Dorrit Moussaieff

Dorrit Moussaieff (Hebrew: דורית מוסאיוף), (born 12 January 1950) is the Israeli-born British-Icelandic First Lady of Iceland, jewelry designer, editor, and businesswoman.

Early Life

Moussaieff was born in Jerusalem, Israel, to a wealthy devout Sephardic-observant Bukharian Jewish family from Bukhara, Uzbekistan, part of the Emirate of Bukhara. The Moussaieff family is part of a long dynasty of jewelers. She is the great granddaughter of Shlomo Moussaieff (rabbi) and her cousins are pianist James Raphael and author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson . It is said that Dorrit's family, the Moussaieffs, wove the robe of Genghis Khan. Her great grandmother, Esther Gaonoff, was from Bukhara but had some Moroccan Jewish ancestry. Her father, Shlomo Moussaieff (businessman), is a Bukharian Jew but her mother, Aliza, is an Austrian Jew of Ashkenazi heritage. Moussaieff says, "As far as I'm concerned, the difference between Ashkenazim and Sephardim is that at my first grandmother's place there was good food and at my Ashkenazi grandmother's place the food was bad." Moussaieff was born and raised in the Bukharian Jewish Quarter, Jerusalem but when she was thirteen, she and her family moved to London. She suffered from dyslexia and didn't attend ordinary schools but was taught at home. In addition to English and Hebrew, she also learned to speak German, French, and the Icelandic language.

Career

Moussaieff became interested in jewelry at a very young age. She spent a lot of childhood years at her family's jewellery store and developed a love for designing. In her life, she has become a very successful jewlery designer and it made her very wealthy. She said, "At the age of 14 I started to work in my parents' jewelry shop at the Hilton Park Lane in London. I was very lonely. I had no friends at all. It was a hard time for me - all I did was sell jewelry. It's in my blood, you know; some people are artists or writers, but I am a jewelry salesperson in the blood, that's what I was born for." Moussaieff has been active in British and American cultural life. She is a contributing editor to British society magazine Tatler

She participates in other business transactions as well. She was a part of an organization that had constructed an office building at Canary Wharf, London. They made an estimated profit of 25 million pounds. They are now involved in a tourism projecy in the Turkish part of Cyprus.

First Lady of Iceland

Moussaieff married Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, president of Iceland on his 60th birthday. She is the current First Lady of Iceland and has likely become the most significant Jew in Icelandic history. In recent years, she has helped present Icelandic culture abroad. Moussaieff has helped to publicize the Icelandic artists. She also worked to help the young children who are handicapped. With Olafur, Moussaieff supported overseas ventures by the companies in Iceland and is finding different markets for Icelandic products.

Honors

Moussaieff was one the Harper's Magazine List of the Most Connected People in Britain. She ranked the third spot. Moussaieff was also named Woman of 2006 by popular Icelandic glossy magazine Nýtt Líf.

Personal Life

Moussaieff married twice. The first, was with a Jewish designer named Neil Zarak, but they got divorced. Moussaieff did not remarry for the next 30 years until she married the President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson.

Moussaieff says that she's "religious in the soul" and she still follows some aspects of Judaism. For example, on the eve of Hannukkah, she remembered that she was supposed to light the first candle of the menorah. A menorah was found for her and after lighting the candle, she taught her husband about the holiday. In May 2006, while visiting Israel, Moussaieff was detained at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. According to reports, Moussaieff got into an argument with security personnel who refused to acknowledge her British passport. Immigration officers stated that she was obliged by Israeli law to enter and exit the country using her Israeli passport only, or face prosecution. When Moussaieff could not produce an Israeli passport, it is alleged that staff became rude and aggressive, asking her suggestive, personal and racist questions. Moussaieff reportedly responded with various insults of her own by saying, "This is about to become a serious diplomatic incident. This is why everyone hates Jews." Part of the incident was captured on film and shown on Israeli television. This caused a minor international incident since it involved the first lady of Iceland. The Israeli Embassy in Norway, which handles diplomatic ties with Iceland, later expressed regret over the incident, though it restated the law that Israeli citizens must carry their Israeli passports when in the country. Moussaieff carries an Israeli and a British citizenship and received Icelandic citizenship on 31 July 2006.

Many Icelandic people did not like the way that their First Lady was treated by the Israeli workers at the airport. They said, "It was a shock to us to hear how Dorrit Moussaieff was treated, especially since she has been active in introducing Jewish culture in our country in a very positive way."