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FEATURED IN MOMENT MAG

THE DAYS OF SHAME ABOUT LIVING IN AMERICA ARE OVER. BUT CAN THIS DIVERSE GROUP OF IMMIGRANTS HOLD ONTO THEIR CULTURE? AND IS THERE A CHANCE THAT THEY CAN BECOME A UNIFIED POLITICAL VOICE?

By Ellen Wexler

 When she moved to New York in 2003, Shelly Oria did her best to imitate Americans. She learned to hold doors, to be less aggressive in conversation, to smile at people she passed on the street. The rhythms of American life were new and lovely, but they did not come naturally. Then there were the day-to-day challenges: opening a bank account, getting a cellphone plan, signing a lease, learning that “credit history” really means “American credit history.” When you’re new in America, she says, everything goes wrong, and everything gets stuck.

But her stint in the United States was only temporary, she told herself. She would get her MFA, become a writer and then return to Israel, where her family had moved when she was a few weeks old, and where she had grown up and served in the military. If she were really an Israeli, she would go home. After earning her degree, Oria did just that, only to discover that Israel no longer felt like home. She had thought she was more Israeli than American, but maybe she had it backwards. She landed back in New York in 2009, this time for good.

These days, Oria is drawn to the idea of living in the gray. “It’s a Western culture disease, that sort of black-and-white, either-or way of thinking,” she says. “On some level I’ve always been both, and I think will forever be both.” Her first book, New York 1, Tel Aviv 0, is full of Israeli characters living in America, exploring the either-or and neither and both. “There are two Mes,” Pie, one of her characters, explains. “Me No. 1 is the Israeli who was taught that being tough and being strong are the same thing,” while “Me No. 2 is a woman who successfully impersonates an American.”

In recent years, Oria, now 38, has found a new term to describe herself: She is not an American or an Israeli, but an Israeli American. She’s not sure whether it’s an official term, but it’s a word she’s glad she has. When she fills out paperwork, she checks “other” and writes it in.

It’s not a new designation: As early as the 1960s, The New York Times was using it as an adjective, as in an “Israeli-American construction engineer” or a gallery of “Israeli-American artists.” But in the past few years, its usage has exploded. It’s a progression that seems natural to Ira Sheskin, an expert on Jewish demography at the University of Miami and director of the Jewish Demography Project, which published an extensive study on Israeli Americans in 2010. “We have Serbian Americans, black Americans, Hispanic Americans, etc.,” he says. “So, now we have Israeli Americans.”

The stigma stuck. It even had its own name: yerida, or “descent,” as opposed to aliyah, or “ascent,” the term reserved for those who move to Israel. Israeli expats felt this shame and often kept their status vague: In a survey from the early 1980s, half of Israelis planning to move to America described their decision as “temporary” or “commuting,” rather than “emigration.” But as years passed and many of them stayed, the stigma began to weaken. In a 1991 interview, Rabin retracted his “leftover weaklings” comment. “What I said then doesn’t apply today,” he said, adding that “there is no point in talking about ostracism.”

Why the change? “The idea was people were leaving anyway, so why act in a hostile manner toward them to discourage them from returning?” says Steve Gold, a sociologist at Michigan State University and an expert on the Israeli diaspora. In the 1990s, the Israeli government developed benefits and services for those who chose to return, and it encouraged those who didn’t to continue to be involved in Israeli life.

Still, old resentments linger. In 2011, Israel’s Ministry of Immigrant Absorption created a now-infamous ad campaign, hoping to guilt Israelis abroad into coming home. In one of the ads, a little boy, done with coloring, turns to his father. But Dad is asleep in an easy chair, an Economist draped over his chest. “Daddy?” the boy calls, to no avail. A pause. He tries again, this time in a whisper: “Abba?” Dad’s eyes open at once. The artwork is admired; hair is affectionately ruffled. The scene fades, and a narrator says in Hebrew: “They will always remain Israelis. Their children won’t. Help them return to the land.”

When the ads aired, they were met with immediate backlash. “The idea, communicated in these ads, that America is no place for a proper Jew, and that a Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should live in Israel, is archaic,” journalist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote at the time. The ministry pulled the campaign—and even offered an apology.

The flow of Israelis to the United States has continued. Today, the majority are highly skilled: 43 percent have at least a bachelor’s degree. They come to move up the socioeconomic ladder, and they generally succeed. Of those between 24 and 64, half are employed as managers or professionals. Compared to immigrants from economically similar countries, Israeli immigrants thrive in America.

Still, immigration is isolating. Israelis generally cluster together in areas such as New York, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, where they organize their own community centers, Hebrew schools and cultural activities. They often feel out of place in American Jewish life, where Jewish identity is usually built around a religion, not a state. In Israel, Judaism and Jewish culture are the backdrop, and it’s not necessary to actively maintain a Jewish identity. “To work with Israelis, you kind of have to be an Israeli,” says Brocha Yemini, who assists Israeli emigrants at the Chabad Israel Center in Los Angeles. She sees many young, ambitious Israelis who come to America on their own, and she knows the experience can be lonely. For the first few weeks, they get by on adrenaline, and then suddenly, it hits them. When they reach out, they want a support system and a home away from home.

For many years, Israelis in the U.S. showed little interest in joining American Jewish organizations. But with time, some of these groups have developed a deeper understanding of Israeli Americans. In 2009, for example, the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto opened a new division called Israeli Cultural Connection, which offers Israeli-style holiday celebrations, career workshops and after-school Hebrew programs. “What we do is first try and make a home away from home for them,” says director Ronit Jacobs. Once they’re drawn in by programs designed specifically for them, “we’re able to open up a gateway to the Jewish American community,” Jacobs says. Jay Sanderson, CEO and president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, has a similar strategy: “We meet you where you are; we don’t expect you to go where we are.”

For these groups, the goal is helping a fragmented population find its footing. But now, an ambitious national organization hopes to transform the immigrant community—which one of the organization’s cofounders has called “the greatest untapped resource for telling the story of the Jewish people and the State of Israel in the United States.”

In 2006, Ehud Danoch, then the Israeli consul general in Los Angeles, organized a rally to demonstrate support for Israel during its war with Lebanon. But even though Los Angeles has one of the largest Israeli populations in the country, very few Israelis showed up. Danoch was disappointed. “You would have thought 30,000 Israelis would have been on the streets,” he said at the time. “I thought to myself that there is no correlation between the number of Israelis that live in Los Angeles and the actions that are being taken by them.”

Hoping to brainstorm a way to bring Israelis together, Danoch assembled a group of Israeli business leaders, which included real estate investor Adam Milstein and tech entrepreneur Shoham Nicolet. In 2007, this group established the Israeli Leadership Club, with $30,000 in seed funding and big dreams for the future. In 2013, the group made the strategic decision to add “Israeli-American” to its name. “The minute that you call yourself American means you need to start building a community here, because you’re not going to go back tomorrow,” says Nicolet, the group’s CEO.

The name change worked, and today the Israeli-American Council is the largest Israeli-American group in the U.S. Ten years in, it has regional branches in cities across the country, including Washington, DC, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Since 2014, it has hosted an annual conference in Washington, which in 2016 attracted more than 2,000 people and an array of political and cultural luminaries. Through cultural events, youth groups and language lessons, the group hopes to help Israeli Americans cultivate a distinctive sense of identity—and a voice in the global Jewish community. The IAC believes that Israeli Americans can strengthen the American Jewish community and Israel by serving as a bridge between the two. “We have a lot to give,” says Milstein, the group’s national chairman. “By organizing around our new Israeli-American identity, we believe that we can be a gamechanger here in America.”

Judea Pearl, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1936 and teaches computer science at UCLA, says that the IAC plays a critical role in the Jewish world. “IAC provides the institutional umbrella and the intellectual and cultural expression of the many contributions that Israeli Americans can make to Israel and to American Jews,” he says. “More importantly, it is an invaluable resource of a community of committed individuals who are well informed about the Jewish state and the Jewish people, and who care unabashedly about the future of both.”

One reason for the IAC’s phenomenal growth has been the largesse of its donors. Haim Saban, a major Democratic donor, helped support the group in the early years but pulled away from it in 2015 over political disagreements. These days, the IAC is largely funded by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has so far donated as much as $50 million. One of the Republican party’s biggest donors, he is a divisive political player. In recent presidential elections, candidates have traveled to Las Vegas to compete in what’s known as the “Adelson primary,” and in the 2012 election, he spent nearly $100 million in support of Republican candidates. He spent less in 2016, but his newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was one of the only American publications to endorse Donald Trump. He also owns and subsidizes the free Israeli newspaper Yisrael Hayom, which is considered to strongly favor Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s positions.

Adelson’s support has fed suspicions that the IAC has political motives. At first, Yehudah Mirsky, an associate professor of Near Eastern and Judaic studies at Brandeis University’s Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, was concerned. Although the group was ostensibly focused on Israeli culture, he says, the political dimension was hard to miss. “One got the sense that this is an organization by and for people who support the Likud and Benjamin Netanyahu.” But over the past year or so, Mirsky, who lived in Israel for ten years and has attended IAC activities with his Israeli wife, says he no longer feels like he’s participating in something political. “It’s an anecdotal observation from someone who thinks about these things for a living,” he says.

When Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University, first heard about the IAC, she was intrigued. She grew up in Israel and moved to the U.S. in her 20s. But after learning that the group was funded by Adelson, she decided it was not the place for her. “I am pretty certain that it has a political agenda to support the current Israeli government,” she says. “For many Jews, supporting Israel means supporting the current government, and I don’t subscribe to that.”

Officially, the IAC is bipartisan. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and it cannot make political endorsements. “I have no chance to succeed if it’s leaning to the right or left,” Nicolet says. “And my board feels the same. We need to be very inclusive.” Milstein says that the council is meant to complement AIPAC, not compete with it. The IAC’s partner advocacy group, called the Israeli-American Coalition for Action, however, plays by different rules. As a 501(c)(4), it is still bipartisan, but it is allowed to lobby more directly for pro-Israel policies.

The idea is that supporting Israel should be a bipartisan issue. “There is no left or right,” says Ilan Sinelnikov, president and founder of Students Supporting Israel, a pro-Israel campus group. “It’s about, do you think that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state?” Sinelnikov moved from Israel to America in 2008, and he believes that Israelis abroad have a responsibility to fight for their country. At the Israeli airport, he remembers signs on some Israeli planes that read: When you leave the country, you become Israel’s ambassador. Sinelnikov takes that message to heart. “We are the face of Israel here, and people see us that way,” he says. “The Israeli-American Council of course answers a lot of cultural needs, but at the same time, as Israelis, it is our responsibility that we defend our country.”

Nathan Guttman, an Israeli American who has reported for Haaretz and the Forward, has been observing the IAC since its inception. “You can see two forces of this organization,” he says. On one hand, it’s trying to be “a grassroots communal organization that’s basically out there to give Israeli Americans a cultural home within the Jewish community.” On the other hand, “there’s another force trying to harness them for political goals.” Without the political dimension, says Guttman, he’s not sure that donors would be as enthusiastic about supporting the group.

“It depends,” says demographer Ira Sheskin, “on how you define Israelis.” Personal identity, he says, can be notoriously hard to define and makes a poor topic for objective analysis. For example, Sheskin once knew a woman who moved to Israel from Miami Beach. After raising three children, she moved back to the U.S. Six years later, she returned to Israel with her daughter and then came back to the U.S. to take care of her elderly parents. Is she an Israeli? It depends on whom you ask. As of 2008, Sheskin estimates there were 136,000 people living in the U.S. who were born in Israel. When you add in people born elsewhere, but who either speak Hebrew at home or claim Israeli ancestry, that number jumps to 329,000. Sheskin admits his numbers may be off by a few thousand. But even when “Israeli American” is defined liberally, it would be tough to convince him of a number higher than 450,000.

Other estimates, based on broader definitions, are higher. The IAC counts anyone who emigrated from Israel, American-born children with at least one Israeli parent and Americans born to American parents who visit Israel and feel as if it’s a part of their identity. Adelson himself suggested a wide range during an address at the 2016 IAC conference. “Nobody really knows how many [Israeli Americans] there are, but there are estimates of 600,000 to a million,” he said. “That is a very big number that has not been patched together to work for their true interest.”

Analysts know even less about Israeli Americans’ political leanings. They are rarely acknowledged as a discrete group in American political data sets, and even examining overlapping data yields little. In the 2016 presidential election, 71 percent of American Jewish voters cast ballots for Hillary Clinton and 24 percent for Donald Trump. American Jews living in Israel, however, preferred Trump (49 percent) to Clinton (44 percent), according to a poll from iVote Israel and Keevoon Global Research. But because most of these absentee American voters had lived in Israel for more than 15 years, they might have little in common with Israelis who left Israel decades ago.

What analysts do know is unreliable. When Uzi Rebhun, head of the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, analyzed data from the 2013 Pew Research Center study, “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” he found that 29 percent of Israelis in America are Republicans, 39 percent are Democrats and 32 percent are Independents. At the same time, 31 percent are conservative, 37 percent are moderate and 31 percent are liberal. But these numbers are based on a sample of only 56 respondents, making them statistically inconclusive. Adelson has his own method of determining the political leanings of Israeli Americans, which he mentioned offhandedly at the 2016 IAC conference. He measures the applause he hears when speakers discuss liberal positions: “From what I hear in the crowd,” he said, “the applause represents about 25 percent of the people, or a third.”

There is a reason why the voting patterns of Israeli Americans are of interest. In the U.S., Israeli Americans have the potential to become an influential minority, but in Israel, should they vote in large numbers, they could sway election outcomes. Currently, most expats are not allowed to vote by absentee ballot in Israeli elections and must fly back to vote in person. Most don’t, but if they did, some believe they would vote for Netanyahu. Netanyahu likely thinks this too, since he has consistently pushed for absentee voting in Knesset elections. Legislation to change the absentee voting law appears every few years but has not passed. These initiatives have been controversial in Israel, where critics argue that they are an attempt to strengthen the Likud, says Lev Ari, the Oranim College sociologist. But the underlying assumption that Israeli expats support Netanyahu isn’t supported by evidence. “It’s just a rumor,” she says. “It’s based on nothing.”

In reality, Israeli Americans’ politics—and their connection to Israel—depend on many factors, including what their political views were in Israel, how old they were when they moved and how long they have lived in the U.S. Those who emigrate as children—Lev Ari calls it the one-and-a-half generation—have a particularly complex ethnic identity. Second-generation immigrants tend to have stronger ties to America, while their parents, who arrive as adults, are likely to feel a greater connection to their Israeli identity, even after many years in their new home.

Biala is married to Brandeis professor Yehudah Mirsky, and the couple came to the U.S. four years ago for his job. When the IAC first asked her to teach a weekly Torah study class for Israeli Americans, she didn’t want any part of it. She didn’t want to participate in what she thought of as normalizing the yerida. In her mind, Israelis who left Israel were angry with their country and in search of easy lives, and she didn’t consider herself one of them. But when she got to know the members of her study group, she found that it wasn’t quite so simple. “They’re all brokenhearted for being in America,” she says, “and they all have complex stories.”

As time passes, her views evolve, and she now acknowledges that a dual identity is better, at least, than becoming wholly American. Nor does she judge Israeli Americans as harshly as she once did, though she makes it clear that they aren’t her people. “I can’t believe I’m here, and I hope it won’t be for long,” she says. “I want to raise my children to be as Israeli as possible.”

But as she spends more time in America, she’ll be statistically more likely to change her mind and adopt a hybrid identity. Of those who have been in the U.S. for less than five years, only 17 percent self-identify as Israeli Americans, according to the IAC. But after 20 years, that number jumps to 73 percent.

Even Israeli Americans who are here for life remain inextricably connected to their homeland, and many want to pass on their Israeliness to their children. Fiction writer Shelly Oria does not have children, but if she does one day, she would want them to visit Israel, to build a strong relationship with their Israeli relatives and to understand what living in Israel is all about.

Oria is less concerned with the larger mission of keeping Israeli identity alive for future generations. Her interest is more personal. “You want to be known by your kids,” she says, “and I don’t think anyone can know me without knowing Israel.”

Original Post: The Jerusalem Post

The return on our investment will be nothing less than a vibrant Jewish future.

Jewish leaders and philanthropists are now engaged in an intense and crucial conversation. There is growing concern that Jews – particularly the next generation – are disconnecting from their Jewish heritage and from the State of Israel. The now infamous Pew Study “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” found that approximately two-thirds of American Jewish millennials report that they do not feel a strong connection to Israel. In a recent study published by Brandeis University, fewer than half of Jewish college students could correctly answer even the most basic questions about the Jewish state.

In the face of these trends, how can we invest our philanthropic dollars more effectively to strengthen the special US-Israel alliance, and ensure that future Jewish generations maintain their special affinity to Israel? In response to this question, there are two important principles that we must embrace.

First, we must better understand our target audience. Many millions of philanthropic dollars are now invested under the assumption that today’s Jewish community is the same as the one that existed 40 years ago, limiting the return on investment of many initiatives.

Changing this mindset begins with recognizing that there is not a single, homogeneous American Jewish community, but rather a cluster of communities, which has changed rapidly over the past 40 years because of three big trends: assimilation, intermarriage and immigration.

Over the past 40 years, we have seen significant waves of immigration from Israel, Iran and Russia. Their numbers are not properly represented in recent studies of the Jewish community. Taking their numbers into consideration, out of approximately 10 million people living in America born to Jewish parents and/or grandparents, only half see themselves as Jews by religion today. The remainder have either completely left the faith or view their Judaism as a cultural identity instead of a religious one.

Interestingly, the declining number of people who identify as Jewish by religion is correlated with declining affinity to Israel.

Among those who say that they are Jewish by culture, 55% say that they are not very attached to Israel, while only 12% say that they are very attached to Israel. For those who completely left the faith, these numbers are much lower. This is a stark contrast to those who say that they are Jewish by religion, among whom 86% say that they are somewhat or very attached to Israel.

In other words, as Jews disconnect from their Jewish heritage, their affinity to Israel often declines as well.

So, what should we do with this information? How can we use this insight about our changing Jewish community to make more strategic decisions about where we invest our limited resources? This brings me to my second principle: we need to look for low-hanging fruit, investing more resources in target populations for whom additional funding for programs and initiatives can have an outsized impact in strengthening the US-Israel relationship.

Here are some criteria that we should consider as we allocate resources.

• Age: Those below 40-50 years old are more likely to be developing their set of core values and beliefs. Moreover, by increasing the Jewish knowledge and connection to Israel among the young generation, we can not only impact these individuals, but also their children and grandchildren.

• Affiliation: The data shows that those who define themselves as Jewish by religion are more likely to have a strong connection to Israel. With so many focusing on the unaffiliated or “cultural Jews,” we can’t lose sight of this base. The Orthodox community already has many structures in place that are engaging a strong majority of their next generation. We need to focus on innovative programs to connect non-Orthodox Jews (including Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and secular Jews) to Israel.

• Support for Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People: We should seek to identify those who have proven their commitment to advancing the vision of Israel being the homeland of the Jewish people, but who may not have a clear and structured path for remaining religiously engaged. It is important to attract Jews who have a marginal connection to Israel, but it is even more important to provide a path for those with a deep passion for Israel to become and remain Jewishly involved.

• American Jewish immigrant communities: The criteria outlined in the three concepts above are particularly relevant to recent Jewish immigrants, Russians, Iranians and Israeli-Americans. These groups are already committed Zionists, but they are new to the American Diaspora and as a result don’t always have the tools to pass on their Jewish and pro-Israel values to their next generations. Each dollar invested in them can go a long way.

Take the work of the Israeli-American Council (IAC), which has shown in recent years how investing in Israeli-Americans can unleash an extraordinary untapped resource to strengthen the US-Israel relationship and strengthen Jewish heritage.

Many young Jewish Americans are attracted to the IAC activities to absorb Israeliness and pride in their Jewish roots.

By systematically identifying and investing in target groups that are uniquely suited to advance our philanthropic priorities, we can advance progress on a wide range of issues, whether it’s in Israel advocacy, global diplomacy, or Jewish education.

Our Jewish community faces rapid changes, enormous challenges and exciting opportunities. To overcome the obstacles in our path and realize our full potential as a people, we need to invest smarter.The return on our investment will be nothing less than a vibrant Jewish future.

The return on our investment will be nothing less than a vibrant Jewish future.

The author is an Israeli-American philanthropist, national chairman of the Israeli- American Council, real estate entrepreneur and president of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation.

Although we are less than 0.2 percent of mankind, the Jewish People have been able to accomplish extraordinary things because of our belief that the impossible could be achieved.

Hanukkah, our Festival of Lights, is fast approaching.

In recounting the heroic story of the Maccabees, the Jewish rebel group that lived in the Land of Israel in the second century BCE, we are reminded that our freedom isn’t guaranteed. And as we look out at a world filled with serious challenges facing the Jewish People, the lessons of history call us to action.

Originally featured in The Jerusalem Post

Although we are less than 0.2 percent of mankind, the Jewish People have been able to accomplish extraordinary things because of our belief that the impossible could be achieved.

Hanukkah, our Festival of Lights, is fast approaching.

In recounting the heroic story of the Maccabees, the Jewish rebel group that lived in the Land of Israel in the second century BCE, we are reminded that our freedom isn’t guaranteed. And as we look out at a world filled with serious challenges facing the Jewish People, the lessons of history call us to action.

Written by Adam Milstein, as featured in the Jerusalem Post

ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVES OF THEIR CAMPAIGNS, BUT IT’S MORE CONVENIENT FOR THEM TO START WITH THE JEWS.

For thousands of years Jews have been targeted, persecuted and hated for a range of irrational and paradoxical reasons. We have been blamed for the crucifixion and killing of Jesus, even though Jesus was a Jew. We have been hated for maintaining our distinct Jewish identity – and, when we do assimilate, for threatening the racial purity of the society where we live. We have been criticized as pacifists and as warmongers, as capitalist exploiters and as revolutionary communists.

During World War II, the Nazis and their allies exploited this age-old hatred to carry out the Holocaust, systematically murdering six million Jews, while others around the world didn’t act, or couldn’t act to prevent this horror from taking place.
In recent years, we have seen a clear resurgence of antisemitism in nations where many thought it had been confined forever to the margins of society. Antisemitism in Europe is at its highest levels since immediately before the Holocaust. According to the ADL, around a quarter of Western Europeans are anti-Semitic.

Jewish immigration from Western Europe to Israel reached an all-time high in 2015 – and a third of European Jews are thinking of emigrating, according to the European Jewish Congress, mainly because of the rise in antisemitism.

The antisemitism surging in Europe has also begun to wash up the shores of America. Last year, there was a 50 percent rise in violent anti-Semitic attacks in the United States. Today Jews are the largest target of religious hate crimes in America, accounting for 60% of those reported.

American college campuses, where anti-Semitic incidents doubled in the past year, have become an epicenter for this activity. For the past 15 years, the radical Left has joined forces with radical Islamic groups to promote the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement commonly referred to as BDS. BDS spreads vile anti-Semitic stereotypes, demonizing the Jewish state in the same way that bigots have long demonized the Jewish people.

The BDS movement takes a page from a centuries-old playbook, advocating for boycotts of Israel in the same way that anti-Semites advanced boycotts of Jewish businesses and pogroms in Europe throughout the 19th and 20th century. In the US, the same boycotts were advanced by Nazi supporters led by Father Charles Coughlin in the late 1930s.

BDS groups are targeting and harassing Jewish and pro-Israel students on both sides of the political spectrum. Students have a difficult time speaking out against these hate groups for fear of becoming targets.

In many cases, BDS has found willing allies among faculty and sometimes, in university administrations.

Yet, we have seen that antisemitism like this is not just confined to the Left or to radical Islamists.

On the Right, America’s current presidential campaign has brought new visibility to the growing “alt-right” movement, which has coordinated attacks against Jews on social media channels, generated anti-Semitic memes and reintroduced anti-Semitic epithets that had nearly left the American lexicon. The use of triple parentheses “((()))” to indicate the Jewish heritage of journalists and activists reiterates the age-old lie that Jews control the world through a secret network of power.

For the first time, young Jews are experiencing the antisemitism much more familiar to their parents and grandparents, and it’s emanating simultaneously from the far Left, radical Islam and the far Right. The Jewish-American community and the pro-Israel community – liberals and conservatives alike – need to unite to fight this frightening phenomenon.

For these radicals, antisemitism is a glue that holds together the coalitions that form their hate movement.

Israel and the Jewish people are not necessarily the ultimate objectives of their campaigns, but it’s more convenient for them to start with the Jews.

History shows that the hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews. Hitler wanted to get rid of the Jews of Europe, and while he killed six million Jews, an estimated 60 million people died in the war that he caused. While the new antisemitism today tends to manifest itself as opposition to Zionism and the State of Israel, the proponents of BDS also promote an ideology that is virulently anti-American and anti-Western.

In an op-ed for the International Socialist Review titled “Palestine, BDS, and the battle against US imperialism,” Purdue University professor Bill Mullen, one of the BDS leaders who lobbied the American Studies Association to adopt a boycott of Israel, writes, “We can build a still-stronger BDS movement beginning in the name of Palestinian freedom and ending in a permanent blow against American empire.”

Another professor, Hatem Bazian of Berkeley, the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, also called for an armed insurgency or an intifada in the United States, a call to action that was nothing short of inciting violence against the American people.

So what to do in the face of these developments? First and foremost, we need to be united – both the American Right and the Left; Jews, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and atheists – to fight against these forces. We need to call out antisemitism when it rears its ugly head no matter which political ideology it uses to mask its hate.

We need to recognize that anti-Zionism is often a politically correct way to advance antisemitism, and maintain a zero-tolerance policy when groups seek to delegitimize the Jewish state in the same way that anti-Semites have long sought to delegitimize the Jewish people.

And we must make clear that while these hate groups may begin with the Jews, their campaign will never end with the Jews.

The fight against antisemitism also extends to how we educate our next generation. If young Jews can’t connect to their heritage, how can we expect them to defend it when faced with antisemitism? And if non-Jews don’t understand the vile history of antisemitism how can we can expect them to recognize this evil in its modern form?

Winston Churchill said, “The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” So it goes with antisemitism. This hate is nothing new – and neither is our failure to recognize this danger.

We Jews must know our history, be proud of our heritage and teach our children the importance of supporting Israel. And we must stand together with non-Jews in America, helping them to recognize that the rise of antisemitism is not just a danger for the Jewish people, but an existential threat for us all.
The writer is an Israeli-American philanthropist, national chairman of the Israeli-American Council, real estate entrepreneur and president of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation.

Originally featured in the Times of Israel. By, Adam Milstein

Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

It is a sentiment that I have taken to heart over the past decade, as I have worked to cultivate an Israeli-American identity for myself, my family, and my community. The process of building this identity as a co-founder and, for the past year, as Chairman of the Israeli-American Council (IAC) has been empowering, inspiring, and perhaps most of all, revealing, illuminating the vast possibilities that emerge when you proudly embrace who you are.

For many years, Israeli-Americans couldn’t figure out who we were. We identified ourselves as Israelis that lived in America, maintaining — at least outwardly — that we would return to Israel one day soon in the future. We lived for decades with “our suitcases packed”, as we obtained U.S. passports, built successful businesses in cities like Los Angeles and New York, married American spouses, and raised children that primarily spoke English and too often, no Hebrew.

We quickly adapted to the way of living in America, without realizing what was required to live a Jewish life in the diaspora — which is a very different than Israel — where Jewish identity and practices are integrated into everyday life, taught in schools and the army.

While few of us joined Orthodox synagogues, mostly for the high holidays, the majority didn’t engage with the broader Jewish community. Our largely secular group couldn’t understand why we should pay for religious or educational services, and were not comfortable in religious services that were different from what is typical in Israel. As a result, we had no formal mechanism to connect with Jewish life and with others of Israeli descent.

Living American lives, while outwardly maintaining an Israeli identity distanced us from the Israeli government and people, from our non-Jewish American neighbors, from the Jewish American community, and perhaps most importantly, from our children, who often sought to distance themselves from their parents’ immigrant culture, and quickly began assimilating into the American culture, intermarrying at very high rates.

It took me merely 15 years to realize that I was living in the Diaspora. The turning point came when I realized that my daughters, who went to a non-Jewish private high school, spoke fluent Hebrew and had Jewish friends, but were mostly dating non-Jewish boys. My wife and I realized that, without a Jewish education or a connection to Jewish life, our daughters would not maintain their heritage.

At that point it was clear that I had a duty to get closer to Jewish life. I had to demonstrate to my daughters that I was proud of my Jewish heritage and that my family’s Jewish identity was of central importance.

My reconnection with Jewish Life came through AISH HaTorah, a Jewish outreach organization in Los Angeles, and I started learning with one of the rabbis on a weekly basis, which I continue to this day. AIPAC was next. Soon, my wife and I became philanthropists and activists, joining the boards of many different pro-Israel and Jewish organizations. In 2007, with several leading Israeli businessmen in Los Angeles, I co-founded an organization to bring together others of Israeli descent into one united community.

Originally named, the “Israeli Leadership Council,” our new organization grew quickly in Los Angeles, attracting hundreds and thousands of families.

The sea-change, however, came in 2012, when we changed our name from the “Israeli Leadership Council” to the “Israeli-American Council”. The name change signified something much bigger. At that pivotal movement, I and others in our leadership saw that continuing to define ourselves as Israelis weakened our self-image, our public image, and our ability to prosper as an American community and become a strategic force in supporting the state of Israel. Moving forward, we, as Americans of Israeli descent, would loudly and proudly embrace our Israeli-American hybrid identity — that we loved our home in America, and would always remain deeply connected to our homeland in Israel.

Supported by the visionary leadership and remarkable generosity of Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, the IAC took off, expanding across the country on the foundation of this powerful identity. We are now the fastest-growing Jewish organization in the country, with hundreds of thousands of participants in 27 states, 10 regional offices, and a bright future as we continue to grow.

IAC programs engage our young people from birth until they are professionals, providing our next generation with a clear and easy pathway to embrace where they come from, fostering pride in Israel and an embrace of Israeli and Jewish identity.

With an awakening of Israeli-American identity, we have become much more involved in schools, temples, JCCs, and local and national Jewish organizations. Now we are leaders in the broader Jewish American community, serving as living bridges to the Jewish state and bringing Israeliness to the Diaspora across the country. America’s Jewish leaders have taken note, with many of them attending the IAC’s annual conference, and partnering with us on programs across the country.

By engaging Israeli-Americans as one united community, we have been able to mobilize ourselves as a strategic asset to strengthen the State of Israel. Across the country we have built new partnerships between American and Israeli businesses, academic institutions, and state and local governments. And we have led the effort to fight against BDS and other attempts to delegitimize the state of Israel; for instance, by driving forward anti-BDS legislation in California and across the country.

If you don’t know who you are, it’s impossible to understand where you should be going. By resolving years of confusion around Israeli-American identity, we have unleashed a movement, with vast untapped potential to strengthen America, Israel, and the Jewish people.

—

The writer is national chairman of the Israeli-American Council. Follow him on Twitter @AdamMilstein.

Orignial post can be found on the Huffington Post

By: Adam Milstein

The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation proudly supports Bizrael, which organizes professional business trips to connect people with Israel’s leading startups, international companies, academia, and other key players behind the Startup Nation. Below, Co-founder and Director Jason Weiss shares how Bizrael harnesses the power of Israeli entrepreneurship to change people’s perceptions. 

When we started Bizrael in 2012, we wanted to do something no one else had done in the Israel advocacy world — create a way for students to experience Israel’s thriving startup economy. Since then, thanks to the support of great organizations like the Milstein Family Foundation, more than 1,000 students and young professionals from 10 different countries have learned about the innovative business landscape in Israel through Bizrael programs. By doing so, we have created a new way to experience the Jewish State.

The nickname “Startup Nation,” now common, wasn’t so well-known when Bizrael was founded. In the summer of 2012 we recruited 30 students from across the U.S. for our first Bizrael Elite trip, and went on a two-week whirlwind tour, meeting over 25 startups, investors, corporations, government agencies, and more to learn what, how, and why Israel has become one of the most innovative countries on the planet. From the chief scientist at a medical company to the founder of Waze, and from water desalination technology to cyber security, we showed participants a side of Israel they had never seen before. We also learned how open, excited, and engaging the companies were to opening their doors and getting behind our mission.

After we held the Bizrael Elite trip four times, something interesting started to happen. After partnering with other Israel trips and programs, they started asking us if they could add a Bizrael day to their next trip or make a custom Bizrael trip for their students. Learning from the startups we surrounded ourselves with, in 2014 we decided to shift our focus to meet this new demand. Instead of working with students directly, we became a content provider for groups, offering Bizrael trips through other organizations bringing young adults to Israel. This enabled us to focus on what we do best — creating trips with our unique Startup Nation content — while enabling us to grow in new ways and reach thousands more people globally.

Through our experience and network, Bizrael brings student groups insider access that was previously only available to well-connected professionals. Over the past several years, Bizrael has become a valued partner to dozens of groups including the Israel Experience, J Internships, Tamid, the Union of Jewish Students, MBA trips, young entrepreneurs, leadership trips, and more.

What has been most inspiring is the feedback from students. From first timers to Israeli-born regulars, everyone is amazed and excited about Israel when they learn about its vibrant business landscape and culture of innovation. We have helped dozens of students return to Israel to study or intern, start clubs on their campus (Bizrael alumni started two Tamid clubs), and experience a newfound appreciation for and connection to the Jewish state.

Our vision is to change the way people perceive and experience Israel, especially the next generation of business leaders. It’s also my story — I came from an unaffiliated religious background and started getting involved through the business side of Israel. I know how powerful and important our message is because it’s what inspired me. Now, I have seen it inspire many others.

We have a new tool for engaging Jewish Youth and advancing the fight against the BDS movement: the magnetic power of the Startup Nation. We look forward to continue growing and partnering with more groups and students this year as we show the power of Israeli entrepreneurship and innovation.

To learn more about the philanthropic work of Adam Milstein and the Milstein Family Foundation, visit http://milsteinff.org. Also — check out Adam Milstein and the Milstein Family Foundation on Facebook!

Original post: Jerusalem Post

As co-founder of the Israeli-American Council based in California, Adam Milstein’s mission has been to strengthen and support the State of Israel and the Jewish people, as well as the US-Israel relationship.

The IAC has been doing so by connecting American Jewry (about 5.5 million) and the Israeli-American community in the US (about half a million).
Under Milstein’s helm, the IAC has been called the fastest growing Jewish organization in the US.

Milstein was born in Haifa in 1952 and moved to California with his wife, Gila, in 1981, where he became a top real estate agent. Today, he is managing partner of Hager Pacific Properties, which specializes in industrial, retail, office and multi-family properties. He and his wife, who have three daughters, established the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation in 2000, which encourages young Jews to identify with their Jewish roots and connect with Israel.

In June 2015, Milstein brought together Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson for the first Campus Maccabbees Summit in Las Vegas, which convened more than 50 organizations to “harness the full might of the pro-Israel community to defeat hate groups spreading antisemitism and lies about the Jewish state on America’s college campuses.”

A prominent Jewish philanthropist, Milstein sits on the board of several key organizations, including StandWithUs, Israel on Campus Coalition and Hasbara Fellowships, as well as the Jewish Funders Network, Birthright Israel, Stand By Me and the AIPAC National Council.

Milstein has said he feels “lucky” to be a philanthropist and have the opportunity to make an impact on the Jewish community and the State of Israel. Since Milstein founded the Israeli-American Council, it has grown to 10 regional councils, with active volunteers in 27 US states and a range of innovative programs to engage Israeli-Americans nationwide of all ages, such as IAC Eitanim, which teaches practical leadership skills to groups of Jewish American and Israeli-American high school students.

“Before we founded the IAC, no one used the term ‘Israeli-Americans’ or ‘Americans of Israeli descent’,” Milstein wrote in a Jerusalem Post op-ed. “Now we proudly embrace our Israeli-American identity; we love our home in America, while remaining deeply connected to our Jewish homeland, which will always be in Israel. As that identity grows stronger, so does the entire Jewish American community.”