Shari doesn't live here any more

22.9.2003 |  11:05

Sagi Chemetz

Shari Arison is the only person who really knows why she left Israel. What led Israel's richest woman to discard her home, businesses, offices, nearest friends and life's work for the charms of Miami is her business. There were probably several factors at play, some of which are well-known, such as her battle with Histadrut leader Amir Perez, and some we can only guess at, personal reasons which may never become known. She isn't talking, not yet at least. All we know is that in the dead of night, she gathered her immediate family and flew away.

In contrast to her soft, ingenuous image, she chose to handle her departure in an infuriating way. First of all she announced that she was halting her donations. The Arison foundation had been one of the most generous around, and had served as an example for others who joined in its good works, or operated in parallel. Secondly, her PR representative, Rani Rahav, elected to return some blows to the media and wrote a second nasty letter to journalist Shelly Yechimovitch, in which he accused her of hating the rich and of, in practice if not in deed, expelling Arison and her ilk from the Jewish nation.

Rahav's letter and Arison's sweeping decision to leave nothing behind but some business, which will probably be sold at some point, make one feel that Israel is mean to its richest denizens. As though life for them is brutal here, as though it's a hellhole where all kind of envious little Yechimovitches scheme night and day to hound and belittle them, just because they have.

Which is perfect nonsense. Arison, as a person who devoted means and time to Israel's poor, knows perfect well that in the State of Israel, as in many other countries, it is a lot harder to be poor than rich. Israel is not mean to its rich; on the contrary. For them, it really is the land of milk and honey. Government is close to the ground; they don't have to be heavy billionaires or star on the front pages to build strong, useful contacts in Jerusalem.

Moreover, Israel has no pesky estate tax, which is evidently one of the reasons Shari's father, Ted Arison, chose to leave Miami in the first place. Until recently it didn't even levy tax on capital gains.

Israel's prissy media

Nor is the personal security of Israel's rich in question. In South Africa, Brazil or Russia, countries characterized by vast gaps between the rich and poor, the rich constantly have to safeguard their property and loved ones. In Israel, the champion of the West in social gaps, their property and persons are safe as houses.

And the media that Rahav spattered with mud is relatively kind to Israel's wealthy, including in regard to substantive criticism of the connections between wealth and government, or white collar crimes. There is little meddling in their personal lives or eating or shopping habits.

Talk show hosts in the U.S., from Jay Leno to Conan O¿Brien, spare the politicians and celebrities nothing. They routinely offer jokes that would be considered way below the belt in prissy Israel. England's tabloids send their photographers and writers to burrow deep into the personal lives of the nation's stars, resorting to methods and style that no Israeli media outlet would even dream of adopting.

Spin

The inescapable conclusion is that claims of the rich being hounded, and that the media was responsible for Arison's flight, are pure spin by Rani Rahav and other Arison associates. Arison herself chose to leave Israel. Just like any person, she is the master of her fate. The side blow at the poor she'd supported for years arouse questions about the great donator's integrity, perhaps. Are the children in the wards that the Arison foundation supported, or the disadvantaged children who the institute helped, the ones who should pay the price for her disenchantment?

Arison, who devoted many years to helping the community, must have known well that Israel's welfare establishment is on the brink of collapse, and that her beneficiaries need external support more than ever before. The fact that years of good deeds and close familiarity with the daily distress of wide segments of the population did not lead her to reconsider, shows that when the push came to the shove, her main concern was not for others, but for herself.