I admit and confess, the amount of reading material in the newspapers during the holidays exhausted me. A large part of the materials are recycled, some are boring to death, and some of the writers I personally do not tolerate, I do not read as a matter of principle. As one of the veterans among active media people, I have come to the conclusion that the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is accurate. So I pulled out photos from my private archive, I add a few words to each of them, and here is the photographed section.
I photographed the legendary football coach David Schweitzer in the swimming pool of the “Abia Sonesta” hotel in Taba Beach, which was returned to Egypt. The title given to the photo and published in the late newspaper “News” was “The Shark”. Since then the nickname stuck with David Schweitzer until the day of his death.
Adjacent to the “Avia Sonesta” hotel on Taba beach is Rafi Nelson’s village. Nelson, one of the most colorful people in the Holy Land, is seen in a photo with militant Knesset member Geula Cohen, who came to the village to fight for the return of the territory to Egypt. Seeing Nelson and Geola Cohen drinking beer together was a rare sight. Nelson’s story was recently featured in a highly recommended documentary called Nelson’s Last War, which tells the story of that time.
Rafi Nelson, Gaola Cohen (Photo: Natan Zahavi)I’m almost certain that for most women, men and children who wear Optica Halperin glasses, the name Raphael Halperin will mean nothing. About 50 years ago, Raphael Halperin was one of the most well-known people in Israel, he was a world champion in freestyle wrestling, he entered a lion cage, he founded a chain of restaurants, he strongly returned to religion and became a rabbi with many fans, he wrote dozens of holy books and he is the one who Halperin bears his name. In the photo, Halperin is seen subduing the Arab wrestler Abu Antar in a fight held at the Jaffa Stadium in front of thousands of spectators.
Halperin Raphael – Abu Antar (Photo: Natan Zahavi)These days, 50 years ago, in October 1972, news agencies from Germany reported the arrest of journalist Natan Zahavi as a suspect in a diamond robbery in the city of Frankfurt. The photo was taken when I was released from detention, after difficult investigations, at the beginning of 1973.
The release was unconditional and without any restrictions, completely free of any guilt, with a statement from the releasing judge that I may claim damages for false arrest. In the robbery in question, diamonds worth millions of shekels were stolen on the main street of Frankfurt. To date, no suspects have been arrested and the stolen goods have not been found.
I estimate that I will soon tell the story of the robbery in detail. will be surprising and fascinating.
Natan Zahavi 1973 (photo: private photo)Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin walks in the 1960s with another senior officer on Karlibach Street, with the “Olympia” restaurant in the background. On weekends, heads of state, senior military officers, actors, artists and journalists would come to the restaurant. The smiling and modest Chief of Staff was a superhero in those Days after the Six Day War. At that time, there had not yet emerged on the decrepit streets of Israel that there was any fear that one of them would harm the Chief of Staff. And so Rabin walked down the street towards his car, without bodyguards and without four black cars with bulletproof vests surrounding him.
Rabin leaves the Olympia Mosque (Photo: Natan Zahavi)Moshe Agassi was my childhood hero. Agassi’s family and mine lived in a divided apartment on Paki’in Street in Tel Aviv. Each family of five with a shared kitchen and shared toilets. It was crowded. Days of scarcity, austerity, and quite a few nights where you go to sleep on an empty stomach.
The one who saved us was Moshe Agassi, who was the champion of Belkamban. Agassi would bring cans, he would bring half a roll of salami sausage, some eggs, rare ingredients that could be obtained either by theft or on the black market.
Agassi had hands of gold, was a builder with supreme grace and a great combinator. With most of his wisdom, he invested the money he obtained in the land in the area on which he built his residence and the steakhouse “The Elephant” (near Kirvat Tzalah). When my parents didn’t have money for a summer camp for me, they sent me on line 22 to Agassi, where my summer camp was. There was a pool of water in his yard, there were animals, there were sculptures that Agassi created, including the famous statue of the elephant. As you can see in the picture, Eggsy had an incredible resemblance to the mythical Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion.
Moshe Agassi Stakiyet the Elephant (Photo: Natan Zahavi)The revered singer in France and Israel is coming to visit his homeland. I am sitting with him in Ivy Nathan’s “California” cafe on Frishman Street and as usual click with the camera, which will be a picture of him for the archive. Mike Brant was an incredibly likeable guy, whose most notable trait was a lack of self-confidence. A mutual friend of ours, Benny Cohen, who lived in Paris, asked me and another friend, Levy Levy, to take care of some matters that Mike needed. We did it with love. The news of his death in circumstances that caused a lot of evil gossip saddened me, because I promised to come hear him sing and due to the tragic circumstances I did not keep the promise.
Mike Burnett in California (Photo: Natan Zahavi)The businessman Fuka Hirsch was considered the number one playboy of the 1960s in the Holy Land. Hirsch was a handsome man, with a mane of silver hair, always wearing tailored suits and two local or foreign starlets resting on his arms. He drove a luxury car, hung out in the best clubs and made sure his pictures were published in the gossip sections of the newspapers. Among his other occupations, Hirsch was an importer of defense equipment and was considered a heavy lineman. He had a luxurious villa, a luxury apartment near Dizengoff Square, and there were also police detectives and the tax authorities who kept an eye on him and arrested him in a well-publicized arrest after which his deterioration began, until his death.
Poka Hirsch in Frederick (Photo: Natan Zahavi)I have no doubt that in a street poll 99.9% of the respondents would not know who Naomi Adeva was and who Rudolph Nureyev was. Naomi was Israel’s bohemian queen, Nureyev is considered the number one dancer in the world. The two fell in love, and their affair was covered at every step they took. Naomi, born in Bat Galim in Haifa, used to organize crazy parties, she had exciting novels, the most prominent of which was the story of her love for Bustani “Bosi” Saha, a street person who is considered the king of the underworld. Naomi died poor and destitute. At the end of her days she raised and rescued hundreds of animals, she provided them with food and medical treatments and invested her little money in this. Nureyev disappeared from her life, and Bossi was murdered by one of his employees in Eilat.
Naomi Adeva and Rodolof Nureyev (Photo: Natan Zahavi)