Israeli beauty

So we gathered round, broke open the chips, brainstormed, wept and injected Botox straight up the jugular, but Ynet readers finally managed to come up with a list of Israeli most beautiful divas. They had to be pretty, of course, but to make this list they needed something extra, glamorous, mysterious and gorgeous.

We took pride in her oh-so-Israeli beauty in the television series “Ramat Aviv Gimmel”, but her luscious ripeness (which carries a tinge of sexiness) has also been discovered by the Americans. Now she lives in LA, and slowly finds her way onto television. Her feline beauty screams out – “I am not blonde!”, and thank God for that. Her hobbies, according to Wikipedia, are “painting, reading, riding and pets.”

Not a blonde: Tishbi (Photo: PR)

She is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful women in the history of Israel. Her boyish and angel-like beauty, Woodstock-style, has evolved over the years to a ripe beauty, much more interesting and still refreshing. Remember how during the 70’s we walked around without bras? Didn’t that feel great? That’s how it feels with Atzmon. Liberated, natural and still everything is in place.

Immortal beauty, nothing less. She was one of the first to make it to the billboard that overlooks the Ayalon highway. Even that was too small-scale for her; she went off to do her wonders abroad, and stayed there. She looks like she was drawn by an artist’s paintbrush.

Bold look

Why her? Because one look is enough to see that we are not up to the challenge, but we still love her when she is playing are hard to get.

160 centimeters of part-child, part-woman, but passionate like a volcano. She made n impressive career out of still-photography modeling, without even stepping on a runway. And she also managed to spend time with Dudi Blasser, before she retired from the hipster’s life and settled for a camera-shy marriage.

Like a volcano (Photo: Guy Koshi) 

She simply gets better with time, and not in the cliché sense of the word. She possesses a quiet, humble and penetrating beauty, which is not too overbearing or too flattering. She sparkled during the 80’s, but when we were looking for updated pictures of her, we discovered that she still has an honorary place next to models who have yet to learn what she has already forgotten.

Gets better with time

Way before Ilanit was Ilanit Levi, we had Ilanit. Simply Ilanit, like Rita, Madonna and Prince. Back in the days when blonde was real, Ilanit was our first glamorous representative at the Eurovision. She both European and rooted in Israel, and sang good-old-Israel songs. For seven straight years she was Female Singer of the Year, an achievement that no one has managed to recreate.

“The Singer of all Wars” is not exactly the title an artist would like to grow into, including Yarkoni herself. But, over the years, at the age of 76, Yarkoni is still the noble woman with the deep and national voice, and the determined look. If Broadway was in Israel, today we might have remembered her as the singer of all stages. Either way, she is one of the gorgeous ones.

Still noble at 76 (Photo: GPO)

A long time before Rosenblum became the imitation of her own impersonation in “Eretz Nehederet”, and a businesswoman/aspiring politician, she was considered one of our most successful glamour girls. She toured the world, mingled with a few celebrities and even dated Robert DeNiro for two minutes. Since then, she has done everything on her own: got in and out of politics, got married and divorced twice to a man with two first names, who was younger than her by quite a few years. She sang, wrote, earned credit and sold shampoo. And to top it all off, her figure bares no clue that this woman is already eyeing her 50’s from the other side of the scale.

A real survivor (Photo: Moshe Milner, GPO)

One of a kind. She has a childish, blonde beauty and sex appeal that has become a brand that’s bigger than life, and she is only 26. If you say sex appeal, you mean Yael Bar-Zohar. Very angry talkbacks demanded her presence among the group of divas, and indeed after a ten-year career at the top, her entire future is still ahead. One innocent picture on a horse grants her a spot on the list.

The meaning of sex appeal

In a nutshell, the woman has hardly changed since she was a glamour girl during the 70’s. A stubborn remnant of the times when “it was rumored that…”, well, she insists she never had any operation done, and whatever the genes didn’t do, swimming and running on a daily basis on the beach complemented. We prefer not to argue.

70s glamor girl 

You’re right, she thinks the scene from “Dizengoff 99” is a black hole in her career that she would rather forget, but still she has a part in the sexual history of this country. She was not a glamour girl in the traditional sense of the term, but was always considered beautiful. And yes, even in her romantic trophy cabinet you can find a short affair with Robert DeNiro during the 70’s, and another one with Ahara’le Barnea.

(Photo: Saar Yaakov, GPO) 

She was considered a certified heartbreaker and a girl who likes to get married. She has a boyish beauty that she preserves to this day, but is mostly known for her charisma, which she does not hesitate to make use of. She managed to get married several times, including to foreign actor David Brenner, and producer Yoram Globus. They separated after a short while, and Globus married Lev’s sister-in-law at the time, who became Leah Globus.

Certified heartbreaker (Photo: Moshe Milner, GPO)

Oh, what a star, and she didn’t really have to be born for it. Ozeri is the girl that when she was around, no one really cared who won “A Star is Born”. She was a favorite to win the show, and we all saw her singing abilities dwindle down, but on the other side her beauty just got better. The lead role for the biographical movie on Ofra Haza is already tailored for her. She is a classic beauty but not boring, with innocent but rich features, and a star quality that cannot be missed. Give her a token, and we’ll meet at the next list.

Lenient rules 

She’s got a cultural pedigree, after all, she is the daughter of poet Avot Yeshurun. That did not prevent her from being an actress-model-glamour-girl during the Seventies, but like almost every ex-model, she dislikes the categorization, and prefers to concentrate on translating literature and poetry. She was married to Jacques Cathmore and after the divorce, Cathmore became the guru of the bohemian creative minds at “The Third Eye”. The group was mostly concerned with, well, drugs, screwing and art, or as Yeshurun herself defined later, “the entire ‘Third Eye’ was all crap. What was that? It was more like ‘The Third Penis’.” And for that we thank her.

Artistic nudity

Israeli beauty – that’s how the industry people like to categorize her, and that’s how photographer and agent Adi Barkan, who made her (and then made her again), liked to market her. She became the object of fantasies of the whole country, and scattered smiles and warmth everywhere. She was like a butterfly that radiates nature and vivacity. Afterwards, the party with Adi Barkan was over, but that was just so a Hollywood-style celebration with Aki Avni could get her on her feet. Later, all kinds of impersonations sprung up, that proved that nature might not get it wrong twice, but probably gets it right more than once.

The aristocratic version of Twiggy was borne at the end of the 20th century at the “Allenby 58” club, and started a relationship with Doron Eyal, a.k.a. “Shultz the Terrible”. This relationship was quick to earn a spot in the Tel Aviv scene of the nineties. Her transparent porcelain look and Shultz’s ambition pushed her to a colorful career abroad. Eventually they split up, and today, Nina, 28, is raising two offspring with her second husband, Asi, and as they say on TV – she is resting.

Aristocratic version of Twiggy (Photo: Meir Fartush)