"Thursday is Friday”

The weekend is descending upon us.

After my Sargent-drill at the gym on Thursday morning, I had a great lunch with Y. at a trendy restaurant nearby called The Diner at Goocha. I had ceviche and grilled fish and salad; Y. had a large salad as appetizer and a side salad (same size as his appetizer) with the main dish. They love salads here! 

The Diner at Goocha

From there I got picked up by M. to meet with an Israeli company doing business worldwide, including Canada, located on Ramat HaHayal (an industrial Hi-Tech area at the north-eastern part of Tel Aviv. Called originally Shikun Shanghai, was established in 1949 to absorb members of the Jewish community in Shanghai, China, who left during the final stages of the Chinese civil war).

On the ride there and back, I had a chance to grill M. (a professor at Tel Aviv University School of Management and an international marketing consultant) a bit more on the many questions free-floating in my head.

Does the “Israel brand” help or hurt Israeli high tech companies doing business internationally?

M. thinks that in general it helps but it would be better if the Israeli high tech story itself was better known. Israel has a great reputation for technology among those in the know, but there aren't enough "in the know" around the world. He and his clients have done business in countries such as Turkey and Morocco where you would certainly expect that the Israel brand would hurt sales, but that hasn't been the case at all for him. Educated elites in those countries (if it wasn't for my poor hearing, I would swear he also included Saudi Arabia in this) know better than to get embroiled in the rhetoric, and can and do make sound business decisions. In England he has encountered a snag, but he thinks it has to do more with the British wanting to buy local first, and significantly less with public sentiments of antipathy towards Israel. In some countries, they are asked to "neuter" the Israeli brand once they make a software application sale and yet in others it becomes a source of reassurance that the software quality is sound. He thinks often Israeli businesses handicap themselves by thinking the "brand" will hurt.

Why hasn't the Israeli high tech story become better known?

M. believes the government has done a terrible job of promoting Israel to business decision-makers around the world. He asked me if I have heard about the book "Start-up Nation" (well, Yes...). M. believes that while the book tends to idealize certain aspects of the Israeli high tech industry, it is not a bad description of what is in fact going on. But what's more important to him is that the book has single-handedly placed Israel on the perceptual map of businesses worldwide. Each time Bibi speaks abroad on behalf of local industry, M. thinks he is discounted because he is a politician. The book, on the other hand, tells the story on the ground and with the right language aimed at the right audience. But much more needs to be done.

Why has the government missed out on doing more?

Why does government miss out on things. Well, M. believes that since 1976, the overall political agenda has been hijacked by the Settlers. Without passing judgement on the Settlers' goals, which as best as I could tell he disagrees with (but I didn't want to take the conversation somewhere else; it was a short car ride after all) the result has been that the complete Israel narrative is about the Settlements and the Palestinians, and not about anything else. The government has not spent enough on many other crucial areas of the economy such as education and infrastructure, not to mention branding Israel around the world for its positive contribution to business and technology.

Too bad the drive wasn't longer.

Towards the end of the business meeting, it was decided we needed to schedule a follow up meeting. Since Passover is coming next week, as I was looking at my calendar I asked which Passover days people work here and which days they don’t. I received many blank looks. So I explained (because I have learned that the average Israeli doesn't know this) that in the Diaspora, Jews celebrate the first day of major holidays two days in a row and that within Passover some days are work days and some are not. More blank looks. To move past this stalemate, I suggested we just skip the week of Passover altogether and meet again after.

As we were leaving the meeting, I was confused. They were wishing each other a ‘Shabbat Shalom’ (in the most secular possible sort of way). But, wait, I thought. It is only Thursday. Then I realized that, since "Sunday is Monday" here, it stands to reason that "Thursday is Friday" also, and so they were wishing each other a regular "Have a nice weekend." On Thursday.

In the evening, I went to the Ballet at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Neve Tzedeck with Emanuela. Growing up, Emanuela was a ballet dancer, so I told her I was relying on her to explain the ballet to me, a total neophyte.

Explain?! What's there to explain? she said. You just have to FEEL!

Got it.

The Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre is Israel’s home for dance and the premier presenter of Israeli and international contemporary dance companies…. And I just learned it is the most visited tourist sight in Tel-Aviv (with over half a million visitors per year) and hosts over 750 cultural events and performances annually. We saw two modern ballet performances by two companies, and it was breathtaking. I truly felt it.

Suzanne Dellal Centre, filling up

The Suzanne Dellal Centre lit up

Before the ballet, we stopped at JaJas Wine Bar, a very cool spot in Neve Tzedeck to enjoy a glass or two. Just last Monday I found out it belongs to Idan's brother. Unfortunately he wasn't there so we didn't score a free drink...

On Friday, today, M. had invited me to speak to his two MBA classes at Tel Aviv University. 

Tel Aviv U. School of Management

Tel Aviv University (TAU) is about 7 km from my apartment, and just last night I realized two important things:  The Tel Aviv Marathon was happening Friday early morning, just a block from my apartment, and Israel was moving to daylight savings time also overnight Thursday to Friday.

(This one seems particularly weird: if "Thursday is Friday,” should the clocks not be moved on Friday night rather than Thursday night? I guess Shabbat makes that a no-no).

As a result, I spent a rather restless night thinking of all the possible reasons which could make me be late for the lectures this morning. So I got up extra early and cabbed it to TAU, arriving a full hour and 15 minutes ahead of time(!). Unfortunately, I can now report that the worst coffee I have had so far in all of Israel can be found at The Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration’s lobby café.

The two lectures went well, although one of the classes was quite feisty. I do enjoy a good verbal sparring, so in the end we were all good (and M. seemed pleased). The average age of the students was early 30s, mostly male, and 50% of them are Engineers. When I asked for a show of hands, all but 3 students in both classes of about 50 each reported having a Facebook account. However, and this was most surprising to me, only a handful in both classes used Twitter (I just looked this up and Israel doesn’t rank in the top-10 countries for Twitter penetration; on the other hand, 26% of the Netherlands population has a Twitter account and Canada “only” ranks 6th at 18%). This lead us to an interesting discussion on the value of Twitter for marketers.

Once I was done, around noon, I decided it was such a lovely day that I would walk back to Tel Aviv. It is sunny and warm, in a Vancouver sort of way, and this being Friday afternoon, the city is quieting down (in a Tel Aviv sort of way).

However, I also know -- because I can’t break the habit of reading the Jerusalem Post and now the (much better and less cluttered) Times of Israel online newspapers – that bad things are happening elsewhere today, outside the Tel Aviv bubble.

A massive "Global March to Jerusalem” had been planned for today, with Iran as the lead. The goal of the march is "freedom for Palestine and its capital Jerusalem.” Event supporters include Desmond Tutu, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (yes, Obama’s “crazy uncle” – crazy indeed) and the extremist anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect (crazy, crazy ultra-Orthodox handful of Jews). Fine bedfellows.  The organizers have sought to have one million people march in solidarity along the borders of Israel.

Just the highlights:

Clashes have broken out in East Jerusalem; Bethlehem; and several West Bank towns. There are several Palestinians injured at Kalandiya, (a Palestinian village located in the West Bank, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and a checkpoint with Israel), where Palestinian protesters have assembled. Protestors hurled Molotov cocktails at IDF troops. At least 14 Palestinians were hurt by IDF fire in Gaza after attempting to breach the border fence and infiltrate Israel. Among the injured was Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Bargouti (True or not, reports say he was hit in the head by a tear gas canister, in a brawl that broke out among the Palestinians over who would lead the protest march).

The Israeli army and police not surprisingly have raised their level of alert. Fourteen people have been arrested in Jerusalem. Overall, apparently not One Million but just over 20,000 people have taken part in this protests near Israel’s borders.

A few odd facts (to me, anyway):

The Lebanese forces got involved and prevented protesters from reaching the Israeli border.  According to reports, participants had been yelling "where is the Arab League on Jerusalem?"  Several rally participants expressed anger over the presence of Neturei Karta members, and a verbal altercation erupted between the two groups (oh so sweet). Hamas security forces attempted to force protestors away from the border fence, using clubs to beat up the rioters.

OK, enough about that. Where was I?

Oh yes. I am off to have Friday night dinner at my cousin Bella's home where I will meet her family. It is such a lovely day. It is sunny and warm, in a Vancouver sort of way, and this being Friday afternoon, the city is quieting down (in a Tel Aviv sort of way). Shabbat shalom.