Esti Diamant passed away last Wednesday at the age of 94. Diamant’s life story follows the history of the State of Israel and the history of Hebrew shipping from its beginnings to modern shipping these days, when she served as a director of the MSC company in Israel, and was one of the founders of the agency in Israel.
Esti was born in 1927 in Bremen in northern Germany. Her parents gave her the name Gerda, which later, when she immigrated to Israel, was changed to Esti. Esti got her connection to the shipping world from her father Emil who was a sailor in the German Navy and she accompanied her father on his many voyages.
In 1936 and against the background of the rise of Nazism in Germany, Esti immigrated to Israel with her family and from the age of 15 she worked in the British Navy warehouses in Israel, where years later she met Mickey, who later became her husband.
In 1992, Esti was asked to establish the MSC agency in Israel and serve as the company’s representative in Israel. And so, Esti, together with her husband Miki worked tirelessly in establishing the agency which is now one of the largest in Israel. Miki passed away in 2010 and Danny Diamant, son of Esti and Miki, currently holds a senior position in the company in Israel.
In recognition of her work for the MSC company, a modern container ship was launched on May 15, 2006, which at the time was the largest in the world, and was called MSC ESTHI after Estee Diamant. Esti took part in an exciting ceremony held in Busan, together with her immediate family and the management of the global company. Esti said about this in an interview she held with PORT2PORT: “I felt like a queen for a day,” says Diamant, “walking on the red carpet and the feeling we were given was above and beyond any expectation. I was very excited, but I held back. It’s part of the culture. Only in the place itself, in front of All the power of the shipyards and the seriousness with which everything is treated, it was possible to understand the size of the class.”
We note that the Diamant family has a family connection with the founding generation of MSC, which includes Gian-Luigi Aponte, the president and owner of MSC and his wife, Raffaella Diamant, who is the daughter of Pinchas, brother of the late Mickey Diamant.
The funeral took place on Thursday at the cemetery in Kibbutz Ein Carmel. The family lives at 8 Verdia St., apartment 128, in Haifa. May her memory be blessed