She was married to Sheldon Adelson , founder of the Las Vegas Sands casino company and the Israel Hayom newspaper, from until his death in They were philanthropists through the Adelson Foundation , giving hundreds of millions of dollars to Jewish and Israel causes.
Miriam Adelson is one of the largest supporters of Donald Trump , who awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in Adelson has been a major donor to Trump's presidential campaigns , as well as his presidential inauguration and his legal defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference. After her husband's death, Miriam became the owner of the Las Vegas Sands.
Adelson is also the majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team with her son-in-law Patrick Dumont. Her father was a prominent member of Mapam , a left-wing political party in Israel. In the s, her family settled in Haifa , [ 5 ] where Adelson's father owned and operated several movie theaters.
She attended the Hebrew Reali School for 12 years. After earning a Bachelor of Science in microbiology and genetics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , [ 8 ] she earned a medical degree, graduating magna cum laude from Tel Aviv University Faculty of Medicine. She became a physician and, eventually, the chief internist in an emergency room at Tel Aviv's Rokach Hadassah Hospital.
There, she was mentored by, and subsequently collaborated for two decades with, Mary Jeanne Kreek , who was known for the development of methadone therapy for heroin addiction. In , Adelson founded a substance abuse center and research clinic. She and her husband opened the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Research Clinic in Las Vegas seven years later. The Adelson family became philanthropists, primarily through the Adelson Foundation , and political megadonors.
