Stef Wertheimer, one of Israel’s most prominent industrialists and philanthropists, has died aged 98. In 1952, Wertheimer founded metal cutting tools company Iscar, which was sold to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2006. He also founded jet engine parts manufacturer Blades Technology in 1968, in an effort to circumvent the French embargo on arms sales to Israel after the Six Day War. US engine maker Pratt & Whitney bought his majority stake in the company in 2014.
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Wertheimer built industrial parks in Israel, in Tefen, Omer, Tel Hai, and Nazareth, among other places. The park in the mixed city of Nazareth was designed to promote Jewish-Arab coexistence. In general, he said that the idea of industrial parks on the borders between Israel and its neighbors was to bring industry and provide jobs, which would keep people busy working instead of engaging in terrorism. He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1991 for his contribution to Israeli society and the State of Israel. He also received the Rothschild Prize and the Yigal Alon Prize, among other awards.
Wertheimer was born in 1926 in Germany. In 1937, his family emigrated to British mandatory Palestine. In 1943, he volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force as an expert on optical equipment. In 1947, he worked in the underground arms industry of the Haganah, and in the War of Independence he served as a technical officer in the Yiftach Brigade, and was known as the developer of various weapons. After his demobilization, he founded Iscar in the yard of his home in Nahariya.
In 1981, Wertheimer was elected as a member of the ninth Knesset for the centrist Democratic Movement for Change party. He resigned after four years, and returned to his industrial activity in the Galilee. He established the town of Kfar Vradim with the aim of combining industry and community.
In 2006, Wertheimer made one of the biggest deals in Israel’s economic history when he decided to sell 80% of Iscar, which had become a world leader in its field, to Berkshire Hathaway for $4 billion. The remaining 20% were sold to Berkshire Hathaway in 2013 for $2 billion. The sale of Blades Technology to Pratt & Whitney was for an undisclosed sum, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of shekels.
Wertheimer was married and had four children. One of them, the industrialist Eitan Wertheimer, died three years ago aged 70.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on March 26, 2025.
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