About 100 people, mostly family and old business associates, attended the Jewish religious funeral in the pastoral grounds of Kibbutz Einat.
Those who were there to see the ‘King of Oil’ laid to rest described Rich as loving, kind and generous and not as his public image might suggest.
He was buried next to his daughter, Gabrielle, who died of leukemia in 1996 at the age of 27.
The rabbi of Jerusalem’s Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch, led a prayer at the ceremony.
Avner Azulay, managing director of the Marc Rich Foundation, said few people really knew Rich.
Belgian-born Rich fled the Holocaust with his parents for America to become the most successful and controversial trader of his time and a fugitive from U.S. justice. He died on Wednesday in Switzerland aged 78 of a stroke.
His trading group Marc Rich and Co AG in Switzerland eventually became the global commodities powerhouse Glencore Xstrata.
Absent from the funeral were the elite of Israel’s business world and leading politicians such as former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, who lobbied U.S. President Bill Clinton on Rich’s behalf for his pardon.
A son of Peres did attend the funeral, as did Glencore Xstrata chief executive Ivan Glasenberg and the daughter of former partner Pincus “Pinky” Green.
Rich fled to Switzerland in 1983 to escape charges that included exploiting the U.S. embargo against Iran, while it was holding U.S. hostages, to make huge profits on illicit Iranian oil sales. He always insisted he did nothing illegal.
He remained under threat of a life sentence in a U.S. jail until Clinton pardoned him during the last chaotic hours of his presidency, a move that provoked moral outrage and bewilderment among some politicians. He never returned to the United States.
Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had donated funds to Clinton’s presidential library.
The former president later said the donation was not a factor in his decision and he had acted partly in response to a request from Israel. He regretted granting the pardon, calling it “terrible politics
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