Pnina Rosenblum

Rosenblum was born in 1954 in Petah Tikva to an Iraqi mother and a German father who had survived the Holocaust.[6] She has described a childhood marked by poverty: her father left when she was a toddler, and she and her mother lived in a very small home. She credited her mother’s hard work and influence as important in her life.[3] The family was also described as living in a rented shack with an outside toilet.[6]

Rosenblum left high school after the tenth grade to work as a salesgirl.[6] She has recalled that people began telling her as a teenager that she could become a model, and that an agent noticed her on the street and arranged fashion-show appearances.[3] Her modeling potential was noticed in Tel Aviv when she was 16; she dyed her hair platinum blonde and became a prominent Israeli model.[6] She said she was among Israel’s best-known models before turning 17.[3]

At 17 and a half, Rosenblum registered for the La’Isha beauty pageant but withdrew before it began after being warned that losing could harm her modeling career.[3] She enlisted at 18 and served in the Israel Air Force entertainment troupe, leaving the army after seven months. She later explained that her fame caused disruption when she visited military bases and that she requested release on grounds of unsuitability.[3]

Rosenblum spent five years modeling in London, Hollywood and New York before returning to Israel.[6][3] She said she lived in London for two years before director Menahem Golan invited her to act in the western film God’s Gun, alongside Jack Palance and Lee Van Cleef. She then moved to Los Angeles hoping to pursue acting in Hollywood, but said that her English and Israeli accent made this difficult; after modeling for a year in New York, she returned to Israel.[3]

Back in Israel, Rosenblum resumed modeling, appeared on television and interviewed celebrities, including Julio Iglesias and Cary Grant.[6] She also wrote for Monitin, Yedioth Ahronoth’s “Zmanim Modernim,” and La’Isha. Her interviews included Israeli writers Yonah Wallach and Pinhas Sadeh, as well as international figures such as Tony Curtis and Cary Grant.[3]

Rosenblum became known as a model, television personality and actress, with a place in Israeli popular culture dating to the 1970s.[2] Her film appearances included Malkat Hakvish (1971), Diamante Lobo (1976), Lo L’Shidur and Am Yisrael Hai (both 1981), and Kasach (1984).[2] A 1986 group of archival photographs identifies her as participating in street theater in Tel Aviv.[7]

In 1983, Rosenblum performed “Tamid Isha” (“Always a Woman”) in the Kdam Eurovision national final, seeking to represent Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest. The song finished last in the competition but became a hit with the Israeli public.[2]

Rosenblum established a cosmetics business after women asked about a distinctive eye-makeup brush she had bought in the United States. She began marketing an early “I-Touch” product, described in a 2024 interview as eye makeup that did not come off, and later opened a makeup shop in the Rosh Indiani fashion chain.[3] In a 2005 account, she recalled that the business began with a small makeup studio on the terrace of the fashion house. She found a manufacturer for the brush, packaged it with instructions in a pink nylon purse bearing her name, and said a visit to a Milan makeup trade fair helped her understand how cosmetics were sourced.[8]

A 2006 interview described Pnina Rosenblum Ltd. as a cosmetics company based in Bnei Brak and founded in 1989. Its products included makeup kits, hair dyes, fragrances, skincare and Dead Sea spa products for women, men and infants; the interview reported annual revenue of $8 million.[2] Rosenblum said the company’s products had been given to Israeli soldiers during the summer fighting and that the Lebanon war had not affected its business.[2] She also said the products were sold through Israeli-owned shops in the United States, while expansion into the broader American market would be difficult without a large U.S. distributor. “Israel is a small country and I’m very successful here, but I’m not well-known in America,” she said.[2]

A 2005 business interview described a company selling cosmetics and toiletries, with hair color and makeup imported from Italy and toiletries made in Israel. Rosenblum said it had four employees at its Ramat Gan Diamond Exchange offices and annual turnover of 25 million shekels. She described a policy of prioritizing profitability over sales growth and said she was preparing for a possible public offering and considering expansion into health foods and other areas; these were plans at the time, not confirmation that the projects followed.[8]

By 2007, the company had expanded into an aesthetics and laser institute, a beauty-professions academy, spa products, jewelry, linens, and cosmetics for girls and young women. It reportedly employed 140 people, while Rosenblum said it generated about 30 million shekels in annual turnover, with a 42–50% gross-profit margin.[9] Some market observers questioned whether that margin was plausible given the company’s reliance on large retail chains.[9]

Rosenblum’s other ventures included Pnina’s Sandwiches and a clothing and makeup store in Dizengoff Center.[6] In 2013, she described a difficult seven-year period in which she said she lost millions, incurred heavy debts, and had to mortgage and sell assets. She said the business had recovered and was turning over about 30 million shekels a year; the report also described a matchmaking venture she planned to use to help clients find partners.[10] In 2006, she said she was focused on establishing the Pnina Rosenblum Academy, a planned cosmetology and business-management institute in Ramat Gan. Several hundred people had applied, and the academy was scheduled to open in December.[2]

Rosenblum ran an independent list under her own name in the 1999 election for the 15th Knesset. The official results record 44,953 votes and no seats.[4] A later retrospective summarized the result as 1.3% of the vote, about 45,000 ballots, and fewer than 5,000 votes short of entering the Knesset with a second representative.[11] Rosenblum recalled being about 3,000 votes short of nearly two seats.[3]

After the election, Rosenblum joined Likud. She entered the Knesset on December 14, 2005, replacing Tzachi Hanegbi after he left Likud for Kadima, and served until April 2006.[12][13] When sworn in, she said she was honored to become a member and hoped to win election in the coming vote, while acknowledging that her time in the term would be short. She identified enabling people in Israel to age with dignity as one of her central goals.[13]

Rosenblum had been placed 39th on Likud’s list for the 16th Knesset, which enabled her to enter parliament late in its term.[12] Ahead of the 17th Knesset election, she ranked 56th in the Likud primary; Ynetnews described her as the 39th candidate on the party’s final slate for the March 2006 election. Likud did not win enough seats for her to remain in parliament.[2][12] She was later placed 46th on the Likud list for the 18th Knesset and did not enter parliament in 2009.[12]

In 2023, Rosenblum said she intended to return to politics but had not decided whether to pursue a Knesset seat or the presidency. She said she was more oriented toward running for president and wanted two years of peace to focus on business.[5]

Rosenblum married businessman Moshe Haim in 1992. The couple adopted a daughter, Chen, in Ukraine and a son, Gal, in Romania; they divorced in 2001, later remarried and divorced again. She married businessman Ronny Simanovitz in 2004.[14] Rosenblum recalled that the adoptions followed four ectopic pregnancies and an unsuccessful course of fertility treatment.[14] She also published an autobiography titled The Road to the Dream.[6]

In 2024, Rosenblum said she had released songs since October 7 that drew wide attention on social media and introduced her to younger audiences. She named “Where Were You on 7.10,” “Iran Don’t Shoot,” and “The North Is Burning,” and described herself as a “war singer” of the period.[3]

Rosenblum’s public profile has spanned modeling, film, television, music, journalism, business and politics for more than five decades. Her popularity in Israeli culture dates to the 1970s, and “Tamid Isha” remained a public hit despite finishing last in the 1983 Kdam Eurovision final.[2] Archival material also documents her participation in Tel Aviv street theater in 1986.[7] In 2024, she said her songs responding to the period after October 7 had introduced her to a younger generation through social media.[3]

Published accounts differ on the start date of Rosenblum’s cosmetics company: one profile gives 1991, while Ynetnews describes the company as founded in 1989.[6][2] The profiles also use different financial terms for a reported $8 million figure—“grossings” in the former account and “annual revenue” in Ynetnews.[6][2] Reports of how close her 1999 list came to winning a second representative likewise give different levels of precision, with Rosenblum recalling a shortfall of about 3,000 votes and a retrospective reporting fewer than 5,000.[3][11]