Eli Hurvitz and the creation of Teva Pharmaceuticals: An Israeli Biography

by Yossi Goldstein

  With the death of Eli Hurvitz, the world lost a unique and special man who, more than anything else, was a good person in the simplest sense of the word. He was modest and friendly and he loved his fellow man. He was also one of a kind in his generation – the greatest industrialist of his era and a pioneer of Israeli globalization. At his core lay the striking contradiction that, in him, seemed so natural: his heart was Israel; his objective was the world.

  Dafna and Tomer's wedding, June 19, 1994

  Eli with U.S. President Bill Clinton

  Eli with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his wife Leah, and Mayor of Tel Aviv Shlomo Lahat

  Eli with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

  Eli's 70th birthday. Har Kipa in the Negev, 2002

  Lior and Einat's wedding, 2010

  Eli at the Caesarea Forum - known today as The Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society

  Eli sounding the closing bell at NASDAQ, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Teva’s IPO, February 2007

  Teva: Plants, people, products

  Eli, 2007

  Eli with Michael Sela, 2007

  >

  Standing from left: Chaim Hurvitz, ,Bill Fletcher, Meron Man, Biense Visser. Sitting from left: Dan Susskind, Eli and Israel Makov

  Eli with Moshe Many

  Eli with Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu

  Eli, 2011

  Eli and Dalia at Lior's wedding, 2010

  Eli and Dalia, 2006

  Bibliography

  The Teva Archive: This book is based on information gleaned from hundreds of binders in Teva’s corporate offices in Petah Tikva, Israel, and Teva’s archive in Ariel. Among other details, they contain minutes of many different meetings in which Eli participated; letters and memos that he wrote and received; copies of speeches he delivered; and handwritten notes.

  Oral Testimony: The most important source for this book was Eli Hurvitz himself, whom I interviewed for a total of 120 hours. I also interviewed members of Eli’s family, including his wife Dalia and three children, Vered, Chaim, and Dafna; senior Teva executives, including Dan Susskind, Uzi Karniel, Shlomo Yanai, and Professor Moshe Many; his friends Zvika Levanon and Professor Michael Sela; Chava Nachshon, his legendary personal assistant, who ensured his office ran smoothly for 30 years; and two people who supported him over the years on a daily basis: his office director Adi Duanis and his driver Zvika Daskal. I also utilized dozens of transcripts of interviews with figures from Teva, including: Shmuel Zeligman, Aharon Shochat, Yossef Shephller, Ben-Zion Weiner, Zeev Nechushtan, Uzi Karniel, Yitzhak Siton, Zvi Maor, Akiva Amichai, and Gadi Peled.

  Newspapers and Journals: Reports, summaries, analyses, and interviews published in the Israeli media during the years in question provided valuable information. I relied mainly on the following daily newspapers: Davar, Ha’aretz, Yediot Aharonot, Ma’ariv, and Globes. Major non-Israeli media, particularly The New York Times, The Financial Times, and The Economist, also were helpful. Information also was taken from weekly publications and professional journals, including the following Hebrew language sources: Teva Hadvarim (Teva’s own publication), The Manufacturers’ Bulletin, Industry, and The Industrialists, as well as the English language publications Strategic Management and World Pharma Factbook.

  Court Documents: Court rulings regarding Eli’s affairs and minutes of the trials in which Eli was involved provided additional information.

  Internet: In researching this book, in formation was gathered from hundreds of internet sites, particularly regarding pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceutical drugs, Teva subsidiaries, manufacturers, public figures, and friends of Eli.

  Books

  Aharoni, Sarah. Industry and Economy in Israel (Tel Aviv, 2005) [Hebrew].

  Beilin, Yossi. The Roots of Israeli Industry (Jerusalem, 1987) [Hebrew].

  Bartonov, Eyal. 120 Years of Industry: A Special Insert Marking the Anniversary of Israeli Industry (Tel Aviv, 2008) [Hebrew].

  Guy, Carmit. Dov Lautman Does Not Give Up (Tel Aviv, 2011) [Hebrew].

  Levi-Faur, David. The Visible Hand: State Directed Industrialization in Israel (Jerusalem, 2001) [Hebrew].

  Naor, Mordechai. Industry: 1854-2000: The Story of the Industrialists in Israel (Tel Aviv, 2000) [Hebrew].

  Raviv, Shabtai. Industry and Work (Tel Aviv, 1991) [Hebrew].

  Shalev, Shai. The 100 Best Companies in Israel: 2005 Rankings (Tel Aviv, 2005) [Hebrew].

  Shenkar, Aryeh. In Faith and in Action (Tel Aviv, 1963) [Hebrew].

  Zussman, Noam. Economic Growth in Israel (Jerusalem, 2010) [Hebrew].

  Notes and Glossary

  1 Hurvitz. The name was spelled in many ways as the family made its way from Spain to Europe to the Americas, including: Hurvitz, Horwitz, Horowitz, Herwitz, Hurwitz, Horovice, Gurevich, Gurevitz, Gurewitsch, Gurovitz, and Gurvitz.

  2 S.Y. Agnon, A Simple Story, Translated by Hillel Halkin (Syracuse University Press, 2000), p. 19.

  3 The religious socialist Zionist political movement Hapoel Hamizrachi was established in 1922 from within the ranks of the Mizrachi movement, which had been founded two decades earlier. Its membership emphasized social-welfare values and anchored the principles of social equality and social justice in Jewish holy and literary sources as well as in Jewish tradition.

  4 A moshav is a semi-collective agricultural community. Originally, each household was allocated land to establish a farm that it would operate independently, but the entire community would sell its produce together.

  5 The General Federation of Workers was founded in December 1920. Workers’ federations, whose members sought to safeguard their rights, had been established at the beginning of the twentieth century, but had not lasted long. In 1919, Jewish labor leaders in Palestine established the Ahdut Ha’avoda party with the aim of organizing the workers and safeguarding their interests. In its efforts to establish an organization to protect the rights of workers, it sought to recruit members from the rival party, Hapoel Hatzair. As a result of rivalry on various issues, however, the latter refused to join its ranks. After negotiations, the leaders of both parties eventually decided to establish a joint body to promote the rights of workers. In December 1920, 87 representatives of the two parties assembled in Haifa for the founding convention of the General Federation of Workers in the Land of Israel. According to the resolutions of the convention, one of the Histadrut’s main goals was to provide workers with protection, similar to labor unions founded in many other countries. The Histadrut also took on other responsibilities such as the creation of employment opportunities for workers, the establishment of a network of health services (Kupat Holim), the establishment of educational institutions for the training of workers and education of their children, the establishment of athletic associations (Hapoel), and more. In actuality, the General Federation of Workers assumed responsibility for almost all realms of life of the workers who joined its ranks and for the country’s overall Jewish population. In other parts of the world, public or private government bodies usually did this. Due to its wide ranging responsibilities, the Histadrut became the most important force in the Jewish economy of Mandatory Palestine. This made its second secretary, David Ben-Gurion, a prominent political figure within the country’s organized Jewish community. Along with the other workers’ parties in the country at the time, his party, Ahdut Ha’voda, became a leading force in the Jewish community.

  6 In 1921, David Ben-Gurion, the most influential Jewish statesman of the modern era, became the secretary of the General Federation of Labor, the largest and most powerful economic and social institution in Palestine’s Jewish community during the British Mandate. In 1935, he was named chairman of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency, the institution that both led and represented international Jewry and the Jewish community in Palestine. Ben-Gurion served as prime minister of the State of Israel from May 14, 1948, the date of
Israel’s declaration of independence, until his resignation in the summer of 1963 (with the exception of 21 months between 1953 and 1954).

  7 A moshav (see also Moshav), is a unique form of rural settlement that incorporates a group of residents into a collective economic framework. Individuals belonging to the moshav are referred to as members. In contrast to its better-known sister, the kibbutz, at a moshav, each individual family constitutes an independent economic unit and functions within a broader system of mutual assistance and commitment. Every household at the moshav is allocated a plot of land, which typically was used for agriculture. Today some moshavim are home to people who are not members of the collective framework and are referred to as residents. The moshav and kibbutz movements are the largest settlement movements in Israel. Most moshavim in Israel were allocated land by institutions of the state (or of the organized Jewish community of Palestine prior to the state’s establishment) and many are now home to a third generation of members (older moshavim such as Nahalal already have a fifth generation) that operate small businesses on their family’s plots. Legally speaking, however, the land is the property of the state and generally is allocated to moshav members to use for agriculture.

  8 Aliyah, the Hebrew word both for ascending and for moving to the Holy Land, is also used to refer to the five modern waves of Jewish-Zionist immigration to the Land of Israel prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Each wave had distinctive characteristics.

  The Third Aliyah – In April 1919, a new wave of Jewish immigrants began to arrive in Palestine. Eight months later, on December 20, 1919, 670 Jewish immigrants arrived on the SS Ruslan. Due to the large number of immigrants it carried, as well as most passengers’ socioeconomic status and socialist-Zionist ideology, this ship’s arrival is considered a major milestone in the history of the Third Aliyah. Over the next four years (1919-1923), more than 35,000 Jewish immigrants made their way to Palestine, increasing its Jewish population by more than 50 percent.

  The Fourth Aliyah – June 1924 marked the beginning of a new wave of immigration. Like the previous wave, it too caused the Jewish population in Palestine to grow significantly, this time by 65%. The Fourth Aliyah was one reason for the Jewish sector’s rapid economic growth during the 1920s. The Jewish community in Palestine regarded this as a distinct immigration wave due to its image in the eyes of the public in general and of the left-wing political parties in particular. Although more than half of the immigrants were still considered laborers and were thus similar to most of the immigrants of the Third Aliyah, approximately one-quarter were wealthy (or “capitalists,” as they were termed at the time). This, along with the fact that many of these immigrants settled in the cities in general and in Tel Aviv in particular, imbued this immigration wave with an entirely different image than that of the wave that preceded it.

  When considering the development of Jewish immigration to Palestine during the 1920s in general, the third and fourth waves appear to have constituted a turning point in the demographic development of the British Mandate of Palestine’s organized Jewish community. In 1919, at the beginning of this period, the Jewish population numbered 55,000, whereas by 1931, it had increased to 175,138, reflecting a remarkable increase of more than 300%.

  9 1936 Arab Riots. In April 1936, Arabs residing in the British Mandate of Palestine launched a campaign of strikes and demonstrations accompanied by severe outbreaks of violence. This situation continued for approximately three years. Unlike the violence that erupted in the summer of 1929, all the parties involved anticipated the violence, yet apparently were surprised by its intensity, severe ramifications, and duration. Few, if any, also appeared to anticipate the far-reaching developments it provoked in the diplomatic arena. The local Arab population strongly supported the general strike that the Arab Higher Committee (the leaders of the local Arabs) called. The same was true of the Arab Revolt (as the violence itself was called). Arabs attacked Jews and British citizens throughout the mandate, in the cities, on the roads, in their homes, and anywhere else they could do so. Some 2,000 violent incidents were recorded in 1936 alone and there were hundreds more during the two years that followed. More than 80 Jews were killed and hundreds were wounded in 1936. The Palestinians suffered a similar number of casualties and dozens of British personnel were injured as well. The situation resulted in the destruction of considerable Jewish property and the almost complete disruption of the local economy, particularly in the early stages.

  The Zionist leadership’s response to the violence and to the subsequent British policy proposals was shaped by a policy of restraint. This meant that even if the institutions of the organized Jewish community possessed the military capacity to retaliate, they refrained from doing so for political reasons. Jewish leaders who adopted this policy explained that they had concluded that during the previous eruptions of violence in 1920-1921 and 1929, the Arabs had tried to portray the situation as a civil war that had broken out in response to the Balfour Declaration. Now, by means of this policy of moderation, the Jewish leadership sought to prove that this simply was not the case. During the first few months of the violence, the Haganah did not routinely launch retaliatory operations, despite the murder of dozens of Jews and the injuries inflicted on many more. The Jewish leadership thus attempted to sway public opinion worldwide (and particularly in Britain) by demonstrating that unlike the Arabs, the Jews of Mandatory Palestine respected the law and were therefore justified in demanding their legitimate rights from the British authorities. The policy of restraint had many opponents within the local Jewish community and the international Zionist movement, although this opposition did not typically influence Zionist policy. However, when the violence intensified, the Jewish leadership was forced to change its policy, responding more decisively from time to time in light of the ongoing attacks.

  10 At that time, Hashomer Hatzair was a socialist Zionist youth movement with a worldview comparable to that of moderate communism, which regarded the Soviet Union as a model to emulate.

  11 German Advance in North Africa. In February 1941, German forces under the command of General Erwin Rommel landed in Libya, where they began pushing the British army encamped there toward Egypt in a series of battles. By the summer of 1942, the Germans had advanced to a point just 100 kilometers from Alexandria. It seemed like the entire Middle East was about to fall into the Nazis’ hands. British forces, under the command of General Bernard Montgomery, ultimately managed to halt the German advance near the Egyptian city of El Alamein.

  12 Joseph Trumpeldor was one of the most admired military commanders in the history of the modern Jewish community in Palestine. He died in the famous battle at Kibbutz Tel Hai in 1920.

  13 Masada. According to the writings of Josephus Flavius, at the beginning of the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire in 66 CE, a group of Jews known as Sicarii conquered Masada, which king Herod had constructed almost a century earlier atop an isolated mountain in the Judean Desert to serve as his summer residence and refuge. The Sicarii overpowered the Roman garrison stationed there. In 70 CE, additional Sicarii and their families joined them. Roman governor Flavius Silva led the Tenth Legion and auxiliary forces in a siege of Masada and, after three years, succeeded in breeching its walls. When the Romans entered the fortress the following day, they discovered that its defenders, a total of almost 1,000 men, women and children, had burned their stores of food and committed mass suicide rather than surrender to Rome. Archaeological excavations of Masada and other sites have confirmed many of the details in Josephus’ writings, but have not yet found evidence of a mass suicide.

  14 Bar Kochba Revolt. Between 132 and 136 CE, the Jews of the Province of Judea rebelled against the Roman Empire, then ruled by Emperor Hadrian. The revolt was led by Bar Kochba, who won the support of the Jewish sages of the time, most notably of rabbi Akiva. Although the revolt enjoyed initial success, it ultimately was brutally suppressed, leaving hundreds of thousands of Jews de
ad and the Jewish community in the province all but decimated. The three years during which Bar Kochba ruled a small enclave was the last time there was an independent Jewish polity in the Land of Israel until the establishment of the State of Israel.

  15 Arab States. Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen sent forces to fight in the War of Independence.

  16 War of Independence. The wave of joy that swept through the Jewish community when the UN resolution passed did not sweep away the Zionist leadership headed by David Ben-Gurion. They were concerned about the pending military encounter with the Arabs, who had expressed unequivocal opposition to the decision. Indeed, the day after the partition resolution passed, the Arabs launched an armed struggle to thwart the establishment of a Jewish state and establish an Arab state. After a few months of fighting, the hostilities they initiated developed into a full-scale war that lasted more than a year. During the War of Independence, as the conflict is termed in the Israeli historical narrative, the military forces of the organized Jewish community in the mandate – and subsequently of the newly established State of Israel – sought to fight off local Arab forces and the irregular forces that entered the country from Lebanon (known in Arabic as Jaysh al-Inqadh al-Arabi, or the Arab Liberation Army). Forces from the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq later joined the fighting.