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And the Old Shall See Visions

Israeli mogul receives messages from above

by
Liel Leibovitz
June 25, 2009

Shari Arison, the richest woman in Israel and the principal shareholder in the nation’s second-largest bank, Bank Hapoalim, isn’t worried about the economic downturn currently plaguing the country. After all, she’s been communicating with an otherworldly entity and seeing visions assuring her that everything will be all right. “For the past year I’ve been seeing peace and happiness,” Arison said. “I don’t know when that will happen. I know I have a role to tell people…. Everyone has to make it happen.” The entity, whose nature Arison would not divulge, communicates with the tycoon through visions and “messages from above,” she said. “I get a picture, I can feel it. If it’s fire, I feel like I’m burning. If people are dying I feel pain,” she told Reuters in a recent interview, after initially revealing her paranormal contacts in a weekend interview with Israel’s Channel Two. How did Israel respond to news of Arison’s seeming clairvoyance? Well, of course: the morning after her TV appearance, Bank Hapoalim shares jumped 1.6 percent.

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.