Category: Uncategorized

This post was originally on Times of Israel

The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation is proud to partner with Students Supporting Israel (SSI), a grassroots pro-Israel campus movement. It has many chapters across the United States and Canada, and is committed to promoting a better understanding of Israel as a member of the family of nations, with a fundamental right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, within secure borders. The Director of SSI — Valeria Chazin — shares how the partnership between the Milstein Family Foundation and SSI has changed lives. You can read her post below.

The partnership between SSI and the Milstein Family Foundation (MFF) illuminates the wide-ranging benefits of collaboration in the pro-Israel space. The MFF has provided critical funding for many of SSI’s activities, enabling us to spread a positive message about Israel to thousands of students on campuses nationwide. The Foundation also provided grants to SSI student leaders to attend the AIPAC policy conference as Milstein Fellows, and a generous matching grant to SSI’s fundraising campaign on Jewcer.com, which helped SSI reach its online fundraising goal for the year.

However, it is not only the shared goals and financial support that makes the partnership between SSI and the Milstein Family Foundation a successful one. It is also the connections that the Foundation has provided between SSI and other organizations, like JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, a unique organization that tells the story of Jews who were expelled from their homes in Arab countries and Iran. Working with JIMENA, SSI has been able to introduce the story of these Jewish refugees to college students as part of more than a dozen joint events on campuses this fall semester, highlighting the fact that the refugee issue is not one-sided.

The MFF also brought us together with BlueStar, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering the next generation of Israel advocates. We invited BlueStar’s founder, Jonathan Carey, to speak at our first national conference, held in Minneapolis in August 2015. Mr. Carey gave a thought-provoking speech about the importance of not being afraid to ask hard questions, and taught us the right way of doing so. The theme was a perfect fit for SSI’s message of changing the nature of Israel advocacy from reactive to proactive.

In all of our work together, both of our organizations keep in mind that the ultimate beneficiaries are our students and Israel. When the goal is clear, it is easier to find a way to get there, and the partnership between the organizations proves itself over and over as both meaningful and productive.

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!

For the original post: HuffingtonPost.com

 

For decades, those of Israeli descent living in America kept our suitcases packed. Despite U.S. passports, English-speaking families, and American homes and businesses, we always thought that we would return to Israel one day. Since we didn’t feel rooted in the United States, we saw little need to cultivate community — and generally remained disconnected from synagogues, Jewish education and Jewish community organizations.

This mindset did not serve our community well. Oftentimes, our children sought to distance themselves from our foreign culture, and quickly began assimilating, in many cases leaving both their Jewish and Israeli identities behind. Our insistence that we were not Americans alienated the Jewish-American community and our neighbors in the U.S. And because we lived outside of Israel, Israelis never fully accepted us as one of their own.

In the last decade, all of this has changed dramatically. More and more, people like me — born in Israel, but residing in the U.S. — along with our children and grandchildren, are proudly embracing an Israeli-American identity. Americans of Israeli descent!

It is centered on the idea that we are Americans and our home is in America, while our Jewish homeland will always be Israel. Eight years ago, I came together with several other Israeli-American leaders in Los Angeles to nurture this new identity. We formed the Israeli-American Council (IAC) to meet the unique needs of our community.

Our organization has grown dramatically over the past three years — from a single office in Los Angeles and a few hundred members into a national movement with regional councils in nine major cities and an active constituency of 250,000. At our second annual national conference last fall in Washington D.C., we hosted the largest gathering of Israeli-Americans in history, with more than 1,300 attendees, up from 650 the year before, during our inaugural convention.

During the conference last fall, Israeli government officials on the left and the right — from Isaac Herzog to Yuval Steinitz to Ayelet Shaked — embraced Israeli-Americans as a strategic asset for the Jewish State and the Jewish people. This would have been unthinkable just a decade ago, when Israelis in the Diaspora were often diminished, called names like Yordim — those who went down (from Israel) — and much worse.

The Israeli-American community has the potential of encompassing close to one million people, when you include those who have at least one Israeli parent and Americans who spent substantial time in Israel and feel that it’s part of their identity. Accepting the fact that Israeli-Americans are first and foremost, Americans, has also unified our community like never before — and now we are mobilizing the IAC as movement across our country, with a three-part mission.

First, we transmit “Israeliness” — our Israeli culture, Hebrew language, a familial sense of community, our Jewish heritage and values, and connection to the Land of Israel — to the next generations.

Second, we cultivate Israeli-Americans as Jewish leaders within the U.S., enriching and strengthening Jewish pride and Jewish life across the country.

Third, we are reinforcing the U.S.-Israel alliance. Our fluent understanding of both cultures uniquely positions us to serve as a nexus between the Israeli people and the American people – and to offer a personal perspective on the current debates about national security and the Middle East. It’s much easier to explain Israel’s security challenges when your brother lives in Sderot, your mother lives in Jerusalem, and you have served in the Israel Defense Forces. And — as you can probably imagine — we are not exactly a shy group.

The Israeli-American community can form an army of activists who can stand up against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, which isn’t just an issue for Israel or the Jewish community, but a threat to the future of America and all of Western Society.

I’m confident that the IAC is just getting started. Rooted in our emerging Israeli-American identity, we will continue to expand all across the country, engage more and more Israeli-Americans, and build bridges and alliances with other communities across America. We need all members of the pro-Israel community to be part of the process by engaging in our programs, getting involved in their region, and bringing others into our movement.

The IAC is filling a void that many Israelis living in America have long felt. As Israeli-American, we are energized and feel a sense of purpose. The infrastructure is growing. Our collective voice is louder than ever before. The Israeli-Americans are not only a new identity, but an historic game changer!

You can follow Adam Milstein on Twitter @AdamMilstein. To learn more about the philanthropic work of Adam Milstein and the Milstein Family Foundation, visit http://milsteinff.org

For Israelis living in America for an extended period of time, locating an embracing community and creating a national identity can be a conundrum for many. Am I an Israeli? Am I an American? How does Judaism play a role in my life? How can I support Israel while living here?  These are just a smattering of questions that ruminate in the minds of Israeli-Americans as they grapple with themselves and their contemporaries for cogent answers.

Enter Adam Milstein, a native born Israeli who arrived in the United States in 1981. Today, this man of boundless energy, passion and commitment to his people, his country and his identity as a Jew and an Israeli-American is at the helm of a nascent organization called the Israeli-American Council.

In a voice reverberating with a palpable enthusiasm, Mr. Milstein told the Jewish Voice in an exclusive interview of his role as co-founder and National Chairman of the Board of the IAC, of the inception of the organization and the widespread impact it has had it galvanizing the Israeli-American community.

“As Israeli-Americans, we can be legitimated, we can have a sense of purpose; we can rise from our slumber and be active,” declared Mr. Milstein.

“Today, the IAC is active in 9 different regions across America and that is a far cry from when we began,” he recalled.

As a real estate investor, community leader, and active philanthropist, Mr. Milstein has not only given of his time to the IAC but is linked to over 100 organizations. As the President of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, his philanthropic work is centered on strengthening the State of Israel and the Jewish People.  Having served in active duty with the Israel Defense Forces during the Yom Kippur War, Mr. Milstein married Gila in 1974 and graduated from the internationally renowned Technion Institute in Haifa in 1978. He earned an MBA from USC in 1981 and embarked on a career in commercial real estate in Southern California.

Mr. Milstein, his wife, their three children and grandchildren reside in Encino and it is in LA that he is a managing partner of Hager Pacific Properties, a private commercial real estate investment firm that owns and manages several million square feet of commercial and industrial real estate throughout the United States. He sits on the boards of the AIPAC National Council, StandWithUs, the Jewish Funders Network, and the Los Angeles Board of Birthright Israel.

“After getting into the real estate business in southern California, my plan was to make enough money to pay back my tuition loans, but it soon became clear that the possibility of a permanent return to Israel was non-reversible,” said Mr. Milstein.

Being cognizant of the fact that his future was on these shores, Mr. Milstein wanted to use his newfound success and status as a successful businessman to support Israel and help others.  Today, he spends 80% of his time engaged in his ubiquitous philanthropic endeavors. “To me, philanthropy is like a business. I want to build a special plan and program, become actively involved and work to expand it as much as possible.”

About eight years ago, Mr. Milstein and other Israeli philanthropists residing in Los Angeles were approached by the Israel Consul General of the city to see what could be done to unite the 250,000 plus Israelis living there.

“Before we even thought of creating the IAC, we really had to devise ways in which we could reach out to Israelis as none of us knew how to talk to them about ensuring their Jewish and Israeli identity,” said Mr. Milstein.

At its infancy, Mr. Milstein was one of six people who agreed to take on this project. “We looked at the IAC as a start up business and lay leaders were there from the beginning. We established a very clear mission. We wanted Israeli-Americans with an array of cultural, social and political events that would really be a catalyst for them to seriously explore both their Jewish and Israeli identities,” he said.

He added that, “We really wanted to support Israel from here and we wanted our community to merge into Jewish life.”

Mr. Milstein explains the genesis of the Israeli-American label. “We are Americans of Israeli descent so we adopted this identity and everyone felt very good about it.”

“Israeliness if you will,” says Mr. Milstein is common to the people of Israel. He adds that it is a love of Israel, its culture, its heritage and the special set of values that each Israeli shares.

Because the IAC’s main objective is to find common ground among Israelis living in the United States, Mr. Milstein declared most emphatically, “We don’t discriminate. One can be an Orthodox Jew or completely secular and it doesn’t matter to us. We are here to export Israeliness to the Jewish community.”

The nascent IAC now includes 18,000 families nationwide and as a vital component of American society, they play a major role in social activism, academia, culture and innovation. The IAC’s effectiveness and success as the largest Israeli-American organization is the direct result of its ability to activate, and engage this unique community nationwide. The IAC strives to achieve these goals through programs and events for all ages, as well as by empowering and sponsoring a wide array of non-profit organizations within the Israeli-American community.

For the toddlers and very young children, the IAC has established the Sifriyat Pijama B’America program where Hebrew and Jewish family engagement takes place on a literacy level. The passing on of Jewish values is conducted by mailing free, high-quality Hebrew children’s literature and music to families on a monthly basis to children ages 2-8 throughout the United States.

Says Mr. Milstein, “These books are a gift for each family to keep and re-read to their kids. We want the children of Israeli-Americans to understand the heritage of their parents and grandparents, By reading them books in Hebrew and conveying Jewish values, we keep the Hebrew language relevant for them and educate them about their specialness as Jews.” IAC Mishelanu is a college campus leadership program that allows Israeli-American students on campus to meet, explore their Israeli-Jewish identity and their connection to the State of Israel. It is a national campus program that provides a “Home” to Israeli-American students in order to strengthen and maintain the identity of the next generation: Culture, Language Heritage and strong connections to Israel.

Today Mishelanu is offered in more than 35 campuses across the US.

Mr. Milstein also speaks of the relevance and impact of the Dor Chadash program. “This is probably one of our most important programs because it is designed for young Israeli-American professionals. It is they who are talking to the community, teaching them about the alarming escalation of anti-Semitism throughout the world, and the protracted battle that we are confronting in the BDS movement.”

Because the IAC now has fully functioning programs in Boston, Florida, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, group members are in a much better position to connect and unite.

Besides mobilizing the community to respond to strategic causes that support US-Israel related initiatives and Zionist education for the second- and third-generation of Israeli-Americans, Mr. Milstein says that one of the gravest dangers that we face today is radical Islam. “I lecture regularly on the nefarious agenda of the BDS movement and I can tell you that radical Islamists are the driving force behind it. We have to come to terms with the fact that radical Islamist leaders have publically stated their intent to eradicate both the United States and Israel.”

Issuing a clarion call to front line Jewish activism, Mr. Milstein intoned, “What starts with the Jews does not end with the Jews.”

IAC Mishelanu is a college campus leadership program that allows Israeli-American students on campus to meet, explore their Israeli-Jewish identity and their connection to the State of Israel.

Sifriyat Pijama B’America (SP-BA) is a Hebrew and Jewish family engagement literacy program implemented throughout the US and promotes Jewish Values by mailing free, high-quality Hebrew children’s literature and music to families on a monthly basis to children ages 2-8.

 

 

 

IAC Board Chairman Adam Milstein is a real estate investor, community leader, and active philanthropist. As the President of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, his philanthropic work is centered on strengthening the State of Israel and the Jewish People.

(JNS.org) The Israel Video Network, in partnership with the Milstein Family Foundation, has launched a new global video contest that seeks to showcase how people are inspired by Israel.

According to the “Inspired by Israel” contest rules, each video can be up to four minutes long and be submitted by anyone. Participants must register no later than Jan. 15th and submit their videos a month later by Feb. 15th.

The winning videos will be selected by a panel of hand-picked judges who will choose the top two videos from the top ten vote totals. The grand prize will be $7,500, with the runner-up receiving $2,500.

Participants can sign up for the contest here. 

“Think up an idea for a video with a great and inspiring pro-Israel message. It’s up to you. Just make it awesome,” the contest instructions said.

“We are very excited to launch this global video contest for Israel together with the Milstein Foundation. No matter who wins the grand prize, Israel will be the true winner, with people around the world watching tons of new user-generated videos showcasing different aspects of our amazing, vibrant and inspiring homeland,” said Avi Abelow, CEO of 12Tribe Films/IsraelVideoNetwork.com.

Formed in 2011, the Israel Video Network is an online platform that distributes videos about Israel and the Jewish people that was founded to “promote videos to help people understand the truth about what is really going on” in Israel.

Israeli businessman and philanthropist Adam Milstein, founder of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, said that it is “critically important” to share how people are inspired by Israel.

Our foundation is “proud to sponsor the “Inspired by Israel” global video contest, which will bring to life the many ways that our Jewish homeland is an example of extraordinary innovation, a dynamic and diverse culture, and a hub for democratic values and human rights,” Milstein said.

TalkIsrael, a revolutionary new app recently released by the Israeli- Council (IAC), American is the first of its kind to make finding, reading, and sharing pro-Israel content as easy as playing CandyCrush.

Users create customized news feeds on the app, choosing from topics about Israel like “science,” “culture,” “Iran,” “food,” or “sports.” The system then measures each user’s level of engagement with each piece of content so that, over time, the app automatically populates the feed with articles that are most appealing.

To determine what a user really likes, content is broken down and analyzed into approximately 50 components, including the topic, sentiment, and type of content.

Then, it’s just a two-click process to share the content on Facebook, Twitter, email, or SMS.

The goal is to make advocating for Israel easier, and to get Israel chatter out of the echo chamber of existing supporters and in front of the eyes of a broader public – one of the biggest challenges that pro-Israel advocates face. The system’s algorithms and analyses will help organizations, and the developers, to understand which pieces of content are reaching beyond well-established audiences.

“TalkIsrael is a platform for collaboration designed to bring the entire pro-Israel community together,” said Adam Milstein, President of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the National Chairman of the IAC. “To put it simply, this tool will allow the pro-Israel community to advocate on social media faster, smarter, and more effectively.”

The app’s content is aggregated from dozens of sources, using their Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds and social media channels. Partners include the Times of Israel, ISRAEL21c, The Daily Beast, Forbes, and more than a dozen pro-Israel organizations. Many more partners are expected to sign on in the coming months.

The app was created as a non-profit, and it is free and available on Android and iPhone. It was developed by Dr. Amir Give’on, a former NASA-JPL scientist and the brains behind Jewcer, Daphna Wegner, a former DreamWorks Animation programmer, and Gadi Rouache, an award-winning creative director.

“TalkIsrael harnesses the extraordinary power of technology to determine over time what type of pro-Israel content appeals to each individual user, using that understanding to deliver the stories that they are most likely to share,” said Dr. Give’on.

The app already has thousands of users who share content with others and submit both feedback and content tips directly to the developers.

“Our thesis is that everyone advocates for Israel in their own way,” said Gadi Rouache, calling the app “advocacy for the contemporary advocate; there are many lines along which to connect.”

New features and analytical tools are continually being developed for the app to assist partnering organizations and the users themselves – in the community, on campus, and online. New features will include real-time content push, geo-located content, a dynamic ‘talking points’ section, and much more.

“The TalkIsrael app helps me to stay up to date with Israel and be pro-active in spreading positive messages to my friends and networks,” said Ilan Sinelnikov, Co-Founder and President of Students Supporting Israel. “I know this app will reach a critical mass of advocates and it will help to make an impact. I’m excited to be a part of that process.”

“We want to make learning about Israel more easy, fun, and engaging,” Hadas Sella, executive director of the Milstein Family Foundation, who saw the app’s potential early on in the process. “By getting good content at the right time to the right people we can make a real impact.”

According to its founders, the app is hitting the market just in time. “If there was ever an issue to coalesce around, this is it. We are, together, absolutely more than the sum of our parts, and that’s why TalkIsrael was invented,” said Dr. Give’on.

This article was originally posted on The Huffington Post

A campaign of hate is sweeping across our country. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement – advancing an agenda to demonize the Jewish people and destroy the State of Israel – is moving from the fringes of our society and into the mainstream. Churches, labor unions, and associations have voted to divest from Israeli companies. In the past year alone, more than 30 student governments at American universities have considered resolutions calling for divestment from the State of Israel. More than a dozen academic trade associations have followed suit, voting to prevent their members from making any contact with Israeli institutions of higher education, preventing the free exchange of information and infringing on academic freedom.

Follow Adam Milstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AdamMilstein

 

How do you galvanize a community that has forgotten its heritage? As Adam Milstein realized 15 years ago, it takes passionate determination and tireless effort.

Milstein emigrated from Israel with his wife and daughters in the early 1980s, became an American citizen in 1986, and built a thriving real estate development business. Around the year 2000, his daughters started dating young men who weren’t Jewish. He told his daughters he hoped they’d marry Jewish husbands. They asked him why.

Faced with this question from his daughters, Milstein realized he didn’t have an answer. As an Israeli, he’d spent his time in America sitting on his suitcase, always thinking he’d go back home. He’d sent his daughters to Jewish day schools, but faced with limited options, he’d sent them to a secular high school. Most of their friends were non-Jewish. They hadn’t formed deep bonds with the American Jewish community.

Milstein realized he hadn’t been sitting on a suitcase; he’d been sitting on a time bomb. He looked at Israelis like him in his community, realizing their identity as Israelis would be gone in one or two generations. He started by reconnecting with his culture on his own, attending Aish LA events and studying with Aish HaTorah Rabbi Dov Heller. Through these events, he found a new purpose: to transform his fellow Israeli-Americans into a community.

A Two-Pronged Approach

Milstein approaches his philanthropic efforts from two angles: conducting age-specific outreach and focusing on common interests. His goal was to reach second- and third-generation Israeli-Americans and through them, to reach their parents and grandparents.

Former Israeli-American Council (IAC) CEO Sagi Balasha, another Israeli-American, explains his generation’s thinking. “People come here with the intention to go back, and that creates a special psychology. You will not really try to be part of a Jewish community; you will not try too hard to integrate into American society; you will not spend your money on sending your kids to Jewish day schools because you’ll just speak Hebrew at home.”

Whereas American Jewish life centers around synagogues, Israelis rarely join these communities. Because they’re always ready to go home, they feel no need to assimilate into American Jewish culture, and they don’t want to pay to join the synagogues.

Milstein started reaching out to his community by founding the Sifriyat Pijama B’America. In keeping with his philosophy, it’s age specific, designed for 2- to 8-year-olds. It’s also built around a common interest, which is teaching children to read.
By the time children start gaining exposure to written Hebrew language through Sifriyat programs, they already have a strong oral base in English. If their Jewish parents speak Hebrew in the home, they also have an oral and aural command of Hebrew. These foundations make preschool the perfect time to start reading in both languages. Instead of reading “Goodnight Moon” one more time, Israeli-American parents receive free storybooks written in Hebrew.

Milstein also started with the Sifriyat program for another strategic reason. In addition to building a foundation on Hebrew language, these storybooks stir strong feelings of nostalgia for parents. The stories are the same stories they read when they were children growing up in Israel. The books begin to stir connections to their culture, building a desire for what they’ve lost.

Why Hebrew Matters

Americans tend to view learning a foreign language in terms of either utility or cultural literacy. American businesspeople learn Chinese to gain a foothold in the global marketplace, or healthcare workers learn Spanish to speak to patients in their communities. Also, learning a foreign language has always been a pillar of a classical liberal arts education. Unfortunately, few Americans who take second-language classes put their new skills into practice.

For the Jewish community, the Hebrew language has a much deeper meaning, especially for Israeli-Americans. While nearly seven in 10 American Jews practice Judaism, many Israeli-Americans live secular lives. The Hebrew language becomes a way of reconnecting to Jewish roots among a community in which faith is less relevant. By exposing children to Hebrew through stories they enjoy, learning Hebrew becomes a joy, not a parental directive.

Based on the success of Sifriyat, Adam Milstein expanded his outreach to Israeli-Americans in other age groups. He created programs that connected elementary school students, through online lessons and video conferencing, to Hebrew language teachers in Israel. Milstein also supports Friends of Israel Scouts, which is an American version of Tzofim, an Israeli program with some similarities to the Boy Scouts of America. The program has four Schvatim, or tribes in Southern California, and programs are conducted in Hebrew. Students learn about Israel and, after graduating from high school, have an opportunity to spend a gap year in Israel.

On College Campuses

College campuses tend to be a place where herd mentality reigns. Students gravitate toward labels instead of thinking deeply about the movements they join. On campuses, BDS sentiments have gained a foothold by aligning with progressive causes, like LGBT equality and environmental preservation. Students sometimes adopt anti-Israel sentiments without thinking deeply about anti-Semitism.

The Milstein Family Foundation, through the IAC, is a foundational supporter of the Taglit-Birthright Israel program. Taglit-Birthright sends young adults, ages 18 to 26, who have at least one Israeli parent, to visit the state of Israel. On these trips, young adults explore their heritage and over 3,000 years of Jewish history.

When asked why Birthright trips were limited to Israeli-Americans, Milstein said, “When an Israeli-American comes on Birthright, the impact is probably five times more than the impact on Jewish-Americans. The reason is simple — Israeli-Americans are connected to Israel already.” Even Israeli-Americans who’ve visited family back in Israel don’t necessarily know the land of Israel. “They know the house of their grandma,” says Milstein. “They know the beach in Netanya.”

In addition to funding trips to the homeland, the Milstein Family Foundation sponsors groups like Mishelanu, which gives Israeli-Americans a home away from home on college campuses. The Milsteins also support Hillel, Alpha Epsilon Pi, and the Merona Campus Leadership Foundation.

Networks for Young Professionals

After graduating from college, Israeli-American young adults find themselves where Milstein’s daughters were 15 years ago. They’re thinking about building careers and starting their families, and it’s tempting to drift away from Jewish culture.

Although it’s not clear which causes the other, there’s a clear correlation between lack of religiosity and intermarriage. According to Pew, 79 percent of Jews who are non-religious have a spouse who isn’t Jewish. In intermarried families, one-third of parents raise their children without any introduction to Jewish faith.
To give Israeli-American young adults the chance to meet other young Jewish professionals, Milstein encourages participation in programs like B’Nai B’Rith. It’s a young professionals network designed to build community among working Israeli-Americans and American Jews ages 12 to 40. Milstein is practical; he understands that after three or four generations, Israeli-Americans rarely maintain a unique identity. “We will not exist as Israeli-Americans 20 or 30 years from now,” Milstein said candidly in an interview with Jewish Journal.

Through groups like B’Nai B’Rith, Milstein wants young Israeli-Americans to assimilate into the American Jewish community. However, he also wants them to take their Israeliness with them, including an unabashed pride in their homeland. In the future, Milstein hopes, “the Jewish people of America will be by us, and will not be the Jewish-Americans that you have today.” He believes Israeli-Americans have a duty to merge with the American Jewish community and focus its members on their connection with Israel.

For All Generations

The IAC’s flagship event, for the past few years, has been its Celebrate Israel festival. Instead of being age-specific like Milstein’s other programs, it brings together Israeli-Americans of all ages.

Celebrate Israel includes opportunities to eat Jewish food, listen to Jewish music, and enjoy traditional Jewish dances. It started in Los Angeles, but has since spread to several cities throughout the U.S., attracting thousands of enthusiastic participants.

At a recent Celebrate Israel festival in Pembroke Pines, Florida, attendees wandered through a replica of Jerusalem’s sprawling, bustling marketplace. They also had the chance to reflect while visiting a replica of Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall. Celebrate Israel isn’t just open to Israeli-Americans and American Jews; it welcomes Israel’s supporters from the wider community.

Unfortunately, it also attracts attention from groups that are inherently anti-Semitic. At Celebrate Israel’s New York event this year, the New Israel Fund, a BDS group, was allowed to march.

The New York Post spoke out strongly against the NIF and its presence at Celebrate Israel. “The Celebrate Israel Parade is a place for friends of Israel,” Ronn Torossian said in an editorial. “It should reject extremists of all kinds.”

The Ultimate Goal: Building Support for Israel

By launching a series of age-specific programs built around common Israeli-American interests, Adam Milstein has infused the Israeli-American community with new passion and cohesiveness. In a world environment increasingly hostile to the Jewish state, Milstein and his family work tirelessly to bring Jews and their allies together.

More than anything, Milstein believes that he and his fellow Israeli-Americans have a responsibility to promote Israel’s interests in America. “Israeli-Americans are knowledgeable and passionate about this subject,” Milstein wrote in an editorial for Jewish Journal. “They can speak from personal experience.”

When you look at the success of Silicon Valley, you see that most of it began at Stanford University. Starting with David Packard and William Hewlett’s little garage-founded electronic company in 1939, Stanford talent generated some of the Valley’s biggest successes, including Google and Cisco Systems. Every year, companies founded by Stanford alumni pump $2.7 trillion into the American economy. Since the 1930s, Stanford alumni have created over 5.4 million jobs.

Israel has a similar talent incubation system, but it’s not a university. It’s Unit 8200, the elite cybersecurity niche of the Israeli Defense Forces. Eighteen-year-old whiz kids go into the 8200 to complete mandatory service for the IDF. They leave ready to start their own tech companies.

Life in the IDF

Most young Israeli men and women complete mandatory service in the IDF. Some receive exemption through a national youth service program, and some ultra-Orthodox Israelis avoid service when completing religious studies in a yeshiva. In the early days when Israel was fighting for survival, mandatory service was worn as a badge of honor. Israeli-American real estate developer and philanthropist Adam Milstein says, “We grew up in Israel, most of us served in the army, and our character was galvanized by the time we served.”

These days, it’s getting tougher to conscript young Israelis into the IDF. About 12 percent of Israelis avoided the draft in 1980; by 2007, the number had jumped to 26 percent. In 2020, the IDF predicts 43 percent of Israeli youth will avoid the draft. “In my time everyone served in the Israeli army, and we understood the importance of a Jewish State,” says Milstein. “Today, an unprecedented portion of Israeli youth in large metropolitan areas such as Tel Aviv tries to avoid the draft.”

For parents in Israel, having a child accepted into an elite IDF unit is like having an American child accepted to Harvard. In fact, some wealthy Israelis provide their children with special training, like Arabic language lessons, to improve their chances of scoring an elite gig. Unit 8200 targets students with outstanding analytic abilities, good decision-makers, and team players. In fact, the 8200 handpicks its new recruits by the time they graduate from high school.

Thinking Outside the Box

Unit 8200 teaches students a lot about technology, but more than anything, it teaches them how to think like entrepreneurs.

“Success required out-of-the-box thinking, the courage to contradict conventional wisdom, and an ability to stave off hubris,” explains Idan Tendler, a former Unit 8200 lead agent who became CEO and co-founder of Fortscale, a global cybersecurity provider. “We learned to question authority and traditional ways of thinking in order to continuously improve outcomes.”

Tendler isn’t the only CEO who got his start in Unit 8200. The founders of companies like Outbrain, Waze, CheckPoint, Imperva, Gilat, Wix, and Palo Alto Networks all got their start in this elite cybersecurity unit. “We were a bunch of 18-year-old kids who, in a couple of months, would be leading complex intelligence technological operations in Israel’s equivalent of the NSA,” says Tendler.

Unit 8200’s recruits learn sophisticated data mining techniques and incorporate advanced machine learning, mostly to uncover cybersecurity threats and to conduct intelligence investigations. “This correlation between serving in the intelligence Unit 8200 and starting successful high-tech companies is not coincidental,” says one Unit 8200 alumnus, who only identifies himself as Brigadier General B. “Many of the technologies in use around the world and developed in Israel were originally military technologies and were developed and improved by unit veterans.”

 

Veterans Old and New

Adam Milstein came to the U.S. to earn his MBA after he finished compulsory IDF service. After enlisting in 1971, he’d fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where he was part of then General Ariel Sharon’s unit chasing Egyptian forces across the Suez Canal.

These days, Milstein is in his 60s, with married daughters and grandchildren. He spent his career rehabilitating and repurposing commercial and industrial real estate, amassing a portfolio of over $1 billion in holdings for his company, Hager Pacific. He’s also one of the key members of America’s Israeli-American council, where he works hard to instill a love for the homeland in Israeli-American youth.

There’s something special about Israel’s entrepreneurial spirit, and it’s something from which young Israeli-American professionals can benefit. Despite requiring compulsory military service, Israel isn’t a highly regimented and authority-driven society. It’s a country filled with independent spirit in which everyday workers are unafraid to question authority.

IDF veteran Yaron Carni, who founded Maverick Ventures, thinks military service creates an excellent mindset for young entrepreneurs. “One of the most unique traits of the IDF is that smart people get heard and promoted based on their skill sets,” says Carni. “Some of the greatest achievements were accomplished by regular soldiers.”

In addition, Israel is a country of immigrants, filled with diverse and highly skilled workers. When companies come to Israel to launch international operations, it only takes days to assemble a skilled workforce. When you look for job ads, you’ll often see want ads that say specifically, “Meant for 8200 alumni.”

International Perspective

In 2014, the Milstein and the IAC’s Los Angeles-based BINA network for young professionals hosted “Israel’s High Tech Heroes.” It was a salon gathering featuring former members of Unit 8200, where young Jewish professionals could ask candid questions about Israeli entrepreneurship. In addition to attending the IAC’s BINA salon, Unit 8200 Alumnus Association members spoke at the Global Tech Summit at Microsoft. “We were happy to share our own experiences as entrepreneurs, as well as present our perspectives about the benefits and challenges this unique path has,” said Guy Katsovich, Chair of the Young Alumni of the 8200 Unit.

After leaving active service, Unit 8200 members benefit from an established and enthusiastic alumni network. The Unit 8200 Alumni Association helps its veterans make connections in banking, business, and high-tech companies all over the world. Within their new work environments, they mingle among other Unit 8200 veterans and work with the same advanced technologies.

For example, one Israeli tech company that helps match people with clothing based on their unique tastes operates using the same kinds of algorithms Unit 8200 devised to track and thwart suicide bombers. “It’s more the mindset than the actual technology,” says Noa Levy, chief executive for mobile app startup Rompr. “Then, you can go out and do it on a completely different series of tasks, using the same methodology.”

The Value of Service

Over four decades after the Yom Kippur war, military service is still as formative as ever. One 22-year-old veteran who recently served in the Golani infantry brigade told the Washington Post, “I was drafted as a child with a head of a kid, and now I feel different, if it’s the music I listen to, if it’s in my behavior, even if in the clothing that I wear.”

For Adam Milstein, 8200 alumni, and other IDF veterans, the obligation to serve Israel and make a difference in the world doesn’t end after military service. Milstein says continuing to honor Israel, whether through reserve service, in the high-tech sector, or in the philanthropic sector, is every IDF veteran’s desire. “Whatever you give, you get more,” Milstein says. “Not necessarily 10 times more, but you just get more.”

Serving in Unit 8200 means getting more than just military service under one’s belt. It means a lifetime of innovation, business partnership, and economic development. In some ways, it’s the Stanford of Israel, and it’s poised to create an Israeli version of Silicon Valley.