The 76-year-old Ehud Brunitsky, founder of the Yazamco company, did not rest for a moment. He started out as a salesman for pocket computers and today he markets, among other things , 3D printers that produce prostheses for the IDF wounded. At the age of ten, a short time after immigrating with his Holocaust survivor parents from Poland, Ehud Bronitsky was sent to an immigrant institution in Jerusalem. To this day, he does not know why they They decided to send him to a boarding school, far from home in Givat Ada, he never asked them either.
He assumes that the difficult economic situation and their inability to give him the best left them no choice. "I was forged there," he laughs. "Instead of being pampered by a caring Polish mother, I was thrown into the water and there was only one choice: swim or drown." And he swam, and how. Brunitsky, who was born ten days after the 29th of November, feels a deep connection to the country of his age, where he established a prosperous business with ten fingers. But today he is very worried about its future and its security and economic existence.
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Maya, his daughter, one of his six children born to the three women he was married to in the past, sits next to him throughout the interview, wrapping his arms around him, helping him and reminding him here and there of details he left out. He sails through memories of his parents, who both imprisoned their spouses and children in the camps, but never felt victimized. His father fled to Russia, became a senior officer and fought the Nazis.
His mother saved Polish prisoners from a concentration camp, when she escaped into it with wire cutters with the help of which they managed to cut the fence and escape under the cover of the Russian bombings. They met when he came to liberate Bialystok and she was a newspaper reporter. They got married, gave birth to their son Ehud and only immigrated to Israel in the mid-1950s when the mother, a Zionist at heart, pressured her husband to give up the good job he had at the bar and live in the Holy Land.
Yazmko was established in 1972 when the young Bronicki was turned on by pocket computers, which were the splendor of technology at the time, and started selling the most basic ones, the ones with four operations, to garages. He had a genius marketing trick: using the "constant factor" button they had, he calculated interest in seconds and left them speechless.
"I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning."
He explains: "But the characteristic that characterized me, then and today, is not to repeat the same mistake twice but to learn a lesson and move forward. What I have to say to business owners who have a small business is that the business comes first, not the car, the apartment or the trips abroad. Business has a soul. And if you don't push the business all the time, and understand that the client's ego is way before your ego, and your employees are an asset and allies and not an exchangeable commodity, you will never succeed. People have been working for us for 40 years and I'm proud of that."
At some point Brunitsky realized that he couldn't continue to be what he calls an importer "de la shamte", selling cheap pocket computers that break down all the time, and he could become a distributor – and grow. He started selling automatic secretaries, typewriters, internal intercom, devices that needed maintenance, with the concept that if the customer chose him, he should take care and give him the best service.
"I started to feel financially well-off and then the photocopiers started coming out. Most of the offices didn't have one. One of the importers had a small photocopier and I convinced him to make me its exclusive distributor. I sat with him on Friday for hours. I remember that his wife had already entered the house with the baskets and I said: 'Until you I don't sign with me, I'm not leaving here.'
"Then I heard about a new patent, of printing directly from the computer and I wanted to be among the first to bring laser printers to Israel. Today we are the exclusive importers of the Japanese Kyosera, we also deal in computing and we have entered strongly into the field of coffee machines for offices and 3D printers. When my customers ask what do you print? I Says: 'Black, white and false teeth.'"
A year and a half ago, Yazmko acquired NY3D, a start-up that deals with 3D printers , which had reached its glass ceiling and was perfectly suited to the technological development that its active chairman, who was not very young in age, but a teenager at heart, was looking for. Bronitsky: "The CEO really found I like it. A decent, commercial person who is always looking for solutions, an entrepreneur like me. I like young people who don't accept the given situation as a starting point. We changed his name to 3D There are still shares and he serves as its CEO, and I have a son who really enjoys working there.
"We sell the printers, lease them, supply them with materials and provide service. There are customers we print for with us. Anyone who enters our business in Petah Tikva sees secretaries, salespeople and 3D printers that make models for customers. We sold printers to defense companies that make prostheses for the wounded "To".
On October 7, he was with his partner in Thailand. "In the ten months before the war, I participated in demonstrations because I think we should be a democratic, normal and successful country. Religion is a very, very nice thing. Those who believe should take care of it, but there must not be a connection between religion and politics. We will overcome this crisis as well."
He returned to a grief-stricken country. "This is a terrible blow to everyone who was hurt there and to all of us. But I think that the people of Israel are stronger than this and we will overcome this crisis as well. The public is the one that testifies to our strength as a people. I was at the demonstrations and there I met these people. Even if there were tens of thousands and you were pushing, you didn't feel aggressive. But mutual support. I saw the volunteering, the donations and the attitude to those who were hurt, and it made me realize that we have a wonderful public. When I look at the war in Gaza, there are mistakes here and there, but you see the people are stronger than their politicians Son, but it's a matter of a few months until everything changes."
When the war broke out, Maya took on the family volunteering project, loaded coffee machines onto a cart, and went out with workers who joined the outposts in Otef – Nir Oz, Nahal Oz, Urim, and later went north as well. Soldiers who came out of 60 days in Gaza, received a latte, reverse and espresso with soy milk, oat or regular milk, and a warm hug.
Printing the prostheses with 3D printers significantly improved the fit of the prostheses to the injured. "We have manual scanners that map the place to which the prosthesis is intended in the body, and using the computer it is accurately printed. If a soldier is missing a part of the skull, in the past they would make a metal prosthesis to complete it, and it was never perfectly fitted, which would have created additional medical problems They changed the prototyping world and introduced new technologies quickly.
"The 3D printers save lives. The skull is scanned, it is made of plastic, and then the prosthesis, and the doctors can practice on the model, not operate on a blind person. There is a plastic material called FDM that comes in coils, or a metal powder, based on titanium, from which a part is made Of the bushings. Each printer has different uses. They are also used to make combat accessories, such as assault handles and night vision cameras."
Yazmko is run by two joint CEOs, and so that they don't compete, Bronitsky laughs, there is a deputy CEO below them and he trusts this trio completely. Some of his children work in the company and he hopes they will advance and manage it in the future: "Managing a company of 190 employees, close to ten thousand customers, and a turnover of one hundred million shekels is not easy."
He closed the circle with Poland, where he was born, when he returned there as a businessman. "I had a company there that marketed water dispensers, it was number two in the country and was sold to an American company. In addition, I also had two restaurants, one of which I called 'Warsaw Jerusalem', which was designed according to the regions of the country, and had singing waiters. Groups of boys who went on trips in Poland were We come to eat before the flight to Israel. Two of my children live there, with one of my divorcees."
He sees how the country is torn between two currents, and his heart breaks. "I really hope that the flow of people who are connected to reality and the truth, members of the liberal Zionist current, will increase in strength. I feel that it is worth fighting for this country. The younger generation, our children and grandchildren, have become citizens of the world. If there is not a strong government here that knows how to build enough apartments, at a price It is likely that they will leave here. We have entrepreneurs here that are not found anywhere else in the world, nurture them and most importantly – this country exists for the citizens and not the other way around.
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