Castro Jerusalem

Castro was founded in 1973 by Aaron Castro, a Sephardic Jew whose family immigrated to Israel from Thessaloniki, Greece, when he was a child. The company's roots go back to the 1950s, when his mother, Anina, a professional dressmaker who sewed for private clients, and Aaron opened a small corner store in Tel Aviv named 'Nina' after her. As the business grew and added a basement workshop producing ready-to-wear clothing, it was renamed Castro. The company began exporting to Europe in 1975 and went public on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 1992. Castro has designed Israel's Olympic team uniforms since 1996 and, by 2013, was Israel's largest domestically owned fashion company, with around 180 stores in Israel and additional locations in Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Thailand and Ukraine. The company has remained under continued family connection and expanded beyond its original menswear-and-womenswear base into a broader accessories offering. Castro's headquarters is now located in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. The chain operates multiple stores in Jerusalem as part of its national Israeli retail network, in malls and shopping streets across the city.