In Memoriam – Nahum and Nava Sharfman

This post has evolved into a collection of photos, video, death notices, links and personal comments. You are invited to share your thoughts here.

A new link from the Commtouch website– Gideon Mantel’s tribute to Nahum. And from Beit Issie Shapiro, where Nahum served as Chairman  (International) of American Friends of Beit Issie Shapiro.

This is my original post:

I just heard the horrible news – Nahum and Nava Sharfman were killed in a plane crash in Greece. Nahum was an inspiration to me from the day I met him 25 years ago. First and foremost, he was a real mentch, in every sense of the word.

And in the spirit of Yom HaAtzmaut – I consider Nahum one of the founders of the country.

He brought world class standards to National Semiconductor’s Herzliya Design Center, standards which are in a large way responsible for Israel’s high tech leadership position.  His goal was nothing short of creating the “Best Design Center in the Universe”.

As founder of shopping.com he created Israel’s most successful consumer internet site and will remain an inspiration to all entrepreneurs who had the honor of knowing him.

May his spirit live on in the lives of thousands of people whose lives were touched by him.

Yehi Zichram Baruch

You are invited to share your thoughts here.

You are invited to share your thoughts here.

Nava and Nahum Sharfman in 2005

Nahum and Nava Sharfman with Bill Clinton in 2005

(L to r) – Ran Talmudi, Sidi Yomtov, Avraham Menachem, Nahum Sharfman and Asher Kaminker

With Nava and the other spouses

Nava and Nahum Sharfman death notice from National Friends

Nava and Nahum Sharfman death notice from shopping.com family

Nava and Nahum Sharfman death notice from Commtouch family

Nava and Nahum Sharfman death notice from Beit Issie Shapiro

You are invited to share your thoughts here.

Yediot Ahronot - April 29, 2008

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El Al Frequent Flyer Stealth Program

No – El Al is not using stealth technology on their planes, but they are trying to use  stealth sneaky shady methods to steal poach the competition’s frequent flyer data. And they were not very shy about this disgraceful business tactic.  From the Jerusalem Post:

El Al reached out to the travel agent community last month, requesting hard information on the frequent fliers of several airlines.

Their request was simple: “Send us your list of frequent fliers on the following airlines: British Airways, Continental, Delta, Lufthansa and Turkish Air. Send us their ID number, mailing address, cell phone number, email address, and birth date. Send us their complete travel plans rom 2008, indicating to where they flew with dates and cities.”

Now to be fair to El Al, the airline made it a competition among the travel agent community. The agent who sent the most names could win big money – $1,000.

The story was picked up quickly by international frequent flyer community.  The general sentiment was that El Al was “Doing business the Israeli way”. And that link went out to 190,000 FlyerTalk subscribers. Just when our PR machine was recovering from an accused rapist President, a war that BBC did not find to their liking and a Prime Minister under investigation for more shady dealings than Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon put together.

I guess the marketing guys forgot to ask the lawyers for their opinion beforehand (hey, at $300/hour can you blame them?) but the lawyers did put an end to this plan.

Hats off to:

1. The lawyers

2. The travel agents for not cooperating (they would have lost their licence)

3. Turkish Airlines (and others) for not making a shwarma out of ElAl’s management.

4. The Jerusalem Post for reporting this, and

5. You, for reading my blog and for using TripCart’s Road Trip Planner to pick up some New York City family vacation ideas for the summer.

Discount Orlando Disney Tickets from UK Website

Yes, you read that right – contributed by an avid reader who just bought 77 days of disney!

Getting discounts on Disney Orlando tickets are almost impossible. Prior to this post we knew of two ways – 1) Be a Florida resident and 2) Spend a day in a time share presentation (and a lifetime getting out of it). Now the third:

BUY TICKETS ON THEIR UK SITE WHEN THE EXCHANGE RATE IS FAVORABLE!

Example:

Seven Day park hopper adult ticket is $328 on their US site and 219 GBP on their UK site, which is equal to $306 at the pathetic rate of 1 GBP = $1.40 ( a few weeks ago). So, monitor Forex 24/7 and save yourself  some money in these recessionary times.  No need to monitor the Euro or the Canadian Dollar – they only sell tickets in dollars and pounds (maybe Yen, also).

Also note that not all types of passes are offered on both sites.