Hard Work Paying Off

I read today that, per capita, more Israelis have cell phones than any nationality on earth.  Several people I know have 2 cell phones, one for outgoing calls and one for incoming calls and, of course, they don't like it if you call them on the wrong one, because it ruins their carefully orchestrated mobile phone calling plan (I learned the hard way).

For lunch I had the pleasure of meeting Eran David and Sharon Schwartzman who both work at the Jewish Federations of Canada office in Jerusalem. I was impressed with their professionalism and their deep understanding of the issues Canadian Jewish Federation offices face. They really want to help Canadian Federation organizations and we had a great conversation about their online strategy.

Eran and Sharon. Donors, your money is in good hands!

I mentioned to them that it is my perception that we Jews in North America telescope all issues with regards to Israel to include Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas yet Israelis just don’t come across as concerned about it all, and asked them what they thought about it.

“Denial” said Sharon.

As an example, she mentioned that yesterday, YNet News (Israel’s most popular news website) had absolutely no news items covering the continued bombing of southern Israeli towns from Gaza because, well, because a cease fire had been established so the news source moved on (Gazans are either unclear of what ‘cease fire’ means or Hamas cannot deliver it; either way, the barrage of rockets continues in the South – 39 km from my apartment – and children are being kept from school by their parents).

 

And what do they think about Hamas? 

The Egyptians are strengthening Hamas' breakaway organization, Islamic Jihad, so they themselves become politically respectable (just like the PLO did, I guess). They believe the wall Israel is building along the Egyptian border will help immensely. Right now the Egyptian border is very “porous” to the point that over 20,000 Sudanese refugees have managed to sneak into Israel (and are now a huge problem in Eilat; but that was another discussion). 

I very much look forward to seeing them again in a couple of weeks in Jerusalem.

Later in the day I met with an Israeli VC and while I don’t want to discuss specifics on the blog, I cannot contain my excitement about what I saw and heard.

Israel seems to me to be a finely tuned machine creating and nurturing and encouraging and rewarding entrepreneurs to start new companies. There are variuos business models to do this and make it a win-win-win for everyone involved. the models continue to evolve and everyone here seems open to the next and better way of trying things. Something I have not seen much happen back home are the Accelerators and Incubators (not the same thing, I am learning) which provide the right amount of support to meet both investors’ and entrepreneur’s needs.

For dinner I met an old friend from Vancouver, Steven Shamash, and his family. Steven lives in Netanya, about 30 km North of Tel Aviv.  Netanya has 14 km of beaches and it is a very popular tourist resort as well as residential community. Real estate there, like in most of the country, has skyrocketed. Steven told me that the land of a Kibbutz located just outside the town, now turned into a hotel complex, is worth $1 million an acre. That is a lot of oranges!

On the way we stopped at a natural preserve and saw some beautiful wild flowers.

Type of wild flowers to be found at the preserve

Flowers we actually saw

What we really looking for were Black Irises, which only bloom once a year, and just for a month. Unfortunately we were too late.

Flower we did not see

 At Steven’s home I had the pleasure of meeting Toni, his wife, originally from South Africa, as well as his very, very talented and engaging kids. His daughter Eliza is only 18 and a rising star in the music world. She played a few pieces on the piano that literally took my breath away. Do yourself a favour and click here, and here and here to hear what I mean.  I also met Elad, who is 15 and has just taken up strength training (and it shows!).

Eliza Shamash

Before I left, Steven and Toni gave me a great gift: a whole box of halva!  

"How did you know I love it?"

"I read your blog"said Steven.

Wow, this hard work every night is paying off.