Rafael Halperin

Rafael Halperin was born in 1924 in Vienna

Halperin was born in Vienna in 1924, the youngest of nine children of Yaakov Halperin, a banker and merchant, and Chaya Dalman. The family moved to the Land of Israel in 1933, and his father founded the Zichron Meir neighborhood in Bnei Brak. He studied at Lithuanian-style yeshivas in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and Petah Tikva.

He married in 1944 and worked in the diamond trade. He took up bodybuilding and performed in Europe in 1947. He enlisted during the War of Independence and later trained in the United States.

He opened gyms in Israel and started the Mr. Israel bodybuilding contest in 1950. From 1952 he wrestled professionally in the United States and Canada, including for Vince McMahon Sr.'s Capitol Wrestling, as Mr. Israel. In Israel his matches against Achmad Fuad in 1966 and Abu Antar in 1973 drew large crowds, and the 1973 bout was his last.

He ran several ventures, and in 1965 he was convicted over the sale of a restaurant's equipment, though an appeal cleared him of some charges. He earned a rabbinical degree, wrote religious books and an encyclopedia, and founded a chain of 120 optical centers. He backed a credit card that would not work on Shabbat, and he died on 20 August 2011.