THE LOUNGE

1. INSS

The Israeli and International Board of Governors of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) held their annual gala dinner last week at Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv. Attending were chairman of the board of directors of the institute, Sir Frank Lowy; chairman of the board of trustees of Israel, Pini Cohen; the director of the institute – retired Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin; and Orly Hayardeni, deputy director of finance and development at the institute. Guests heard lectures by Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, who spoke about challenges in the IDF; US envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt; General David Petraeus, who spoke about policy discourse, Michel Florenoy, and journalist Tom Friedman.

2. Cymotive Technologies

Cymotive Technologies, an automotive cyber security startup owned by Yuval Diskin, Tsafrir Kats and Dr. Tamir Bechor, as well as by Volkswagen, held a festive event for its employees in Israel and Germany together with its business partners.

Attending were Volkswagen chief of cyber security Beata Hopper, Ralph Milka, deputy head of electrical engineering of their R&D center and Jurgen Klaufer, a director of Cymotive.

3. Chelsea Football Club

Last Wednesday, Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea Football Club, hosted Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, at the Blues home game at Stamford Bridge football stadium, during which an initiative to raise awareness of antisemitism was launched, under the title, ‘Say No To Antisemitism.’

4. Backbone

Roy Sebag, CEO and founder of Blockchain Mining, and Emilio Grotzky, co-founder and CEO of BitPharmas, who are leading the merger of the two companies, hosted a dinner last Wednesday at Tel Aviv restaurant Claro. Attending were Backbone chairman and founder Nicolas Boneta; chief of operations and co-founder Pierre-Luc Quimper; manager of software engineering and co-founder Mathieu Vachont. Guests included Eduardo Elsztein, IDB’s controlling shareholder; Shalom Lapidot, CEO of IDB; Dudi Weisman, owner of Sonol; Avi Katz, president of the Fulfillment Fund and Cofix founder; and Ran Oz – chairman of ICC.

5. Tal Center

Zohar and Yankele Yakobson, the founders of the Tal Center for Integrative Oncology hosted a fundraising event titled, “Evening of Healthy Laughter 2.” The center, which was established at the Sheba Medical Center in the name of their daughter Tal, and is managed by Shira Segal Kuperman, is working to change the culture of cancer treatment for young people. Many artists participated in the event, and the highlight of the evening was when Shaike Levy and Gavri Banai took to the stage, alongside a hologram of Yisrael Pliakov, who died of cancer. Among the guests were Sir Ronald Cohen and Sharon Harel; Nili and Yaakov Shahar; Meital Danino and Gil Shwed; David Fattal; and Pnina and Moshe Edri.