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Zvi Yehuda, Inventor of Sherlock Holmes Machine, Dies at 86

May 7, 2023  |  Leah Meirovich

Zvi Yehuda, one of the founders of the Israeli diamond industry and the creator of numerous products for the trade, died Saturday at 86.

Yehuda got his start in the diamond industry at 16, when his father, who wanted to break into the trade, hired an insider to give him a private lesson on diamond cleaving. Yehuda realized he could recycle the diamond dust and sell it back to diamond cutters to use for grinding.

He brought the idea to the head of Israel’s Industry Ministry, who commissioned a factory for him. Yehuda ran the facility for three years before leaving to open a business with his father. At 23, the Yehuda Diamond Company owner introduced the first set of digital scales for diamonds, and at 28, he debuted the first diamond laser-cutting machine.

During his career, Yehuda created several important products for the trade that are still in use today. Those include a clarity-enhancement process, which vastly improves a diamond’s optical properties to the naked eye, and a meter that enables traders to see what color a rough diamond will yield after cutting. He is also the inventor of the Sherlock Holmes synthetic-diamond detector.

Yehuda is survived by his wife, Meira, his three sons, Roni, Dror and Moshe, and his daughter, Yael Konigsberg.

Image: Zvi Yehuda. (Dror Yehuda)

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Zvi Yehuda, Inventor of Sherlock Holmes Machine, Dies at 86

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