Sparkling in Israel

I have been visiting Israel this week, as a guest of the Israeli Diamond Institute. My schedule included visits to two museums. One was the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, which was an emotional experience. The memorial to the children was particularly moving, which represented the deaths of some one million jewish children in the holocaust by a room filled with a million sparkling stars. The other museum visit was to the Harry Oppenheimer diamond museum in Ramat Gan, the centre of Israel’s diamond industry. This museum (pictured) not only looks at how diamonds are formed, cut and polished, but also relates this to how important the diamond industry has been for Israel and for jews around the world.

Visiting the trading floor of the Israeli Diamond Exchange, I also discovered that business deals are sealed by a handshake and the words Mazal and Bracha. These hebrew words, meaning blessings and fortune, are used when diamonds exchange hands in diamond exchanges all over the world in every language and just goes to show how central Israel is to the diamond industry.

The trip has not only given me a better understanding of the diamond industry but has also given new meaning to diamonds - adding to the rarity, romance and preciousness of these stones is also the way diamonds represented hope and security to many jews in times of persecution. And how the diamond industry is based around trust - a deal is closed with nothing more than a handshake and a blessing that is as binding as a contract. Isn’t the mystery and the story of diamonds so much more than a bit of polished rock?