(PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE)

The employees of the Steimatzky store in Jerusalem surprised Professor Avraham Benial, who celebrated his 100th birthday this week!

Prof. Avraham Benial visits the Steimatzky store in the Moshava neighborhood in Jerusalem every day, updating himself, flipping through the pages of new books and always buys a magazine or newspaper.

It was natural that on the morning of his 100th birthday the employees of the store would surprise him at the branch with a birthday party.

Benial was born at the end of the First World War, made bombs for the British army, was one of the founders of chemical industries in Israel, advised companies all over the world – and now wants to reduce the consumption of sugar.

He came to Israel from Poland as a pioneer youth, went to study chemistry in France, returned to Israel, manufactured chemicals for the British army, enlisted in defense, was a founder of a subsidiary of ICL, and advised many start-ups.

His latest venture was to address global sugar addiction. And as befits a man of his age and experience, he demonstrates a rare combination of traditional thinking and originality: the longed-for withdrawal of mankind from sugar probably will not come in the next few years, so at least use less. On the basis of this assumption, there is “Du-Matok”, which increases the surface area of sugar crystals in a way that allows one grain to have a sweetness effect of two or more grains.

“This is a project that I began to think about during the Mandate period,” Benial says. “My interest in sugar began at a time when there was a huge shortage of land in almost everything,” says a friend of a friend who was a teacher who asked me to help her get starch for the pudding that the children are having lunch with. , Make it thicker and the taste will stay longer in the mouth, I got the starch for it, I wrote the idea for a note on it – and I came back to it after more than 50 years.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)