In the late 1950s, as Israel was taking its first steps out of the austerity period, a wealthy and ostentatious class began to emerge in Tel Aviv, informally known as “the glittering circle.” One of its well-known members was Israel Ben-Zioni, an artist, writer, cartographer and social figure who lived an openly luxurious lifestyle. But behind the bourgeois facade lay a dark secret: Ben-Zioni was revealed to be a serial burglar who robbed his wealthy friends to fund his lifestyle in a case that shook the country.
The night of May 13, 1958, was especially hot in Tel Aviv. At the time, the city was suffering from a wave of burglaries that embarrassed police, who were on high alert.
The drama began when a concerned resident called police and reported suspicious noises coming from beneath his home on Keren Kayemet Boulevard, now Ben-Gurion Boulevard.
Police units were quickly dispatched. In the darkness, officers spotted a 42-year-old man in a courtyard. He did not look like a typical criminal; on the contrary, he was dressed very elegantly. When he noticed the officers, he quickly threw an object over a fence, but suspicion had already been raised. Despite the heat, he was wearing gloves. A quick search found a flashlight in his pocket, and the thrown object was soon identified as a screwdriver.
Faced with the evidence, the mysterious man broke down on the spot and admitted he had planned to break into the apartment of a doctor on the first floor.
But the climax was still ahead: when officers asked him to enter the police vehicle for further questioning, he politely refused, noting there was no need since he had arrived in his own car — a luxury light-blue Willys Aero. In a desperate attempt to avoid arrest, he even offered officers a bribe of 1,000 lira. The attempt failed, and he was driven to the station in his luxury car, with a police officer seated beside him. Thus, the legend of the “shining burglar” was born.
Later investigations revealed the scale of the phenomenon. The burglar was none other than Israel Ben-Zioni, who lived with his wife in a luxurious apartment on Jabotinsky Street in north Tel Aviv, was a regular at high-society parties and drove a new car. He confessed to no fewer than 154 burglaries across Tel Aviv and central Israel, most of them in the homes of members of the “glittering circle.”
In court, Ben-Zioni put on an extraordinary performance. He arrived in strange clothing, interrupted judges and made bizarre claims in an attempt to avoid punishment. He claimed insanity, declared himself a “one-man underground” and even insisted he was a prophet who committed crimes to warn the public.
His method was especially cynical: he would use invitations to parties and social gatherings in wealthy homes to conduct advance “scouting visits,” identifying where hosts hid cash and diamonds.
When investigators asked why a man with such a fine apartment and an eye-catching car would need to break into homes at all, Ben-Zioni replied that he had no choice, claiming he had built a luxurious house in Tel Aviv and was “forced to get the money.”
At the early stages of the case, a gag order was placed on his name, fueling journalists’ imagination and leading to nicknames such as “the burglar painter” and “the gentleman burglar,” until “the shining burglar” became a brand of its own.
He was charged with stealing 100,000 lira, a sum equivalent to about 1.5 million shekels today. Despite his theatrical courtroom performance, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
To the frustration of his victims, they never recovered their money. Ben-Zioni had previously registered all his assets under his wife’s name, and at the time the law did not allow authorities to seize a spouse’s property.
Behind bars, he used his time to develop his writing talent and published two books. In 1965, after his sentence was reduced by a third, he was released. But it appeared crime still called him: shortly after his release, he was caught again attempting to break into an apartment in Tel Aviv and was sent back to prison for another three years.