Stef Wertheimer

Stefan "Stef" (Ze'ev) Wertheimer was born in Kippenheim, Germany, to a Jewish family. His father was a World War I veteran and had lost a leg. The family emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1937 to escape Nazism. Most of his extended family emigrated to the United States and Latin America. Those who stayed behind perished in the Holocaust. He studied at the Tel-Nordau School in Tel Aviv. At age 13, he was expelled from school following an altercation with a teacher and started working as an apprentice in an optician's shop. After two years, he became an apprentice in a camera repair shop. Then, after about a year, he started studying optics under Professor Emanuel Goldberg, a researcher and inventor who contributed significantly to different aspects of imaging technology in the first half of the twentieth century. He was one of six students selected by Goldberg to study in a training workshop he established. Simultaneously, he took evening high school classes at the Haskala School for two years.

World War II

With World War II underway, the British authorities asked Goldberg to produce compasses, and Wertheimer participated in a failed research project, trying to improve compass production. He left Goldberg's laboratory and worked as a lathe operator, including in a factory at the Tel Litvinsky military base producing parts for jerrycans. In 1943, he was recruited as a civilian contractor for the Royal Air Force upon the recommendation of Professor Goldberg after the British had asked him to recommend them an optical technician. He was sent to an RAF base in Bahrain, where he repaired optical sights and air conditioners on military aircraft and serviced the base's electricity generator. He learned to repair air conditioners and generators by hurriedly reading instruction manuals after his arrival. During his time as an RAF contractor, he also studied engineering at a British institute in Bahrain in his free time. After seven months, he returned to Palestine and resumed working as a lathe operator.

In 1945, he joined the Palmach, where he served as a technical officer in the "German Unit" – a special guerilla force trained with British cooperation to participate in combat operations against the German army, should it reach Palestine. He was arrested by the British during Operation Agatha in 1946 and was detained for four months. In 1947, he began working in the development and improvement of cannons for the Haganah. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, he served as a technical officer in the Yiftach Brigade.

Following the war, Wertheimer and his wife briefly lived on kibbutz Yir'on. They left as he did not agree with the socialist economic model adopted by the kibbutz movement. He worked at Israel Military Industries and then at Rafael. In 1952, he was dismissed from his job at Rafael as he lacked a formal engineering degree, which led him to start his own business.

Wertheimer was married with four children and lived in Tel Aviv. His granddaughter is the Israeli actress Maya Wertheimer. In 2018, his son, Eitan Wertheimer, purchased a house for him near Kikar Hamedina in Tel Aviv for 20 million ILS.

On 26 March 2025, Wertheimer died at the age of 98.

Political career

In 1977, Wertheimer was amongst the founding members of the Democratic Movement for Change, a new centrist political party. The party was highly successful, winning 15 seats in the 1977 elections, with Wertheimer taking one of the seats. When the party split up in 1978, he joined Shinui. In 1981, following an accident, he resigned from the Knesset (was replaced by Stella Levy) and returned to his business ventures. During his term in the Knesset, he was a member of the Economics Committee. He remained active in bridging gaps between the Jewish and Arab populations of Israel, particularly by boosting Arab participation in the country's high-tech sector.

Prior to the 2013 elections, he took the honorary final slot on Tzipi Livni's new list, Hatnuah. He endorsed her alliance with Labor, the Zionist Union, in 2015.

Industrial parks

Wertheimer founded seven industrial parks – in Tefen, Tel Hai, Dalton, Lavon and now Nazareth in the Galilee; in Omer in the Negev; and another in Gebze, Kocaeli, Turkey. Each is based on five principles: exports, education, coexistence, community and culture, with the goal of fostering economic growth and job creation to help create stability in the region. As Wertheimer has explained, "The idea of industrial parks in the Middle East and on the borders between Israel and its neighbors is that the parks will bring industry and provide jobs, which will keep people busy working, instead of engaging in terrorism."

Wertheimer's model park is the Tefen Industrial Park. Built in 1982, it encompasses everything from transportation to cultural and educational facilities. Wertheimer's industrial park in the mixed Muslim-Christian Arab city of Nazareth, where Jews and Arabs work side by side, opened in April 2013. Wertheimer and Nazareth Mayor Ramez Jeraisy explained that the industrial park is part of a unique model to promote the advancement of Arab-Jewish Israeli export companies. During his visit to Israel in 2009, Pope Benedict had met with both men at the site of the future park and gave his blessing to the project. Wertheimer has said, "Coexistence in the industrial park in Arab Nazareth is a good example of coexistence. When people work together, they have no time for nonsense. They're too tired at night to commit terrorist acts. They're satisfied, they engage in producing. They work together, not against each other."