About the Dan David Center

​Dan David was born in Bucharest, Romania to a Jewish family. After living through World War II and the Holocaust, he became active in the Zionist movement “Hanoar Hatzioni.” He quickly distinguished himself and rose to leadership of the group by helping to organize the illegal immigration (“Aliyah Beth”) of Romanian Jews to British-controlled Palestine. When the Romanian government shut down all non-communist organizations, Dan enrolled in university where he studied economics and became a professional photographer. He worked for several newspapers and magazines, earning a number of awards, but his past political activity restricted him from leaving the country. It also led to him being fired from his job and arrested and interrogated by the secret police.

Finally allowed to leave Romania in 1960, he fled with his mother and grandmothers and became a penniless refugee. The family immigrated to Israel, where Dan worked with famed Israeli photographer Rudi Weisseinstein.

In 1961, Dan transitioned from the art of photography to the business of photography. After seeing an automatic photobooth during a trip to France, he decided to bring this product to Israel. Thus began the first venture of his long and successful business career. In 1962, thanks to a no-guarantee, no-interest loan from a distant cousin, he opened a company in Italy for the operation of photobooths and other automatic vending equipment. He would later establish and develop operations in Spain, the United States, Japan and other countries, eventually becoming the chairman and a key investor in Photo-Me International, a global photobooth operator headquartered in the United Kingdom and quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

Never forgetting that his career was launched by a generous loan from his cousin, Dan remained active in philanthropy. He believed he should use his success to give back to society – as he often repeated: “Money can be a measure of success, but should never be an end in itself.”

In 2000 he established the Dan David Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting research, academic excellence and breakthrough advancements in the sciences and the humanities. Its main project is the Dan David Prize, which every year awards three one-million-dollar prizes to scientists, researchers, academics and humanists who have made extraordinary contributions to humanity.

Dan was likened to a Renaissance man, whose interests ranged from literature to the exact sciences and from music to playing chess and cycling. He always had a strong passion for history, archaeology, anthropology and the study of human evolution. Through the Dan David Foundation, he supported many projects in these fields, both in Israel and abroad, ranging from research on the history of Jews in Southern Italy to paleontological digs in prehistoric caves. He was particularly active in backing anthropological research at Tel Aviv University, with a particular focus on the origins of humankind and the early human presence in the Levant.

After Dan passed away in London in 2011, the Dan David Foundation continued to support the ideals and causes that were close to his heart and mind. For this reason, in 2015, the Foundation decided to establish the Dan David Center for Research in Human Evolution and Bio-History, as part of the The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at Tel Aviv University. The Center houses the University’s extensive anthropological collection, one of the most unique in the world. Granting access to the collection and to the University’s scholars in this field creates key educational and research opportunities for the public and visiting scholars, perpetuating the spirit of knowledge, discovery and wonder that burned so strongly in the heart of Dan David.