Moshe Schnitzer

Moshe Schnitzer was born in 1921 in Chernivtsi

Schnitzer was born in Chernivtsi, then part of Romania, in 1921. He moved to Palestine under British rule in 1934. He studied history and philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He joined the Irgun in 1941 and entered the Israeli army in 1948. In 1942, at his father's urging, he left his studies to work in diamonds. He trained in sawing and cutting in Tel Aviv and became a work manager in 1944.

In 1944 he started the industry journal HaYahalom, and in 1946 he co-wrote a Hebrew instruction book on diamonds. He was among the founders of the Israel Diamond Exchange in 1947 and became its Vice President in 1949. He founded Schnitzer-Greenstein in 1952 and his own firm in 1960.

He led the exchange as President from 1967 to 1993, as Israeli diamond exports grew. He also headed the World Federation of Diamond Bourses twice. Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin used him to pass messages to the Soviet Union.

He set up a research foundation at Bar-Ilan University in 1982 and the Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum in Ramat Gan. He received the Israel Prize in 2004. He died in August 2007.