Tag Archives: Cruise

Jews of the Week: Ted & Shari Arison

Ted Arison

Ted Arison

Theodore Arisohn (1924-1999) was born in Tel-Aviv, a third-generation Israeli of Jewish-Romanian heritage. During World War II, Arisohn fought with the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, and then as an IDF Lieutenant Colonel during Israel’s War of Independence. In 1952, Arisohn moved to the US (becoming “Arison”) in the hopes of better financial opportunities. In 1966, now living in Miami, Arison teamed up with Knut Kloster to create Norwegian Cruise Lines. The company started with one small cruise ship offering cheap Caribbean tours, and grew very quickly. By 1972, Arison left Norwegian and started a new company: Carnival Cruise Lines. It was here that Arison made his fortune, and transformed the company into a multi-billion dollar enterprise. The Carnival Corporation now owns 9 other cruise lines, including Costa, Holland America, and Princess Cruises. Arison was a noted philanthropist, too, creating the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, as well as his own Arison Foundation. In 1988, Arison brought professional basketball to Florida by forming the Miami Heat NBA team. His final big move came in 1996, when he led a group that purchased Israel’s largest bank – Bank Hapoalim – for a record sum of over $1 billion.

Shari Arison

Shari Arison

Today, Bank Hapoalim is led by Ted’s daughter, Shari Arison (b. 1957). Born in New York, Shari spent half of her youth in Israel and the other half in the US, before returning to serve in the IDF. She further expanded her father’s businesses after his death, and is now the richest woman in the Middle East (and the only woman listed among the Middle East’s Top 20 richest people). Shari heads The Ted Arison Family Foundation, with its many philanthropic branches. One of these is dedicated to helping people find “inner peace”, while another is for promoting global unity, and a third for inspiring volunteerism in youth and creating International Good Deeds Day. Shari published her first book in 2009 and it became an Israeli bestseller. Her second, Activate Your Goodness: Transforming the World through Doing Good, was a New York Times bestseller, too. She has been selected “Woman of the Year”, has been ranked among Forbes list of the World’s Most Powerful Women, and the World’s Greenest Billionaires, as well as Jerusalem Post’s 50 Most Influential Jews.

Words of the Week

Such is the way of creation: first comes darkness, then light.
– Talmud, Shabbat 77b

Jew of the Week: Albert Ballin

The Inventor of Cruises

Commemorative Stamp of Albert Ballin

Commemorative Stamp of Albert Ballin

Albert Ballin (1857-1918) was born in Hamburg, Germany to a lower-middle class family. At 17, Ballin’s father died so the young man took over his father’s work at an emigration agency. By 22, he owned the agency, and at 29 he was the director of HAPAG, a ship liner providing service from Hamburg to New York. Ballin transformed the company into the world’s largest sea company with 175 ships. He revolutionized the business, focusing on providing customer service and a comfortable voyage. By using return voyages to deliver goods, Ballin was able to cut the price of a Transatlantic trip by nearly 40%. This work made it possible for myriads of Jews to escape Eastern Europe before, and during, the World Wars, saving countless lives. He would often sail on his own ships and ask the customers how their voyage could be improved. To make sea travel even better, Ballin constructed a massive neighbourhood on an island near Hamburg’s port (later called BallinCity) where voyagers could relax, shop, pray, and receive health inspections and travel documents. Ballin pioneered the production of ever larger and more luxurious ships. Perhaps his greatest legacy is the invention of the cruise ship. When Transatlantic voyages were perilous in the winter, Ballin had an idea to use his idle ships in other ways, outfitting them for “pleasure cruises”, where the voyage was not only a means to get somewhere, but the destination itself. Many scoffed at the idea (some said Ballin totally lost his mind), but the first such voyage, a 57-day Mediterranean adventure in 1891, was a huge success and sparked the cruise ship industry. Ballin became the German Emperor’s ship operator, and was nicknamed the “Kaiser’s Jew”, though his religion cost him many great opportunities. The Kaiser once admitted that Ballin would have been made Chancellor if he weren’t a Jew. A gentle and kind man, Ballin also donated anonymously to a great many causes, and strove to make peace between the European powers. Unable to prevent World War I, he was labelled as a “pacifist traitor” of Germany, and at 61, overdosed on sleeping pills. His home in Hamburg is now the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning.

 

Words of the Week

Why is the Torah called “fire”? Just as fire receives no impurities, so too the words of Torah.
– Talmud, Berachot 22a