Rina Mor

Accounts differ on Mor’s birthplace: a 2016 interview says she was born in Moshav Tzippori, while an older Ynet retrospective identifies Kiryat Tivon.[1][4] She grew up in Tivon; her mother was a teacher and her father a mechanic.[1] She later recalled being a shy military conscript who had not set out to become a beauty queen.[1]

A neighbor named Hefsiba repeatedly submitted Mor’s name for the competition, beginning when Mor was 17.[1][2] When an invitation to auditions arrived during her military service, Mor initially saw it as an opportunity for a day off rather than the beginning of a public career.[2] Recalling her attitude toward entering the contest, she said, in translation from Hebrew: “I went for the sport. It was clear to me that I wouldn’t win.”[1]

Mor won Miss Israel in 1976 while serving in the military, then won Miss Universe in Hong Kong several months later, receiving the crown on July 11, 1976.[1] She competed internationally as Rina Messinger.[3] A retrospective account of her preparation described her as 12 kilograms, or about 26 pounds, overweight at the initial selection stage and said she lost the weight before the competition through a crash diet.[5]

Her year as Miss Universe involved extensive international travel, public appearances, and fundraising.[1][2] Mor recalled receiving invitations from Jewish communities because she was the first Israeli winner and, as she described herself, the first Jewish winner.[1] After her victory, she met then-foreign minister Yigal Allon, who briefed her about Israel so that she could answer journalists’ questions.[1] In a 2017 interview, she said she attended events and lectured in 33 countries while raising funds for Israel.[2] She remembered a schedule organized minute by minute and said that privacy mattered to her even during that highly public year.[2]

The attention also brought extensive magazine coverage: a 2017 profile counted 18 appearances on the cover of LaIsha, including 13 in 1976.[2] Nevertheless, Mor chose not to pursue modeling after completing her reign.[1] She said that the Wilhelmina and Ford agencies made offers, but that she disliked posing and modeling and wanted work that made her happy.[1] She was uncomfortable with a public image centered on appearance and believed that the money available in modeling came at a personal cost.[1]

Mor spent two years in New York before returning to Israel.[1] A Jerusalem Post column recounts that she worked in public relations for the Jewish Agency and Israel Bonds in New York after her reign, then joined the public relations department of the Tel Aviv Hilton on returning to Israel.[6] Her subsequent work also included writing newspaper columns.[4]

At age 25, she married Doron Guder, with whom she had two daughters.[1] She began studying law at 35, after her daughters had grown, while the family was living in the Netherlands because of her husband’s business.[4] Her studies included Leiden University, specialization in antitrust law, and a degree in European law.[4] She completed undergraduate and graduate law degrees and later owned a law office specializing in family law.[1] She also volunteered with SHIL, a legal-advice service operated by the Herzliya municipality.[1]

Mor’s 1976 victory remained Israel’s first and only Miss Universe win as of 2025.[3] In 2021, she returned to the pageant’s international audience during its broadcast from Eilat, when the organization celebrated its 70th anniversary in Israel.[7] Addressing viewers, she said she was “so happy that the Miss Universe Organization chose to celebrate its 70th anniversary in Israel, in my hometown, so I could show you all our beautiful country.”[7]

Her later reflections distinguished the opportunities offered by a pageant from the decision to build a career around appearance.[1] She said she was not opposed to beauty contests and regarded a pageant as a tool whose value depended on what a participant did with it.[1] She also agreed that using one’s appearance as a resource could be legitimate.[1] In 2021, she described her feelings about the pageant’s legacy as complicated, but said she did not regret participating and considered it an opportunity of a lifetime.[7]

Discussing changing attitudes that year, Mor said she had hesitated to speak because the subject was complex.[8] She contrasted the expectations facing young Israeli women 45 years earlier—including marrying at 19—with the changed social context, and observed that the inclusion of a wider range of body types in modeling was progressing slowly.[8]

Mor’s victory came in the week after the Entebbe raid, and contemporary Israeli media carried suggestions that she had received the crown as a favor rather than on merit.[1] She rejected that interpretation, saying that the judges barely knew what Israel was.[1] Mor also recalled being told years later that the Miss Universe organization’s director had hoped she would not win because the company would need to provide bodyguards during her year as titleholder.[1]