PHOTO BY BILL GEMMELL
ISRAEL DIGEST
Compiled by Steve Steinfrom Jerusalem Post reports
— $1 EQUALS 2.9650 NIS (shekels) - Close Price 5/9/95
Made In Israel? Not These Products
Goods produced in Judea, labeled "Made in Palestine,"
Samaria and Gaza which are but the Customs Service order
exported to the United States stipulates they be marked
can no longer to be marked "Gaza" or 'West Bank."
"Made in Israel," according to
Under the order, failure to
a recent order by the U.S. Cus- properly mark a product will
toms Service.
result in an additional levy of
The Palestinian Authority 10 percent of the product's
wanted the products to be value.
Big News From Little Company
KARAblr:
KARA0iir!I
KARtuiv
Renee Cherrin Erlich and Marc Schechle r of Star Trax.
for her, and her mother had a pic- munications manager for Cognex.
free" programs at middle schools.
ture taken with Mr. Bush.
Ms. Parven said organization
Ms. Cherrin Erlich says qual-
Chili's of New England, Little, — down to providing forks and
Brown and Co., and Cognex are spoons for people to eat macaroni ity control is a crucial part of
the Star Trax business, which
recent Boston corporate clients of and cheese — is one of the keys depends heavily on referrals. She
Ms. Parven.\
to putting on a successful event. and Mr. Schechter regularly
Ms. Parven put on a
Another is to not pressure attend Star Trax events to make
"Chilimpics" for approximately those at a function to take part in sure
things are going smoothly.
135 Chili's management and the activities.
"If something isn't going well,
restaurant managers following
Star Trax recently opened a we'll fix it right away," Ms. Cher-
the company's annual corporate dance studio and new offices in rin Erlich said. "We think we
meeting. One of the Olympic- Orchard Mall, not far from its have a great product and fabu-
style events required teams to original location in the mall, lous employees; but we're always
make "floats" out of a wagon of which is now being used for con- looking to improve."
art supplies in 15 minutes.
ferences with clients.
Marilyn Berman of West
"The Chilimpics were outra-
Mr. Schechter began the busi- Bloomfield and Lynn Silverman
geously funny and entertaining," ness in 1987 and Ms. Cherrin of Bloomfield Hills both gave Star
said company president Dennis Erlich came on board in 1993, Trax high marks for bar mitzvah
Nedra.
when she purchased half of it.
parties the company did for their
Little, Brown has five offices
Among the services offered by sons. Each party was attended by
throughout the Boston area. Ms. Star Trax are masters of cere- more than 200.
Parven has done the annual sum- monies, disc jockeys, dancers,
Aaron Berman's party was
mer outing for employees and dance instruction, special light- held
last September at the Ritz-
their families the past two ing, big-screen TVs, karaoke, Carlton
in Dearborn with a
years, entertaining about 350 music videos, souvenir photos, T- theme of "Behind the Scenes
each time.
shirts, giveaways, invitations, With Aaron," a reference to his
"Those outings were great and party themes. Star Trax interest in movie production.
because people who didn't see often works with party planners.
"I was impressed with the rap-
each other all year had fun to-
In addition to bar and bat port the Star Trax people had
gether, and they didn't have to mitzvahs, weddings and birthday
the kids," Mrs. Berman said.
worry about the children because parties, Star Trax has done cor- with
"They were concerned about the
they were enjoying themselves so porate outings for Buick, Mobil, adults, of course, but their first
much," said Little, Brown cor- Taubman & Co., the Prudential interest was the kids."
porate secretary/clerk Linda Town Center, Deloitte & Touche
Mrs. Silverman's son Nathan
Carbury.
and the Hudson's Freedom Fes- had his bar mitzvah party May 7
"One of the outings had a tival gathering.
at Shaarey Zedek. The theme
Western theme and Carol came
For each booking of a Star was "NTV (Nathan TV)."
to our offices dressed in cowboy Trax emcee, a donation is made
"The kids were kept busy all
attire to get people excited about to a children's charity. In addi- night," Mrs. Silverman said.
attending," Ms. Carbury said.
tion, Star Trax offers discounts "They had a ball. You hear these
Ms. Parven has done Hallo- for charitable organizations and horror stories about kids being
ween and summer family parties 10 percent of the proceeds for bored at bar and bat mitzvah par-
and employee orientation ses- valet parking at events run by ties, but that certainly wasn't the
sions for Cognex, a manufacturer charities is donated to that char- case at Nathan's party.
of quality-control computers.
ity.
"I had a good comfort level with
"We have quarterly two-day
If Star Trax provides parking the Star Trap employees all the
training sessions for our new em- at a shiva, a contribution of 10 way through the planning. They
ployees and Carol helps us with percent of the proceeds is made were very professional and help-
our team-building skills," said on behalf of the deceased.
fill, always willing to answer my
Kathy Bedrosian, corporate corn-
Star Trax also puts on "drug- questions•"111
Arthur D. Little, one of the wide and has offices in only one
world's largest consulting firms, Middle Eastern country, Sau-
plans to open an office in Israel. di Arabia.
The Boston-based firm spe
Arthur D, Little's clients in
cializes in providing consulting Israel have included Koor, Is-
services to international com- rael Chemicals and govern-
panies. It employs about 2,700 ment ministries.
consultants in 50 offices world-
Israel Morocco Chamber Opens
The Israel-Morocco Chamber ber of Commerce established
of Commerce has opened an of- between Israel and an Arab
fice in Tel Aviv. The chamber state.
is the first bi-national Cham-
Superphami To Sell Food Additives
The Superpharm pharmacy manufactures about 3.6 billion
chain will be the exclusive Is- tablets annually, distributed to
raeli distributor of American about 10,000 stores in the Unit-
Vitamin Products food addi- ed States and dozens of coun-
tives.
tries worldwide.
American Vitamin Products
Talks Crisis? No, Just A Delay
Jordan delayed signing a trade frastructure were signed.
accord with Israel so it could re-
Zohar Peri, director of the In-
view its obligation to conclude dustry and Trade Ministry's
a free-trade agreement within Foreign Trade Administration,
three years, the Israeli Indus- denied the delay pointed to a
try and Trade Ministry report- crisis in the talks.
ed.
'There's no crisis. We have
Agreements on environment, very good relations with the
agriculture, and energy and in- Jordanian delegation," he said.
Lannet Profits Soar 44 Percent
Lannet Data Communications
of Israel reported a 44 percent
rise in first-quarter net profits
to $2.43 million from $1.16 mil-
lion the previous year.
Earnings per share doubled
to $0.22 from $0.11 while rev-
enues were $21.9 million, up
from $12.5 million. First-quar-
ter gross-profit margins were
49.2 percent, down from 50 per-
cent in 1994.
During the quarter, the com-
pany signed major contracts
with the U.S. Navy, the Unit-
ed Kingdom Atomic Energy
Agency, Barclay's Bank (Paris),
Banque de Suez (Amsterdam),
the Brazilian postal and
telecommunications firm Tele-
bras, India's English-language
daily newspaper The Times,
and Hong Kong's Next Maga-
zine.