Raya Strauss Ben-Dror

Raya Strauss Ben-Dror is a business leader, social entrepreneur, and philanthropist whose work has connected industry, social responsibility, and regional development. As an owner and senior executive of the Strauss Group, she helped turn a family dairy enterprise in Nahariya into an internationally oriented Israeli food company. After leaving the company, she devoted much of her energy to philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, the Western Galilee, youth advancement, and the development of a stronger culture of responsible giving in Israel.

Nahariya roots and a family business

Raya Strauss was born in Nahariya on February 11, 1940. Her parents, Dr. Richard and Hilda Strauss, immigrated to Palestine in 1936 as members of the Fifth Aliyah and were among Nahariya's founders. They farmed the land, raised crops, and kept cattle. Hilda Strauss used surplus milk to prepare dairy products, which the couple sold to local residents and British soldiers in the area. That small family enterprise became Strauss Dairies and eventually grew into one of Israel's leading food companies.

Raya studied at the WIZO school and the academic high school in Nahariya. As a young woman, she was active in the United Movement youth group and in the HaPoel Nahariya sea scouts, where she served as a trainee, instructor, and eventually boat commander. She studied marketing, business administration, and public relations at the University of Haifa, later specializing in family business at the Kellogg School of Management in the United States and in business social responsibility. This combination of practical experience, business education, and social commitment shaped her later career.

Helping build Strauss as an international company

From 1965 to 2005, Raya Strauss Ben-Dror co-owned Strauss with her brother Michael Strauss and served in senior management and on the company's board. Together, they pursued a strategy that expanded the family business beyond its local origins and positioned it at the forefront of Israel's food industry.

During this period, Strauss developed partnerships with global companies including Danone, Unilever, and PepsiCo–Frito-Lay. The Danone partnership exposed Strauss to the standards and expertise of a major international food company; the Unilever partnership strengthened its ice-cream operations; and, following the acquisition of Elite, the PepsiCo–Frito-Lay relationship expanded its presence in salty snacks. Strauss also became an early Israeli producer of health-oriented foods, including yogurt made with live cultures.

Alongside business growth, Strauss Ben-Dror promoted standards for cleanliness, quality, working conditions, and environmental responsibility. She advanced the Beautiful Israel standard within the organization, strengthened corporate donations and community activity, and supported measures that helped Strauss meet the requirements of international food-supply contracts. One of her important milestones was initiating the first social responsibility report published by an Israeli business corporation, before corporate social responsibility became an established part of mainstream management in Israel.

Raya and Michael also founded Strauss Investments (1992) Ltd., which invested in Israel and abroad. She served as the company's joint president and also maintained a privately owned investment company. Following the merger of Strauss and Elite in 2005, she left the group and sold her shares. She continued to pursue independent investments, while making philanthropy and social entrepreneurship the central focus of her public work.

Corporate responsibility and family-business research

Raya Strauss Ben-Dror was among the early Israeli business leaders to argue that companies have responsibilities not only to shareholders, but also to employees, communities, and the environment. She was a major supporter and partner of Maala – Businesses Leading Social Responsibility, which promoted systematic measurement of the social contribution of Israeli companies. Strauss was also among the founders of Midot, an initiative focused on evaluating nonprofit effectiveness and improving the quality of philanthropy in Israel.

Her interest in family businesses was rooted in personal experience. After learning how few family companies successfully survive into the third generation, she pursued further training and brought professional advice and research into Strauss's management. In 2015, she established the Raya Strauss Ben-Dror Center for Family Business Research at Tel Aviv University. The center gives the subject an academic and research foundation and helps turn the accumulated experience of family enterprises into knowledge that can serve other families and organizations.

The Western Galilee as a life mission

Since leaving Strauss, the Western Galilee—the region where Raya was born and still lives—has been the central focus of her public activity. Her vision is to make the region a model of inclusive economic and social growth through cooperation among municipalities, residents, businesses, entrepreneurs, and public institutions.

She established the philanthropic initiative Treasures of the Galilee to develop experiential tourism, strengthen local businesses, and expand employment and income. Rather than limiting her support to individual projects, the initiative sought to connect business owners and create a shared regional infrastructure. In October 2015, she launched Galilee Spirit, a process that brought together approximately 180 residents and leaders from different religious and social backgrounds, along with municipal heads, factory managers, and social entrepreneurs, to create a common vision and practical plans for the region.

This work has extended into health, education, employment, and culture. After tens of thousands of residents were evacuated from northern communities during the war that began in 2023, Strauss devoted additional efforts to restoring activity in the Galilee and strengthening its future, mobilizing partners, donors, and government representatives.

Health, culture, and Holocaust memory

Strauss is a patron of the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company at Keshet Eilon and supports Beit Lohamei Hagetaot, a major institution for preserving Holocaust memory and educating future generations. She is also president of the Friends Association of the Galilee Medical Center, an important medical institution serving approximately 600,000 people in northern Israel.

At her initiative, the medical center joined a national pilot project to reduce hospital-acquired infections, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and a philanthropic fund for national initiatives. The center's experience treating war casualties, including wounded Syrians, contributed to the project's development. According to the supplied material, participation in the pilot reduced infection rates at the center by more than fifty percent. Together with Michael Iluz, Strauss also initiated the center's first international conference on trauma and war injuries, held in October 2018. Specialists from Israel and abroad attended to learn from the medical experience accumulated in the Galilee.

Investing in youth, leadership, and Jewish partnership

Raya Strauss Ben-Dror has supported programs that give young people, particularly youth at risk, a path toward stability and leadership. These include Beit Hashanti, which provides a home and framework for homeless youth; Aharai!, which promotes youth leadership, civic engagement, meaningful service, and integration into Israeli society; and Leaping into Industry, which gives young people who did not find a place in academic studies practical training and a professional future.

She has also supported the Reut Institute, the Rabin Leadership Program, and the Can Give forum, which seeks to encourage private philanthropy in Israel. For approximately a decade she served on the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel and held several positions in its partnership program. From 2006 to 2012, she chaired the Nahariya–Northern New Jersey Partnership. Between 2008 and 2012, she served first as chair of all Jewish Agency partnerships in Israel and later as chair of the worldwide partnership system. In that role, she promoted shared visions with Jewish communities abroad and helped move the program's identity from Partnership 2000 to Partnership Together. She was also among the founders of the Israeli branch of the Jewish Funders Network, connecting Jewish philanthropists around the world.

Recognition

Her long public career has brought numerous honors, including recognition as a Citizen of Honor of Nahariya in 2005, the lighting of a torch at Israel's Independence Day ceremony in 2010, honorary doctorates from Ben-Gurion University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Bar-Ilan University, and Tel Aviv University, the Exemplary Social Activity award in 2015, the President's Volunteer Award in 2016, recognition as a Citizen of Honor of Ma'alot-Tarshiha, and the 2019 Rappaport Prize for a life's work by an inspiring woman.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Raya Strauss Ben-Dror merits inclusion in Moreshet because her influence extends across three connected fields: she helped build an Israeli food industry with international reach, advanced the practice of corporate social responsibility in Israel, and used philanthropy as a practical instrument for regional, medical, educational, and cultural development.

Her legacy can be seen in the institutions she founded and supported, and in the people and communities whose opportunities expanded through her work: residents of the Galilee, vulnerable youth, family businesses, patients at the Galilee Medical Center, dancers, educators, and Jewish partners in Israel and abroad. For Moreshet.com, her story is significant because it shows how business leadership, Jewish and civic responsibility, and commitment to a particular place can combine in sustained work that strengthens Israeli society and the relationship between Israel and Jewish communities worldwide.