Safety — and a new start

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Yaniv and Dina Birenboim came to Winnipeg from Israel two years ago to find a safe place to live with their young children — but that meant rebuilding their successful business. (MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

YANIV and Dina Birenboim had a lot going for them when they lived in a small town in northern Israel that was closer to both Beirut and Damascus than it was to Tel Aviv.

Yaniv is a software developer and worked for the global information technology company BMC Software.

Dina has a degree in biotechnology and has studied extensively in alternative medicine. The young couple had started a business manufacturing their own line of natural, organic skin-care products.

They both had family close by, professional success and a growing business in Israel.

But the one thing they didn’t feel they had was a safe and secure life for their son.

So they walked away from it all... and moved to Winnipeg.

"In Israel, we had everything," said Dina, 28. "We had a house, family, each other, a business... Everything was perfect except one big thing — security. We never felt safe. That was the big reason to move."

Dina, who was born in Siberia and moved to Israel when she was 15, did not have as much experience with the security challenges of northern Israel as her husband, Yaniv, 36.

"I lived through four wars," Yaniv said.

"I have seen tanks parked next to my house, soldiers running in the streets and so on."

When their son was a baby — he is now 3½ — a missile exploded near their home.

"That was very scary," Dina said. "After that, the decision to move was not hard. We decided we would try to live in a different country."

Making the decision may not have been hard, but like other immigrants looking to make new lives for themselves in another country, living it was very hard for the Birenboims

"When you move, at some point you wake up in the morning, you are safe, but what about other stuff?" Dina remembered. "We had no clients, no language skills..."

A year before they left Israel, the couple’s business was adding products and had a growing number of clients.

"It wasn’t just business and money," she said.

"For me, it was a piece of something I had created."

But almost two years to the day since they moved to Winnipeg, Dina is now fluent in her third language (after Russian and Hebrew), Yaniv is a software developer at Zywave in Winnipeg, their son is adjusting (but instead of Russian, he is learning English as well as Hebrew), they had a daughter a month ago and they are about to launch their new company: NOCHI Skin Care (the word is a combination of the first letters of the words "natural" and "organic" and CHI, the word for life energy, life force or energy flow from traditional Chinese medicine).

Dina started the company originally as an offshoot of her work as a massage therapist and aromatherapist.

"I always loved the sciences at school," she said. "Eventually I started trying to make stuff myself."

Originally the "stuff’ was custom-made lotions and ointments. When friends and family raved about the products and told others, the business grew.

Part of the challenge of starting such a business in another country is they had to get Health Canada approval for all their products. They found new suppliers for the ingredients, and Dina changed some formulations to suit the northern climate.

When the website is up, their full line of hand and foot lotions, anti-aging, acne and eczema creams will be available online.

"Our product is all organic and so safe you could eat it," Yaniv said.

"It may not taste great, but it is safe."

Working closely with the Canada Manitoba Business Service Centre, they have rebuilt their Israeli business from the ground up.

"We are hoping we will be able to find our target clients here in Winnipeg and expand the business so eventually it will not just be a family business, and we will be able to employ more people," Yaniv said.

The Birenboims cite the city’s reputation for friendliness as a big reason why they chose to come to Winnipeg.

"We fell in love with Winnipeg right away," Yaniv said

"Winnipeg seemed like a large town. Toronto was scary, busy," Dina said.

"People said Winnipeg was a friendly city with friendly people. We are friendly as well."

Yaniv found a job right away. Dina enrolled at the Massage Therapy College of Manitoba and became a registered massage therapist in Manitoba.

"I found another big family there," she said. "There is very good positive energies.

"For me, it is a third home, for Yaniv, his second. We hope it is our last."

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca