Farewell to Shmuel Harlap: Entrepreneur, Manager, and Philanthropist

Dr. Shmuel Harlap was an unusual phenomenon in the upper echelons of the Israeli business world. An academic, holding a doctorate from Harvard University, a man with clear social views and a desire to correct injustices, who became one of the largest car importers in Israel. Despite a fortune estimated in the billions, he shunned the trappings of wealth. Even his workplace in the famous "Pyramid House" on HaMasger Street, where Colmobil's offices were located at the beginning of its journey, and later in the huge complex in Rosh HaAyin to which the group moved — were modest and close to the center of business.

Harlap was born in 1944 to Matilda and Amichai Harlap, a lawyer who founded Colmobil in 1962 after receiving the import franchise for Mercedes-Benz to Israel. Shmuel Harlap, by his own account, did not intend to join the family business from the start. After serving in the Golani reconnaissance unit and fighting as a reservist on the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War, he completed a master's degree in political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and then went on to doctoral studies in philosophy at Harvard University. There, he said, he had the privilege of studying under names like John Rawls and Robert Nozick.

At the end of his studies, he returned and taught political science at the Hebrew University. Only in the early 80s did he turn to the family business. He used to describe this transition as a discovery: the business world, he said, turned out to be much simpler and more direct than philosophy, and more oriented toward human relations than theoretical thought.

Seeing the future

Harlap gradually acquired the shares of two of his brothers and became the controlling owner of Colmobil, and at the same time the group expanded from an importer of a single luxury brand and heavy vehicles to an importer of Mitsubishi, which in its peak period became the best-selling brand in Israel. Later, the company also became an importer of the Korean Hyundai, which is still considered a dominant player in the Israeli automotive industry today.

At the beginning of the current decade, the company decided on a change in the management structure, in which a professional CEO was appointed for the group's business and the family members remained in the strategic decision-making system, but not in the day-to-day management.

In the last three years, the company identified the rising power of Chinese car brands and the shifts in power in the global automotive industry and obtained the import franchise for two sub-brands of the Chery group, Jaecoo and Omoda. Within less than two years, these almost unknown brands became the growth engine for the entire Colmobil group and sales leaders in the Israeli car market. At the same time, the group expanded its activity into the energy and real estate sectors and into the field of car marketing abroad.

But beyond the precise identification of trends and brands in the global and Israeli market, Dr. Shmuel Harlap earned a reputation as a "future reader" thanks to the story of the investment in Mobileye, in which he invested millions of dollars back in 1999-2003, when the young company, which held technology that was ahead of its time, was knocking on the doors of car importers. Harlap continued to hold the shares, which constituted almost 10% of Mobileye, even when the company went public and many car importers rushed to realize their holdings at a nice profit. He finally sold his holding when the company was sold to Intel in 2017 in a deal of more than 15 billion dollars, and reaped about a billion dollars from the deal before taxes.

Later, he described the investment as a purely intuitive bet, made without the ability to perform a real due diligence. Later, he even confessed that he hoped the company would remain independent and become Israel's "new Check Point".

He continued to be interested in autonomous vehicle technology even years later, but maintained a sober view: in interviews, he said that in his opinion, it is not the technology that is delaying the transition to an autonomous vehicle, but the human anxiety about giving up control of the steering wheel. In the same spirit, he saw electric vehicles mainly as a technical upgrade and not a real revolution, and predicted that China, not the West, would dictate the agenda in this field.

Over 20 years of donations

Parallel to business, Harlap and his wife Anat were involved in philanthropic activity for over twenty years, which gained momentum in recent years. In a rare joint interview that the couple gave to Globes (September 2025), they said that it all started about two decades ago, when Anat urged Shmuel to act after she heard an interview with the mayor of Kiryat Shmona about Hezbollah's shelling of the city — and he invited residents from a shelled neighborhood for a weekend at a hotel in Jerusalem at his own expense.

Since then, a consistent principle has accompanied the couple: they deliberately avoid putting their name on buildings or departments they donate to, out of a perception that a true donation is net, not gross, and that the goal is recognition, not personal commemoration; not to build personal "monuments".

Among the couple's prominent projects: a donation for the establishment of an underground emergency room at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon; a donation, following the outbreak of the "Iron Swords" war, of 120 Mitsubishi vehicles to residents of four kibbutzim in the Gaza envelope who were severely affected at the beginning of the war; a donation to the Weizmann Institute of Science for the restoration of damage from an Iranian missile attack; and the huge donation — about 600 million shekels for the establishment of the "Tower of Hope" at Beilinson Hospital, a hospitalization tower for heart and brain medicine that had been stuck for years due to a lack of budget. According to the couple, the tower is named so out of hope that it will help bring back to Israel doctors and professionals who left the country.

Anat Harlap described in the same interview also personal and not just financial involvement: assistance in absorbing sick children who were smuggled from Ukraine to Schneider Hospital at the beginning of the war there, and discreet assistance to the hospital staff in preparing for the absorption of children of hostages who returned from Gaza.

Shmuel Harlap - prominent stations in his life

1. Born in 1944, served in the Golani reconnaissance unit

2. Holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the Hebrew University and a doctorate from Harvard University

3. Appointed chairman of Colmobil in 1982, after acquiring control from his brothers

4. Expanded the automotive group's activity - led the import of Mitsubishi and Hyundai brands; and identified the Chinese vehicle trend

5. Harlap was among the first investors in Mobileye, and benefited from the sale of the company to Intel

6. The Harlap couple donated 120 cars to the Gaza envelope kibbutzim after 7.10; 10 million dollars to the Weizmann Institute for missile damage restoration; and 180 million dollars to the Heart and Brain Center at Beilinson

Business, intellect, and sport

Those who knew Harlap describe a style unique to an Israeli businessman: a combination of philosophical wit, a tendency to quote thinkers and historians — from Rawls and Nozick to Doris Kearns Goodwin and Mark Twain — alongside business directness and a sense of self-humor. He used to describe his life as divided into three worlds: business, intellect, and sport, which he started in his 60s. At one point, he ran about 10 kilometers three times a week, and also ran full marathons.

He and his wife maintained privacy and refused to address financial details in their donations. However, in the two main interviews he gave throughout the decade, his willingness to talk about controversial political positions — wealth taxation, settlements, PM Netanyahu — stood out, contrary to the practice among many Israeli businessmen.