Treasure discovered during a dive in 1968. Courtesy of Howard Rosenstein

With jim sullivan
12 November 2024

It all started with a gold coin.

Thus began Howard Rosenstein’s career as scuba diver, entrepreneur, explorer and raconteur. It was August 1968, and Rosenstein, a 19-year-old long-haired surfer kid, had come to Israel from Los Angeles to attend college and study anthropology and archeology in Tel Aviv. He had done some diving in the United States and snorkeling in the Mediterranean.

Two years later he dived six feet down, saw something vibrating on the ocean floor, and picked it up. It was a coin with IMP.CAES written on its side. It turned out to be a Roman coin from the time of Emperor Trajan (98-117 AD). And it had value.

This was the first of what Rosenstein called “hundreds” of many coins he found and later sold to dealers. He had come to Israel with $500 and now said: “I was starting to see money for the first time in my life. “It was like real money,” he told me.

The money allowed Rosenstein, who was learning Hebrew, to establish a new industry: diving centers, first in the Mediterranean and then in Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula. Over the years, Rosenstein became a pioneer of recreational diving in the Red Sea.

Rosenstein began writing memoirs of his early years, which were recently published. Treasures, Shipwrecks and the Dawn of Red Sea Diving: A Pioneer’s JourneyDuring COVID-19 quarantine.

“Suddenly we had free time,” Rosenstein told me over Zoom from Costa Rica, where he was attending a conference. He had kept numerous notebooks over the years and had become a “crazy photographer.” His wife and diving partner, Sharon, “had recorded every article written about us, every magazine, every newspaper story. We had videos of television interviews. So there was a lot of material to go through.”

The book describes the many joys of scuba diving, shared friendship, and shipwreck exploration. Time spent with diving enthusiast Leonard Bernstein, as well as close encounters with aquatic creatures and, of course, the dangers that constantly lurk in the depths.

This is also a story about a time in the Middle East when there was strife, yes, but also hope for peace.

“There are certain themes or messages in the book,” Rosenstein said. “One of them has to do with the challenges of the times and seizing the opportunities. One of the very important themes for me is that I am part of a process that has transformed the Sinai, a historic battlefield from time immemorial, from the time of the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamian rulers, into an international playground, a desirable tourist destination. ”

Rosenstein’s early diving efforts came after the Six-Day War in 1967 and continued until the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Although the goal was to build a successful business, it was not the only goal; he also wanted to show that a place could be changed from “war zone to travel destination”.

“We fought hard to protect the environment,” he said. “So there was no coral harvesting, no fishing, no commercial fishing. We protected the sharks. And then there were no pollutants entering the sea. So these two themes of moving from war to peace and preventing exploitation by protecting the beautiful environment were two great goals and achievements.”

There was another important component to Rosenstein’s journey. “I really wanted to be a part of Israeli society,” he said, “and it is not easy to be an immigrant in every culture. This allowed me to break into the ground of becoming a pseudo-expert, which I wasn’t really at the time, and a whole new industry, a whole new branch of tourism. So there was an acceptance factor.”

There was also a lot of fun and some cheating to be had. A 1977 shipwreck adventure film DeepStarring Nick Nolte, Robert Shaw and Jacqueline Bissett., it was a hit. “This has done a lot to spark interest in shipwreck diving, which is an exciting area of ​​scuba diving,” Rosenstein said. Many tourists have become scuba diving enthusiasts and desire to explore shipwrecks. The problem for Rosenstein and his team, which included his wife, was that they had yet to find a shipwreck in the area.

“We were young entrepreneurs, and it was like the Wild West, where you had to do a lot of things to survive and get ahead,” Rosenstein said. “We were always thinking of different ways to get business. Suddenly people wanted to dive into the shipwreck. We were sitting on the other side of the world in a beautiful, pristine place, but we didn’t have that component yet.

“So a group of our friends and colleagues were sitting together and said, ‘What are we going to do? ‘We have no wreck and we need a wreck.’ One of us could hatch a conspiracy there it was a wreck. We can make up a whole story before we even get the wreckage. And we would kind of give little information to visiting travel agents or divers who would come to the area, influencers as they are called today. ‘Well, take us there; We want to see it.” We said, ‘Not available at the moment.’ “This is a security area.”

There were other ship skeletons lying on the reef, but they were rusted and rotting. And then some Bedouin fishermen told him about a nearby wreck. They searched the area and it turned out to be a British ship. SS DunravenIt sank after hitting a cliff while sailing from Bombay to Liverpool in 1876. “This was the first shipwreck ever that was divable,” Rosenstein said. “So suddenly we had a ship that fit the story we were building.”

Rosenstein met scuba diving enthusiast Leonard Bernstein through a Bedouin friend who said the conductor was in town. Rosenstein left a note at Bernstein’s hotel: “I would be honored if you come to the diving center tomorrow and I will take you to a very nice place for diving.”

“And sure enough, it showed up the next day,” Rosenstein said.

They got along very well at sea or on land. The conductor, who first conducted an orchestra in Israel during the War of Independence in 1948, invited Rosenstein and his wife to dinner. “Then we exchanged invitations for him to come to our house for dinner the next evening, and he came back several times.”

Then came a special birthday concert.

Bernstein was conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv and invited Rosenstein to watch the show and asked if they could go sailing the next day. A. National Geographic The team was going to take photos on the ship. Unfortunately, due to bad weather conditions the sail had to be scrapped.

“We were sitting there on the beach and we all said, ‘What are we going to do?’” Rosenstein said. ‘We can’t go out by boat.’ And one of them Geographical The guys said, ‘Anyway, Howard, happy birthday.'”

“What! It’s your birthday?” Bernstein shouted, “Okay, let’s go up to my suite. We’re going to celebrate.” He was staying in the penthouse of the Tel Aviv Hilton, which was conveniently equipped with a Steinway piano.

On the way up, Bernstein stopped by the reception desk and ordered champagne and a birthday cake. “And then,” Rosenstein said, “he entertained us. ‘What do you want me to play?’ “I was thinking of something clever like Rachmaninoff or something like that, but I said, ‘West Side Story — I love this.’ So he made a complicated move.

“Then, ‘Is there anything else?’ he said. I said, ‘I want to hear old Yiddish music.’ And into this mess ‘Yidl Mitn FidlIt was a popular Yiddish song in the 30s or 40s. It was very funny. It’s totally weird, but it’s fun. He’s extremely theatrical. He wanted to give me a birthday kiss and he actually did. And my friend National Geographic ‘No language!’ he shouted

With the Camp David Accords signed between Israel and Egypt in 1979, Rosenstein had to give up his home and job. but he said: “We emerged from Sinai in 1982 with our heads held high, making a real contribution and achieving compromise. We gave up everything for peace. We really did. Even though we lost a lot, my family and many others in the community supported this. Because we care about the future of our children.”

Rosenstein later founded Fantasea Cruises, which chartered a luxury yacht for diving trips, but he was forced to sell it in 1997 because “the Egyptians banned foreign-flag operations.” He later founded an underwater photography equipment company called Fantasia Line in 2002 and now considers himself retired after handing over the CEO role to his son Nadav.

So, is diving as fun for the 77-year-old as it was when he was younger?

“That’s a good question,” Rosenstein said. “I’m still excited about diving. I mean, on any dive you might see something you’ve never seen before. And the Red Sea is probably one of the most beautiful places in the world to dive. You can find anything whenever you want. I’m talking about marine life. It’s true that the Red Sea has treated me very well. “You may find a shipwreck, or in my case (in the Mediterranean) I will find a gold coin or a treasure.”