The man best known for founding Best and Less was another of our migrant success stories a man who as a boy came to Narrabri with his family.

Berel Ginges died late last year and was an Australian entrepreneur and businessman, best known for founding Best and Less, one of Australia's most successful retail chains. His later years were defined by his philanthropic donations in support of medical and educational institutions in Australia and abroad.

Berel was a rugged individualist who relied on his natural strengths, not only in business, but on the tennis court, where his unconventional serve and his ability to smash forehands with either hand often won him decisive victories. He was equally adept on the dance floor.

"He loved to talk and joke with people," his son Danny said.

"He would often speak to taxi drivers or waiters in their own language, whether that was Arabic, Greek or Mandarin. He had an uncanny ability to know at a glance whether a complete stranger could speak Yiddish, and with a few words, he would turn them into lifelong friends."

Berel was shaped by one of the great Australian migrant success stories. His father Max and mother Rosa were forced to leave Moldova after the pogroms, arriving in Palestine in 1920 with only a suitcase.

When the couple struggled financially, Max left for Australia in search of work. After first working as a sign writer, he turned to hawking clothes out of suitcases, door to door, in rural towns until he'd made enough to send for his wife and daughter. Berel was born a year later, on June 10, 1930, in Muswellbrook. The Ginges were the only Jewish family in town.

Despite his limited English, Max's hawking business grew from one suitcase to five, until he was able to purchase a haberdashery store in Narrabri. Young Berel's earliest memories were of standing on a tea chest in that store. He recalled spending his childhood delivering advertising pamphlets around town, sweeping the store, cleaning the windows, chopping wood for the stove, fetching water from the pump, and helping out with his younger brothers, Sam and Meyer.

After Berel finished his schooling in Narrabri, he spent a brief time in Melbourne before settling in Sydney and working in his father's business that had relocated there. He met the wider Jewish community there and felt he'd come home.

In 1958, Berel met Agnes Scheinberg outside the shul on Yom Kippur and wasted no time asking the elegant young woman, who was to be the Queen of the Ball, on a date. The date turned into a marriage proposal a week later.

Berel was often asked about the secret of his marital success. "Choose carefully," he said.

Berel's formula for success extended to his business life. In 1965, he founded the Best and Less retail chain on the site of the old Snows department store in Sydney, which was closing down in January that year. He occupied part of the ground-floor premises and by May had opened the doors of the first Best and Less store, offering clothing and household items "without the fancy overheads", as its famous ad campaign noted.

For the next 33 years, Berel successfully expanded the chain of stores, until 1998, when it was acquired by the South African Pepkor group.

Without his huge workload, Berel then had a chance to retire at the age of 68. But instead, he became even busier, redirecting his energy and people skills towards raising money for charity, a pastime Agnes had already embraced. The recipients of their generous donations included the Garvan Institute, the University of Sydney, Prince Alfred Hospital and the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

Berel is survived by Agnes, children Danny, Esther, Rosalie and Joshua, and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.