Stef Wertheimer
Receiving the Israel Prize marked one of the formal high points in Stef Wertheimer's public life, a recognition that sat alongside a broader record of work spanning industry, entrepreneurship, politics, and philanthropy.
Wertheimer was born on July 16, 1926, in Kippenheim, and he went on to hold citizenship in both Germany and Israel. His working life took shape across several roles — industrialist, entrepreneur, politician, and philanthropist — and he used both Hebrew and Yiddish in his life and work. Those dual citizenships and dual languages point to a biography that moved between distinct national and cultural contexts over the course of nearly a century.
Germany recognized Wertheimer with more than one formal distinction. He received the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg, two honors that reflected a specific connection between his work and that country. He also received the Buber-Rosenzweig-Medal, an award associated with Jewish-Christian dialogue, which added a further dimension to the recognition he accumulated over the decades.
Wertheimer died on March 26, 2025. The German honors he received — the Commander's Cross, the Baden-Württemberg medal, and the Buber-Rosenzweig-Medal — together with the Israel Prize, form a concrete record of the regard in which his contributions were held on both sides of the cultural and national divide that defined so much of his long life.
Quotes by Stef Wertheimer
My purpose is to keep people busy and out of mischief - to create good and interesting jobs for them that help families stay together.
Tech is important, but if you look at even the successful tech start-ups, you see they employ only dozens of people at most. Tech is never going to have the impact on the job market that manufacturing has.
We have a few young people who are very successful in it, and this gives us the wrong impression that the whole country can live off high tech.
If we see to it that the Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians have jobs, we will actually be securing our own future.
The Galilee is a quiet place because people have to deliver on time; they don't have time to quarrel.
Our partnership with the American Warren Buffett, from my perspective, is aimed at creating more jobs.
The Berlin Wall fell because the East Germans saw the West had more. The Koreans don't like the Japanese and try to prove to them that they are worth more in the industrial arena.
