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Chased Out of Siberia, TV Tycoon Builds New Life in Israel

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The “Yoffi” brand is sold in several dozen shops in Israel and in the duty-free shop at Ben Gurion International Airport.
Arkady Mayofis has launched a food gifts business in Israe
At over 400 years old, Tomsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. Mayofis’ TV-2 was based there.

Arkady Mayofis, founder of Russia’s most famous regional media company, did not make aliyah (as Jewish immigration here is known), at least not by choice. He escaped from Siberia to Israel, where his family lived, after the local authorities shut down the television channel he owned and threatened him with arrest. His business – the fruit of his life’s work – was ruined. Now, starting over in his adopted home, Mayofis has launched a new venture: food gifts, made in Israel.

Based in the Siberian city of Tomsk, Mayofis’s TV-2 was one of the most respected and professional stations in Russia, competing on an equal footing with federal channels. The TV-2 phenomenon was often called the “Tomsk anomaly,” since elsewhere in Russia local television stations were either controlled by the authorities or absorbed by bigger national companies.

For years, the channel faced enormous pressure from the authorities, and by end of 2014, it reached its peak. After several months of being off the air due to “technical problems,” which the staff of the channel believed were created artificially, TV-2 was finally shut down in January 2015.

“We were not an opposition channel; we just wanted everyone to have a chance to be heard. But at some point, this too became ‘too much,’” Arkady Mayofis maintained in an interview with TPS. “It was a contract killing of the company, ordered by the federal government and carried out by the local bodies.”

Two days before TV-2 went off the air, several sources told Mayofis he would be arrested the day after the shutdown. Believing the tips, and given that his wife is a Russian Israeli and their two young children were born in Israel, Mayofis decided not to tempt fate and flew to Tel Aviv, leaving pretty much everything behind.

“I had to do something about it. About the hatred I felt. About the torturous nostalgia that seized me. And about the impeding pennilessness. I used to live on the dividends from TV-2, which was now shut down,” Mayofis told TPS. “I first thought that my skills would be in demand in the Israeli Russian media. But there is only one Russian TV channel with a small audience in Israel, while Russian-speaking media professionals arrive every day.”

When asked if it was tragic to realize he had been deprived of his profession, Mayofis said, “The whole story of my aliyah is kind of tragic.”

Mayofis decided to build something new on the ruins of his former life, something that could bring meaning to the loss he had experienced. A friend once mentioned to him that there is demand for food souvenirs in Israel, and Mayofis’s wife suggested, jokingly, a brand name for a would-be new company,with the root of the family name: “Yoffi.” The word means “nice” in Hebrew.

“Strange though it may seem given my 30-year experience in the media business, I thought the idea could work and could bring together different generations of my family. My grandfather had a fur-selling business in Riga, Latvia. He owned a big house on the central street there. In 1941, when Latvia was occupied by the Soviets, he was deprived of everything and sent to Siberia; part of the family died there. I once dreamed of buying that house in Riga to restore justice. Instead, I myself have been deprived of everything by people who admire the Soviet period of Russian history. So I decided, enough is enough. I need to break this vicious cycle. I’ll bring all my family to Israel, and we will create something new here,” Mayofis told TPS

And so he did. His daughter from his first marriage followed him, making aliyah from Moscow and starting Hebrew classes immediately to become the first Hebrew-speaking member of the family and the first employee of “Yoffi.” His son from his first marriage, who was already in Israel on one of the programs run by the Jewish Agency by the time Mayofis arrived, joined the staff. A Russian origin poses certain business challenges: Israelis are inclined to think all Russians are super-rich, Mayofis says, and add zeroes to any price. But the show goes on.

By now, about 30,000 assorted kosher food gifts made from Israeli-grown products – such as honey, tehina, dates, and carob tree powder – are being sold under the “Yoffi” brand in several dozen shops in Israel and in the duty-free shop at Ben Gurion International Airport. Mayofis wants to expand into foreign markets, too. So far, the only destination abroad is the Siberian city of Tomsk, where Mayofis’s former colleagues from TV-2 get the gifts from Israel for free.

Asked if he also sees his new venture as an attempt to fight BDS – the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement targeting Israel – Mayofis says, “No. Enough fighting for me. I do this for the future of my kids. And with love for Israel that has become my new home.”

Anna Rudnitsky (TPS)

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