Marketwise

With Rosh Hashana approaching, organizations throughout the country are putting together boxes of essential foodstuffs and occasional luxury items.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
IN CASE anyone was wondering where former Channel 2 news presenter Gadi Sukenik would be going next after his bank endorsements and his various stints as moderator at a variety of events, he's now a businessman. Sukenik has struck up a partnership with Sigal Avitan, who runs an interactive public relations and marketing company. Together they have formed Press Cast, which aims to produce, edit and broadcast special events, press conferences, conference-call investors' meetings and anything else that requires broadcast, editing and communication skills. Broadcasts will be accessible anywhere in the world via cellphone, PC or community television. Target groups are public relations companies, political bureaus, trade groups and the various branches of the communications industry. THIS IS the time of year when telemarketers jam our phones, and our mail boxes are crammed with envelopes with requests from numerous organizations that provide food, clothing, toys and services for the needy. They do this all year, but especially in time for the High Holy days. With Rosh Hashana approaching, organizations throughout the country are putting together boxes of essential foodstuffs and occasional luxury items. The luxuries come via those organizations whose representatives are stationed outside supermarkets with requests for shoppers to put extra items in their grocery carts for distribution to the poor. Sometimes the representatives offer guidelines on what they believe is needed, and sometimes the shoppers say: "Forget the basics; it's holiday time, let them eat cake." Either way, the representatives are ready with cardboard boxes waiting to be filled as shoppers exit the supermarkets. Most synagogues also organize collections for food or money for the poor. Organizations such as Table to Table regularly go out to harvest fresh fruit and vegetables. Sometimes they prevail on the goodwill of celebrities and dignitaries to help them market their cause. This week they persuaded Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to take time out from foreign affairs and her Kadima leadership election campaign to join Foreign Ministry staffers in picking tomatoes at Moshav Neveh Yamin. Then there are organizations that have been supplying food and clothing for several years but now find themselves in dire straits. An example is Carmei Ha'ir, in the heart of Jerusalem's Mahaneh Yehuda Market. Established initially as a soup kitchen - with an authentic restaurant ambience designed to preserve the dignity of those who benefit from the largesse of market vendors who supply the organization with fruits and vegetables at symbolic prices, or for free - Carmei Ha'ir branched out with a clothing store located next door to its restaurant on Agrippas Street. Keen to own the building, so that they could make suitable changes to accommodate their growing clientele, the founders of Carmei Ha'ir found themselves in financial difficulties with the acute devaluation of the dollar. The plaintive newsletter that went out recently states: "This newsletter should have been about school supplies and lunches. It should have been wishing you a healthy and sweet New Year. Instead, we are pleading with our supporters to help make sure that our open restaurant - where over 400 meals are prepared and served daily, where needy families dance with joy at the smachot we make for them, where our Shabbat and holiday meals are lovingly shared with our clients - isn't lost to us! We can't close the doors to those waiting for them to open!!" The gist of the story is that the final payment of $250,000 is due next month; if the organization can't come up with the cash, it will lose the building and all the Carmei Ha'ir projects will go down the drain. If all the people who have supported them to date would donate $100 each, states the newsletter, there would be sufficient money to cover the debt. Alternately, some affluent generous soul could put up the money and allow them to pay it off interest-free. In Tel Aviv-Jaffa, the Center for Food Distribution is looking for volunteers, as well as funds, for the assembling and distribution of food packages. Anyone who wants to contribute money can pay either NIS 250 or NIS 350 toward the cost of a family package, or alternately can contribute dry goods that will not spoil. Packers, drivers and distributors who want to help should come to 39 Salame Street, Jaffa, on September 22-25. For further details call (03)680-3000. NOTWITHSTANDING RUMORS that malls owned by the Africa Israel Group are up for sale, the company continues to make arrangements for new stores to open. Zvia Leviev Alazarov, who heads the Africa Israel Malls division, this week opened the first Massimo Dutti store in Israel in the Ramat Aviv Mall. Massimo Dutti is part of the Spanish Inditex Group, one of the world's largest fashion distributors with some 4,000 stores in 70 countries. Other popular brands in the Inditex Group that preceded Massimo Dutti to Israel were Zara and Pull&Bear. Initially a producer of men's shirts, Massimo Dutti expanded to high-quality urban- and casual-wear for men and women. No gala opening is complete without celebrities in attendance; their presence is part of the marketing strategy. In this case they included entertainment personalities Sharon Haziz, Einat Erlich and Limor Goldstein, fashion stylist and television personality Sandra Ringler, and models Shiraz Tal and Lihi Alon, among others. WHILE THE doomsayers of the fashion and textile industry keep telling us that it's on the wane, new stores bearing the brands and names of Israeli fashion designers keep opening in malls and on the street all over the country, and many of these Israeli brands are exported abroad. Sigal Dekel, who specializes in clothes that are stylish, semi-classic and utterly feminine, has just opened her 14th store at C Mall Ashdod. Mayor Zvi Zilker took time out to attend the opening.