Call for Nominees for the 10th Annual

Berman Piward

for Outstanding Professional Service

created by Mandell and Madeleine Berman

Eligibility for Nomination:

honoring a Jewish communal
professional employed
by the
Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit
or a Federation beneficiary

All Jewish communal professionals
employed by Federation, its agen-
cies, or its beneficiaries, who have
been working in the Detroit Jewish
community a minimum of five
years.

Criteria for Selection:

• made a contribution to the general good of the Jewish community
• demonstrated leadership and innovation to his/her profession

• -applied creativity, dedication, knowledge and care to providing
services to the Jewish
community
(-Nomination Process:

June 30, 1997

Presentation Date:
August 1997, at
a reception of the
Jewish Federation
Board of Governors

Submit nominations by letter to the Selec-
tion Committee. Names of the nominees
will remain confidential, and they may be
renominated in subsequent years.

Send nominations to:
Harlene W. Appelman - Confidential
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit
PO Box 2030
Bloomfield Hills, Ml 48303-2030

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116

Pnina Rosenbloom, Israel's blonde bombshell,
says her candidacy is no joke — and some
pundits agree.

LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

The recipient of the Berman Award must demonstrate the highest
professional standards in his/her chosen field. That professional must
have:

Deadline for Nominations:

Sex Symbols
And Politics?

„„.

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A

shot of sex appeal has
come into Israeli politics
as Pnina Rosenbloom, the
nation's blonde bombshell,
announced that she's running for
Knesset in the 2000 elections.
Pnina Rosenbloom? In the
1970s and '80s she was known in
Israel as the air-headed mod-
el/actress/gadabout, a talk show
and gossip column curiosity.
Then, eight years ago, she held
a news conference in her Jacuzzi
to announce the founding of her
own cosmetics company — Pni-
na Rosenbloom Ltd.
Today, she is a rich business-
woman, an Israeli Horatio Alger
story, a role model and a femi-
nist. And, since declaring her
candidacy, a politician with seri-
ous potential.
Knesset member Yael Dayan
says that if she wasn't behold-
en to the Labor Party, she would
vote for Ms. Rosenbloom. Alice
Shalvi, the queen mother of Is-
rael's feminist movement, says
she just might support her. Yariv
Ben-Eliezer, one of Israel's most
sought-after political consultants,
says he is ready to lend a hand
to the campaign.
The walls of Ms. Rosenbloom's
office suite in the Petach Tikva
industrial area are covered with
photos, paintings and advertis-
ing posters of her. There's a clip
from a Wall Street Journal story
that contains perhaps her most
famous quote: "I know what
women want. They want to look
like Pnina Rosenbloom." There's
the Businesswoman of the Year
award from Na'amat, one of Is-
rael's largest women's organiza-
tions, and the 1994 poll in Yediot
Aharonot, the country's largest
newspaper, that found her the
most popular woman in the coun-
try.
For a recent interview, Ms.
Rosenbloom is dressed in an olive
green miniskirt ensemble with
gold jewelry, perfect platinum
blond hair and plenty of Pnina
Rosenbloom Ltd. makeup. She
smiles all the time, calls you
motek (sweetheart), and for all
her control and ambition is easy-
going and down-to-earth.
She's not in the tiniest way
modest about her accomplish-
ments and abilities. Yet, she
doesn't come off as a braggart;
rather, as someone who enjoys
immensely being who she is. It's
hard not to be won over.

"When I was 18 or 19, I al-
ready was saying that one day
I'd like to get into politics," says
Ms. Rosenbloom, 42. She dis-
cussed this ambition on a recent
TV talk show, the next day on
the radio, and then the letters
started pouring in. "I was so im-
pressed by your courage in say-
ing you were going to run for
Knesset. And why not? How
many Knesset members can say
they've been as successful in
business as you?" read one letter.
"She's no bimbo," stresses Ben-
Eliezer, the political consultant.
"Coming from a very poor fami-
ly, with no education, she found-
ed an empire. There's a double
standard for her because she's a
woman and she's beautiful. She
doesn't get a fair chance. She's a
winner, she's charming, she's as-
sertive, she's a feminist. I give
her a standing ovation."
Adds Shalvi, head of the Israel
Women's Lobby, "If she were a
man, people would be praising
her to the skies. She uses her
beauty to her advantage, and I
say good for her."
Ms. Rosenbloom says she is
running on a socioeconomic plat-
form — equal pay for women and
men in the public sector, manda-
tory sentences for perpetrators
of domestic violence, better ben-
efits for pensioners and demobi-
lized soldiers. In other words, the
Israeli equivalent of motherhood
and apple pie. Just about every
Knesset member endorses these
reforms, so why does Rosenbloom
think she can push them through
when others haven't?
"Look, I don't make all sorts of
promises like other politicians
do. But I can promise the voter
this: I am a person who knows
how to get things done, how to
shake things up. And people be-
lieve me," she replies.
Asked how many seats out of
the Knesset's 120 she thought
she could get, Ms. Rosenbloom
declined to say. But Yael Dayan
gave the Ma'ariv newspaper the
figure of 10. Mr. Ben-Eliezer
thinks that Rosenbloom runs
could grab two seats. "She ap-
peals to a wide spectrum of
women voters as a woman who's
made it in a man's world," he
notes.
Ms. Rosenbloom says that to-
wards election time, she will put
together a list of candidates to in-
clude men and women, but