Efi (Efraim) Arazi

Efi (Efraim) Arazi (April 14, 1937–April 14, 2013) was an Israeli engineer, technology entrepreneur, business leader, and philanthropist who helped establish the model on which much of Israel's high-tech industry would later thrive. As the founder of Scitex, he built an Israeli multinational that developed advanced systems for digital imaging, prepress, printing, and publishing, sold its products in more than forty countries, and employed thousands of people at its height.

Arazi's importance extends beyond the success of a single company. Beginning in the late 1960s, he demonstrated that research and development conducted in Israel could support sophisticated products, an international sales organization, and sustained competition in demanding global markets. He later founded Electronics for Imaging, led ventures in digital television and e-commerce search, and invested in computer-science education. Together, these activities made him a formative figure in the development of Israel's technology economy.

From Jerusalem to advanced electronics

Arazi was born and raised in Jerusalem, the son of Giselle and Shlomo Arazi. His father was an engineer who served as a technical adviser to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Efi attended Gymnasia Rehavia and later transferred to the Israeli Air Force's technical school in Haifa. He entered military service in 1954 and worked as an Air Force radar technician. In 1957, he received recognition for an inventive technical solution connected with radar equipment taken into Israeli service after the Sinai Campaign.

In 1958, Arazi left for the United States to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he lacked a standard Israeli matriculation certificate, MIT admitted him as an exceptional candidate, and he completed his electronics engineering studies with high honors. While studying, he worked on scientific instrumentation at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard in NASA-funded research. The work involved electronics, sensing, and the transmission of visual information under difficult conditions—the same broad fields that would define much of his career. By the age of 23, he had been appointed a research associate at Harvard.

An image Arazi created by computer in 1962 appeared on the January 1963 cover of Computers and Automation. Editor Edmund Berkeley described it using the term “computer art,” and the image was among the works that encouraged him to establish an annual computer-art competition. This episode placed Arazi near an early meeting point of computing and visual creativity, decades before digital graphics became an everyday medium.

Scitex and an Israeli export industry

In 1963, Arazi joined the American company Itek, where he worked as a senior engineer on electro-optical imaging systems and telescopes intended for observation from space. He wanted to adapt the knowledge accumulated in such projects to civilian uses and proposed creating an Israeli research and development center. After returning to Israel in 1967, he brought the plan to fruition. Scientific Technology was founded in 1968 with backing from Itek and Discount Investments.

The young company initially developed advanced equipment for the textile industry, but under Arazi's leadership it shifted toward printing and imaging technology and adopted the name Scitex. Its hardware and software helped printing houses, publishers, and graphic designers process color images, prepare pages for production, create color separations, and manage increasingly complex prepress work by computer. At a time when much of color printing still depended on manual and mechanical processes, these systems made production faster, more precise, and more flexible.

Scitex established subsidiaries that sold and supported its products directly in more than forty countries. It was therefore more than an inventive engineering operation: it became one of the early Israeli technology companies to build an international organization around locally developed, knowledge-intensive products. During its second decade, its sales and workforce expanded rapidly. At its peak, Scitex employed approximately 4,000 people, and in 1990—after Arazi had left its management—the company reported sales of about $600 million.

The effect on Israel reached well beyond those figures. Scitex trained engineers, programmers, product managers, and international sales executives, many of whom later founded companies or assumed influential positions elsewhere in the technology sector. It supplied an early, highly visible example of an Israeli research operation becoming the foundation of a multinational business rather than remaining a subcontractor for a foreign corporation. Arazi stepped down as Scitex's chief executive and president in June 1988 and remained chairman until January 1989.

Bringing high-quality color to personal computing

In 1989, Arazi founded Electronics for Imaging, widely known as EFI, in the United States. His goal was to move sophisticated color capabilities out of specialized industrial systems and into the world of personal computers, office copiers, and printers. EFI developed processing and control technology that translated digital computer files into high-quality color output, making advanced printing useful to a much broader range of customers.

The company worked with major manufacturers including Xerox, Kodak, and Canon. Rather than building every component of a printer, EFI supplied the critical intelligence between the computer and the output device. This approach helped expand practical color digital printing in offices, studios, and commercial production environments. EFI went public on Nasdaq in 1992, and by October 1997 its reported market value had reached approximately $2.7 billion. Arazi subsequently sold his remaining stake.

The two companies reflected related stages in the transformation of visual communication. Scitex helped computerize professional publishing and prepress; EFI helped make color output from ordinary computers commercially accessible. Through both, Arazi contributed to the wider transition from analog production methods to digital workflows used in publishing, advertising, design, and business communication.

Digital television, search, and later ventures

In 1995, Arazi became president and chief executive of iMedia Corporation, which developed compression and management tools for digital video carried by cable, satellite, and terrestrial television operators. Video compression allowed operators to transmit more channels through existing infrastructure and manage digital programming more efficiently. In 1996, iMedia signed a reported eight-year, $80 million agreement with TCI, then a major cable television company. Terayon acquired iMedia in July 1999 in a transaction valued at approximately $100 million.

Arazi was also an early investor in and chairman of Mercado, a company that built search technology for e-commerce websites. At its height, Mercado employed about 120 people and recorded annual sales of roughly $20 million. Later in his life, Arazi served as chairman of Seerun. His movement from computerized printing to digital broadcasting, online search, and information systems reflected a consistent interest in fields where rapidly growing quantities of content required new tools for processing, finding, and distributing information.

Education, scholarships, and the next generation

Arazi complemented his business career with sustained support for technology education. The computer science school at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya—now Reichman University—was founded in 1996 and was later named the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science. Its degree programs combine rigorous computer-science education with an awareness of entrepreneurship and practical application, mirroring the connection between engineering and institution-building that characterized Arazi's own career.

In 1999, he initiated the “Efi Scholarships” program for outstanding students selected for creativity, original thought, and leadership potential. This support gave his philanthropy a practical, forward-looking purpose: helping students pursue advanced education while strengthening the pool of researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs available to Israeli society. The school bearing his name continues to connect his legacy with the training of new generations.

Professional recognition and final years

In 1992, Arazi received an outstanding entrepreneur award from Tel Aviv University's entrepreneurship center. In 1997, he was awarded the Edwin H. Land Medal, named for the founder of Polaroid, in recognition of his contribution to digital imaging technology. He also received international recognition for innovative technology management in connection with the television industry's gathering in Montreux, Switzerland.

Arazi died of Alzheimer's disease on April 14, 2013, his 76th birthday, and was buried at the civil cemetery at Kibbutz Horshim. He was survived by a son and a daughter. His name endures both in the history of the companies he created and in the computer-science school that continues to educate students in a field he helped make central to Israel's economy.

Why Efi Arazi's legacy belongs in Moreshet

Efi Arazi merits inclusion in Moreshet because his career documents a foundational chapter in Israel's transformation from a young country dominated by conventional industries into an international center of engineering, software, and entrepreneurship. He did not merely devise a promising technology. He built organizations, created skilled employment, opened global markets, and trained professionals whose influence spread throughout Israel's technology sector.

The systems developed under his leadership changed how images, printed material, and digital content were processed and distributed. Within Israel, Scitex gave engineers and entrepreneurs early proof that a locally built company could compete globally in a demanding technical market. His investment in a computer-science school and student scholarships added a durable public dimension to his business achievements by extending knowledge and opportunity to the next generation.

Preserving Arazi's story on Moreshet.com records more than the biography of a successful founder. It captures a period in Jewish and Israeli history when engineering confidence, international engagement, and institution-building began to reshape Israel's place in the global economy. His legacy connects individual creativity with the growth of Israeli society and with a broader human transformation in visual communication and digital technology.