People in the economy / Cellia Shani

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 Barbra Streisand with Irina Nevzlin Kogan and Dan Tadmor/ Sivan Farag

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The private visit of  Barbra  

Barbra Streisand, accompanied by her husband, the actor James Brolin, arrived at Beit Hatefutsot (the Diaspora Museum, officially, the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora) for a private visit and was greeted there by Irina Nevzlin Kogan, Chairperson of the museum board and by Dan Tadmor, its CEO.

The visit included a tour of the current exhibition and a presentation about her personal family roots, prepared by the genealogy center of the museum, which was a very emotional experience for her. Streisand’s family, on her father’s side, is from Galicia (a region in Eastern Europe that currently straddles the border between Poland and the Ukraine). Her paternal grandfather, Isaac, emigrated from there to America in the mid-19th century.

Streisand literally means ‘scattered sand’ in German. Ms. Streisand’s maternal grandfather was a cantor and her mother was accepted to the NY Metropolitan choir, thus it is evident where from Barbra Streisand received her impressive vocal gift.

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 (M) Ms. Lily Safra (r) President Shimon Peres (L) Menachem Ben Sasson president of  The Hebrew University / Sasson Tiram

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Lily Safra’s one million dollar donation  

The Hebrew University in Jerusalem launched The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Science (ELSC) in the presence of President Shimon Peres and Ms. Lily Safra. Ms. Safra donated over one million dollars to establish the center. To mark the occasion, a new exhibition, “Tomorrow’s State of Mind” depicting scientific Israeli advances and breakthroughs in brain research, opened at the Israeli Presidential Conference Hall in Jerusalem in the presence of President Shimon Peres and Ms. Safra.

The exhibition will highlight the work of some of Israel’s top brain scientists. It will also feature a competition among the next generation of Israeli scientists under the title, “Brain Researcher of Tomorrow.”

Ms. Lily Safra said on the occasion, “I am honored to join President Peres and the faculty of the Hebrew University in the official inauguration of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Science, which opens an exciting new chapter for neuroscience research of the brain.”

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From right: Adv. Ethia Simha, W.J.A president world association of lawyers,  Minister Yuval Shteinitz and Adv. Doron Barzilay, president of the Israeli Bar/ Yossi Zamir

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Global Economic and law in a Changing World

WJA (World Jurists Association) in collaboration with the Israel Bar decided to recognize the challenges Israel and the global community continue to face, thus brought together an international network of Chief Justices, Judges, attorneys and government officials from around the world for a Conference on Global Economic and Rule of law in a Changing World.

The participants were welcomed by the president of the Conference, Israel Chief Justice (ret.) Meir Shamgar, the Israeli Supreme Court President Justice Grunis, Prof. Alexander Bělohlávek, the W.J.A. President (of the Czech Republic) and Attorney Doron Barzilay, the current president of the Israeli Bar Association

The Keynote speaker was Dr. Yuval Steinitz, Minister of Strategic Affairs, International Relations and Intelligence and a former finance minister who spoke about the 2008 global economic crisis: “I tell you frankly that no one really anticipated, or even understands what went wrong In the world, not even the most brilliant economists. We are talking about 75 million unemployed and about economies that do not create new jobs. Developed countries have adopted Keynes method, injecting more cash into the economy. This strategy cannot last forever and it forms a disincentive to investment. People are spending but they are not investing. If you do not encourage investment, you’re caught in a rot, eventually resulting in a crisis a few years later”.

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Anita and Poju Zabludowicz

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Zabludowicz’s investment in Israel

If there is a good investment in Israel, you can rest assured that Jewish Israeli-British businessman Chaim “Poju” Zabludowicz (born 6 April 1953), owner of the Lichtenstein registered Tamares investment group, will join in. And, indeed, Pujo Zabludowicz just joined a group of investors headed by ViaEuropa, a consortium selected to establish a third communications infrastructure in Israel that is based on fiber optics in association with Israel Electric Corp.

The venture is expected to cost 4 billion shekels (well over a billion dollars). Steps will be taken in the forthcoming weeks to establish the infrastructure’s joint venture, 60% of which will be owned by the investors’ group and the remaining 40% by Israel Electric Corp. The investors’ group also includes other Israeli corporations, the Rapac Group, BATM , Zisapel Assets and Tamares.

Tamares Group is a private investment group based in Vaduz. The company was founded after WW II by Shlomo Zabludowicz. Since 1990 it has been headed by his son, Pujo. Tamares has interests in real estate, technology, communications, manufacturing, the leisure industry and in the media. The company invests globally in a number of different private and public companies, and in real estate properties.

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Mark Rich

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Last honor 

Only 100 people, mostly family and a few businessmen attended the traditional Jewish funeral, held at Kibbutz Einat, of Billionaire “King of Oil” Mark Rich. He died on Wednesday, June 26, in Switzerland at the age of 78 from a stroke. He was buried next to his daughter, Gabrielle, who died of leukemia in 1996 at 27. The prayers in the ceremony were led by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the rabbi of the Western Wall.

Rich was the founder of Glencore. He was controversially pardoned by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office, which provoked moral outrage among some politicians. Rich never returned to the U.S. He was a great philanthropist. There were rumors that he also assisted Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossed , yet no politician or top businessmen, showed up at his funeral.