews in America, died yesterday at his home in Franklin, Mich. He was 96.

A force in Republican politics since the 1950s, when he backed the first gubernatorial campaign of George Romney, Fisher was an intimate of each Republican president since Eisenhower and was particularly close to President Nixon, who made Fisher his liaison to the Jewish community.

In addition to undertaking sensitive diplomatic missions at several crisis points in Israeli-American relations, Fisher raised hundreds of millions of dollars for a variety of Jewish causes.

He served at various times as leader of the United Jewish Appeal, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and the Council of Jewish Federations.

“In the world of Jewish volunteer leaders, Max Fisher was a giant,” the United Jewish Community’s president and CEO, Howard Rieger, said.”He was known to all, whether heads of state in Israel or the United States, or the leadership of the Jewish and general communities in the United States, as a prime mover – as someone who made things happen.”

“Max Fisher was a genuinely great man whose commitment and dedication to what he believed were without comparison,” the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, said. “His influence and advocacy for peace in the Middle East will be valued forever.”

Fisher was also among the most important public benefactors in Detroit. The $60 million Max M. Fisher Music Center, which opened in 2003, serves as home to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and includes a public high school devoted to the performing arts. It is called simply The Max.

Fisher was born in 1908 in Pittsburgh to Russian-immigrant parents named Velvil and Malka Fisch, later anglicized to William and Molly. William Fisher was a peddler before he became a shop owner in Salem, Ohio. He eventually moved to Detroit, where he went into the oil business, reprocessing used crankcase oil in the Motor City.

Max Fisher grew up in Salem and attended Ohio State University on a football scholarship – he played center. After he was injured, Fisher worked his way through by delivering ice, and graduated in 1930 with a degree in business administration.

After joining his father’s reclamation business as a $15-a-week salesman, Fisher convinced his father to expand, and rounded up investors. By World War II, Aurora Gasoline was one of the largest refiners in the Midwest. Fisher began investing in real estate.

By the 1950s, Fisher was wealthy and he began cultivating interests in politics and Israel. He often told the story of a turning point in his life when he first visited Israel, in 1954. Seeing poverty all around, he suggested to the Israeli finance minister, Levi Eshkol, that the nation stem the flow of immigration for a few years. “Every Jew in Israel remembers how 6 million fellow Jews died under Hitler because they had no place to go,” Eshkol told him. “We will never close the gates … Israel exists so Jews may exist.” It was, Fisher told his biographer Peter Golden, “the greatest lesson I would ever learn about Zionism.”

Fisher became an outstanding fundraiser for Jewish causes both in the Detroit area and abroad, and even became close friends with Henry Ford II. In addition to his involvement with Romney, Fisher grew close to Nixon, beginning in the late 1950s when Nixon was vice-president. According to some sources, Eisenhower once told Fisher that he would never have pressured Israel to evacuate the Sinai during the Suez crisis if he had had a close Jewish adviser.

Already chairman of UJA, Fisher’s fund-raising attained legendary status when he raised $100 million in a single month to support Israel in the wake of the Six-Day War, in 1967. Nixon brought Fisher into his 1968 presidential campaign as liaison to Jewish organizations. According to a former Nixon staffer, Leonard Garment, Fisher convinced Nixon not to support a Republican filibuster against the appointment of Abe Fortas to the Supreme Court.

During the Nixon administration, Fisher acted as a private diplomatic messenger to Israel. He lobbied unsuccessfully to have the administration speak out more publicly on behalf of Soviet Jews who wanted to immigrate to Israel. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Fisher lobbied the president and Henry Kissinger nonstop to resupply Israel promptly, according to Mr. Garment.

In a private memo to the Reagan White House commending Fisher’s services, Nixon wrote, “By far, the best man we worked with and one who was invaluable when Kissinger was working out the disengagement plans on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts was Max Fisher. He … could always carry the message to Garcia, even if it was unpleasant when we asked him to.”

In later interviews, Fisher downplayed Nixon’s alleged anti-Semitism as disclosed on secret tapes. “Have you ever said things in private that you didn’t want anybody to hear?” Fisher told the Detroit Free Press in 2003. “That’s the same thing that happened. I’m sure that every president has some nasty words to say or used some profane language.”

Fisher had been friends with Gerald Ford since Mr. Ford’s first run for Congress, in 1948, and played an important role in preventing an American tilt away from Israel when Mr. Ford became president. During the new president’s “state-of-the-world” speech, Fisher sat with the Ford family in the gallery of the House of Representatives.

As a confirmed Republican, Fisher was largely shut out of the White House during the Carter administration. According to Mr. Golden’s “Quiet Diplomat,” when the Camp David Accords were signed in 1979, Fisher was invited to the reception but was given a seat on the periphery. Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin, beckoned him up to the dais, and said to Mr. Carter, “Mr. president, I want you to meet the most important member of your country’s Jewish community.”

As they shook hands, the president replied, “Yes, I’ve heard of him.”

Fisher continued to be an important adviser during the Reagan years but disagreed with the administration over the sale of Awacs early-warning planes to Saudi Arabia. Fisher’s relations with in the Jewish community became somewhat contentious during these years, and he was sometimes accused of being a “court Jew,” willing to trade access and influence within Republican circles in exchange for betraying Israel’s interests.

Fisher was an influential figure through the administration of George H.W. Bush, and naturally lost influence under President Clinton. During those years, he stepped up dramatically his philanthropy in Detroit. He founded the National Jewish Coalition, devoted to supporting Jewish Republican causes. In 1995, Fisher was one of the top donors to the Foundation for Florida’s Future, an organization founded by Florida’s governor, Jeb Bush.

During the 1992 election, Fisher’s daughter, Mary, addressed the Republican Convention, informing delegates that she was HIV-positive, causing a tremendous public stir.

Fisher remained alert and devoted to his famous little black book of phone numbers nearly to the end of his life. He spoke occasionally to President Bush.

In 2003, he spoke proudly of his Detroit philanthropy, devoted to rebuilding the city’s downtown area. “Look, Detroit will never be the same city as it was before,” Fisher said. “But it will be a new city with new ideas and new dreams.”

After the United Jewish Appeal, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and the Council of Jewish Federations merged in 1999 to form the United Jewish Community, the UJC named its New York headquarters for Fisher.

Max Martin Fisher

Born July 15, 1908, in Pittsburgh, Pa.; died March 3 at his home in Franklin, Mich.; survived by his wife, Marjorie, and five children including Mary, the daughter who contracted HIV.