Ten years ago, I was both an Israeli and an American. Now, I’m an Israeli-American. Embracing this unique hybrid identity makes all the difference in the world for more than a million people living in America.

A decade ago, Israeli-Americans were, at best, afterthoughts within the Jewish American community. Even though we had US passports, built American businesses, lived in American homes, had English-speaking kids in schools and colleges, we lived “with our suitcases packed.” We assumed we would return to Israel one day and saw little need to cultivate a community.

We were disconnected from synagogues, Jewish education and Jewish community organizations, but deep in our hearts, we knew we were also disconnected from our Jewish homeland. 

Over the past decade, all of this has changed dramatically. More and more, people like me – born in Israel, but residing in the US – along with our spouses, children and grandchildren, are proudly embracing an Israeli-American identity. This is largely a result of the Israeli-American Council (IAC), which has grown to 10 regional councils, with active volunteers in 27 states and a range of innovative programs that meaningfully engage Israeli-Americans nationwide at all stages of life.

Our new identity has provided a centerpiece for the IAC to build a united community. We have moved from isolation to integration within the Jewish American community, from irrelevant to a game changer. And we are using our unique identity to not only get involved in American Jewish life, but to strengthen the broader Jewish-American community in the process. The fact that we speak both “Israeli” and “American” has positioned us to become a living bridge between Israel and US, and to inject what we call “Israeliness” into the broader mix of American Jewish communal institutions.

Later this month, at the IAC National Kenes in Washington, DC, will mark a major milestone in the Israeli-American community’s emergence as a significant and fast-growing player within the broader Jewish Diaspora. It will be the largest gathering of Israeli-Americans in history – and represent a meeting of many of the most important figures in Jewish life today from both the US and Israel.

This three-day conference will bring together community and political leaders, academics, editors, journalists, authors and artists from both Israel and the United States. Leaders of major organizations, such as the Jewish Federations, the Jewish Community Centers of America, Jewish National Fund and AIPAC will explore how Israeli-Americans can strengthen the American Jewish community and its connection to Israel, joining many of the world’s most visionary philanthropists, including Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson.

Together, we will examine how Israeli-Americans can be unleashed to strengthen the three pillars critical for the Jewish future: the next generation, the American Jewish community and the friendship between the American people and Israeli people, as well as the relationship between their governments.

Over the past year, the IAC has already shown significant progress in building these three pillars for both Israeli-Americans and the broader Jewish community. We have been able to strengthen the next generation through programs like IAC Eitanim – which teaches practical leadership skills to groups of Jewish American and Israeli-American high school students, and we have been instrumental in the overwhelmingly passage of an anti-boycott bill in both the California Senate and Assembly.

At the conference, we will explore how to engage and support the next generation in conversation with thought leaders like Birthright Israel CEO Gidi Mark and Gidi Grinstein, the president of the Reut Institute and the author of Flexigidity.

We will explore how “Israeliness” – the Hebrew language, Israeli culture and entrepreneurship, our unique sense of family, and our connection to and love for Israel – can strengthen the Jewish identity of Americans, young and old, and not just those with Israeli parents, but those throughout the broader Jewish community.

And we will look for ways to leverage Israeli-Americans as a strategic asset to strengthen the relationship between the US and Israel.

Israeli-Americans are knowledgeable and passionate about this subject.

They can speak from personal experience – it’s much easier to explain Israel’s security challenges when your family lives in Jerusalem or you have served in the Israel Defense Forces.

Israeli-Americans – instilled with our culture’s characteristic boldness – can form an army of activists who are unafraid to stand up and speak out against the lies about the Jewish state and the Israeli people.

This month’s conference marks just how far the Israeli-Americans have come: we are not on the fringes of the Jewish American community, but a core pillar of its strength.

Before we founded the IAC, no one used the term “Israeli-Americans” or “Americans of Israeli descent.” 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.

The author is an entrepreneur, Israeli- American philanthropist and the chairman of the Israeli-American Council

What Israeli-Americans can learn from American Jews.

Israeli schoolchildren hold the Israeli and American flags. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Over the past decade, American Jewry has emerged as perhaps the strongest Jewish community in the history of the Diaspora.

Their story of success is nothing short of inspiring. Jews began arriving in large numbers in the United States from Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century. The vast majority of them had no money, no knowledge of the English language and little understanding of their new culture. Strong Jewish communal institutions were established and provided an important foundation for these immigrants, their children and their grandchildren to maintain a strong sense of Jewish identity as they climbed America’s socio-economic ladder.

Today, approximately 60 percent of American Jews have a college degree (compared with 27% of Americans). Today they comprise around one fourth of Ivy League undergraduates, and 37% of American Nobel Prize winners. In a survey of America’s most 200 influential intellectuals in the 1970s, half were Jewish and 75% had at least one Jewish parent. Despite only being 2% of the US population, American Jews today account for seven of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, 11 out of 100 US senators, two of 15 US cabinet secretaries and one third of the Supreme Court. 

Many of America’s immigrant communities today draw from the American Jewish experience to see how to integrate and succeed in the US while still maintaining their identity. Israeli- Americans should do the same.

Recently, there has been a revolution in the way that Israeli-Americans like me view ourselves. Since we first began coming to the US after Israel’s independence in 1948, Israelis living in America held onto the belief that we would eventually return to Israel. We lived with our suitcases packed. Without feeling rooted in the US, we didn’t cultivate community, and generally remained disconnected from synagogues, Jewish educational institutions, and Jewish community organizations.

Supported by organizations like the Israeli-American Council, we are now embracing our unique hybrid Israeli-American identity, metaphorically unpacking our bags and building a strong, thriving community. In September, the third Annual Israeli- American Conference in Washington, DC, will bring thousands of Israeli-American activists together with prominent leaders in politics, journalism, the Jewish community, education, art and business.

A primary goal of this conference is to learn from our fellow American Jews, who have effectively built a thriving community in the Diaspora. I believe there are at least three ways we should emulate their example: 

First, American Jewry has invested in preserving the community’s heritage and supporting its Jewish life. Decade after decade, American Jews have effectively developed and sustained organizations to meet a range of religious, educational, social, political and cultural needs – from synagogues and community centers, to Jewish Day schools and camps, to advocacy groups and Federations.

Jewish education is at the heart of this work. Day schools, religious schools and summer camps provide a framework for instilling Jewish identity in the next generation and creating opportunities for Jews to form bonds of community while living in the Diaspora. American Jewish families have long embraced the concept of L’dor V’dor (from generation to generation), with even secular Jews participating in multi-generational Jewish activities as a family – from celebrating holidays, to joining a Havura, to becoming active in their local JCC.

These practices were not so intuitive for Israelis coming to America, accustomed to living in a Jewish state, where Jewish holidays are part of the official calendar, Jewish history and heritage education is mostly provided by the public school system, nearly all of your neighbors are Jewish and many functions of preserving Jewish identity are carried out by the government. In Israel, you can take your Jewishness for granted. In America, you simply cannot.

Second, American Jewry has fostered a strong culture of philanthropy. They understand that Jewish institutions will only exist if they support them financially, and as a result, wide swaths of the community give to synagogues, Jewish schools, and other organizations.

In Israel, the government is expected to provide for all social needs and support a strong Jewish community. In the US, this culture of giving is not present in the same way. For most Israelis, giving money to charities is considered naïve, reserved for freiers (Hebrew for “sucker”).

When we founded the IAC, a primary goal was to instill this commitment to philanthropy in the Israeli- American community. We came up with the motto, “I aspire to be a freier,” and required that all early members of the IAC support at least one charitable cause outside of the IAC. We have made great progress on this front, raising unprecedented sums from the Israeli-American community in support of communal needs. Yet, we still have only raised a fraction of our community’s capacity – and have a long way to goal to realizing our full potential.

Third, American Jewry has effectively engaged in civic life and the political process. Today there are more than 20 Jewish members of Congress, and Jews serve at all levels of government, including mayors of major cities, like Michael Bloomberg in New York City, Rahm Emanuel in Chicago and Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles. A range of organizations like AIPAC, ADL and AJC have effectively organized and rallied the Jewish community in support of Israel and domestic policy priorities.

American Jewry has successfully built bridges to other communities around common issues – from human rights and social justice, to education and business. In short, American Jewry has been at the forefront of advocating for others.

Israeli-Americans should find lessons and inspiration from this experience.

We need to engage in advocacy to ensure that both the United States, our national homeland, and Israel, our Jewish homeland, remain strong allies and fight for just causes. The Israeli-American community recently launched its own 501(c)4 advocacy group, the Israeli-American Coalition for Action, to make our voices heard to our nation’s policymakers.

In his new book, Flexigidity, Gidi Grinstein makes a compelling argument that the secret of Jewish success and survival over the millennia has been our willingness to “balance new and old, innovation and tradition, flexibility and rigidity.” As we look at how to address the great challenges facing the Jewish people in America, it’s clear that engaging Israeli-Americans and the broader Jewish-American community in closer conversation can advance solutions. Building wider and deeper partnerships between Israeli-Americans and Jewish- Americans will benefit all, bringing a new vibrancy to Jewish life in our country and all over the world.

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.

When you read this, you might realize this story is about you. Please forgive me. I have the utmost respect for you and your work. However, this lesson is just too valuable not to share.

Last month, I was approached by a group of professionals who had a simple yet brilliant idea: They needed $150,000 in order to create a high-quality program that would be taught to three million high school students every year. They told me that their team had the professional skills to build this incredible program. They also had connections to networks that would help the program actually reach three million high school students every year.

“How do you know that the teachers will want to teach this program?” I asked.

“It’s easy,” they responded. “We have connections that will make this possible.”

“Do you have any letter, agreement, or proof that this will work?”

“No.”

“Have you asked your networks if they will do it?”

“No.”

“Has anyone else pledged to fund this program already?”

“No.”

There are many things we look for in projects. But, I didn’t see a reason to continue the conversation until I saw a letter confirming that the program would indeed be taught to three million high school students, as they claimed. What else can I do? The best program in the world is completely worthless if it cannot be implemented on the ground.

It’s been over a month and a half, and I haven’t heard back from them.

Here’s the thing: This is a group of very intelligent people, but I don’t know them. I’ve never worked with them and I don’t know other people who know them. I don’t have the expertise to assess the quality of their program. I like the subject, but how do I know for sure if the program is good? Professionals in high schools should make that call. All I need is a letter. But they called me before they made the phone call that would get them that letter—an easy task, according to them. They jumped to fundraising before they collected the low-hanging fruit.

Now, let’s step outside of the nonprofit sphere and into the business world. You have a product. You think it’s an amazing product. You want to manufacture large quantities of it, but you need to fundraise in order to be able to manufacture that first batch. Under what circumstances do you think it would be easier to fundraise—with or without a purchase order of three million units?

The answer is clear. Your company’s valuation will be much higher if you have a letter from someone who wants to buy three million units. As the founder, if you know that you are one easy-to-get letter away from increasing your valuation, you go and get that letter before you pitch to venture capital firms.

The situation I described happens again, and again, and again.

Recently we were approached by two young men with an amazing, out-of-the-box idea that has the potential to have a tremendous impact. I mean unprecedentedly big—at least in our sphere, in my humble opinion. The problem is that there are a few operational elements that have not been figured out yet. I offered my advice and said that we would try to help with the fundraising if they improved their operational plan. They said it would be a few days. Four weeks later they emailed to apologize for the delay. I had to respond that unfortunately, due to the long delay, we can no longer consider supporting the project. It doesn’t matter why there was a four-week delay, all that matters is that the project is not a high priority, and if it’s not a high priority for the people running it, we cannot spend the foundation’s money on it. No disrespect—these really are unusual circumstances—but whatever the circumstances may be, what matters is that we cannot be rest assured that the project is managed properly.

It’s frustrating because these are good ideas, coming from smart, capable people. These projects are not going to make them rich, but they would further our cause. They are passionate about their projects and they are reaching out to foundations that can help make their ideas possible. But by reaching out too soon, they are shooting themselves in the foot because they come across as unprepared, which raises the worst kinds of questions in a donor’s mind.

I know that feeling, the feeling of having an amazing idea, an idea so good it would make me a millionaire or change the world. But you can’t go asking strangers for money—even if they are called a foundation and even if you share the same mission—before you have taken the idea as far as you can by yourself, as a token of thoroughness, seriousness, and dedication. For more on this see my blog about the difference between foundations and bank accounts.

Another extremely talented young man I know, highly respected in our community, told me once, “Man, if only someone gave me, person B, and person C a million dollars, we would change things around.” I had to wake him up. Buddy, no one is giving you a million dollars. You need to come up with a plan, budget it, try it out, prove that it works, and then go raise the money.

If you go back to my older posts, you will see an overarching theme:frustration. There is so much wisdom out there, so many great ideas and capable people. But many of those great ideas get lost when people fail to raise funds for their unproven concepts and incoherently presented plans, and those small mistakes have a big cost.

If you have an idea that you are serious about, if you can prove that it would make an impact, and if you have done everything in your power to get the idea as far as possible, I welcome you to reach out to me so that I can potentially help you bring it to the next phase.

“Put your money where your mouth is,” they say. I’ll make it easier on you: Put your time where your idea is.

Never again. That was the sacred vow made by the Jewish people over the past 70 years in the wake of the Holocaust.

Following the murder of six million of our brethren by the Nazis, the Jewish people have come to recognize that we have only ourselves to rely on for our defense.

When the going gets tough, no one else will come to fight for us.

And in today’s tumultuous world, the sole guarantor of Jewish safety is a strong Israeli military. Jews facing mortal danger in any corner of the globe can count on Israel to protect them.

No event in recent years symbolized this more than the Israel Air Force flyover of the Auschwitz death camps, in what is now Poland, in September 2003. After being invited to take a part in an air show marking the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Polish Air Force, three IAF F-15 Eagle fighter jets, all piloted by descendants of Holocaust survivors, flew to Auschwitz and thundered through the skies above the camp where nearly one million Jews were slaughtered between 1940 and 1945 while the world stood by and did nothing.

The message of the flyover mission was clear: unlike the Allied forces during World War II, who patrolled the skies above the death camps but refrained from bombing Auschwitz and its rail roads for “lack of resources,” Israel will never leave Jews to their fate. 

Never again means never again.

Israel will see to that, no matter the consequences.

As the IAF’s F-15s were soaring over the camps, hundreds of IDF commanders on the ground proudly sang “Hatikva,” the Israeli national anthem, the title of which means “the hope” in English.
 

One of the Israeli pilots was Amir Eshel, now the commander of the IAF. In a radio message broadcast to a delegation of IDF soldiers gathered down below at Auschwitz, Eshel declared, “We pilots of the Israel Air Force, flying in the skies above the camp of horrors, arose from the ashes of the millions of victims and shoulder their silent cries, salute their courage, and promise to be the shield of the Jewish people and its nation Israel.”

His words succinctly capture the story of the State of Israel. Our homeland was established with blood, sweat and grit by a battered, but brave and defiant Jewish people. We overcame all odds and built a thriving democracy in our ancient homeland in the heart of the Middle East.

Before Israel’s founding in 1948, Jews were easy prey. They could run but they were not safe. Not anymore, never again! Thanks to its strength, the Israel Defense Force is fulfilling its true purpose – to serve as the ultimate insurance policy for the Jewish people against our enemies.

If history has taught us anything, it is that others will try to annihilate the Jews again and again in the future. But whenever the next time comes, we will not be helpless. Israel, with all its might and determination, is not going anywhere. It will do whatever is necessary to eliminate threats posed by those who seek the Jewish people’s destruction.

In the early 1930s, people across the world – including many of the most successful and assimilated Jews in Europe – wrote off Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitism, believing that he would never actually act on his words. Little could they imagine the disaster that would be brought upon the entire world by Hitler’s madness just a few years later, leading to the death of tens of millions and the destruction of half the world.

If Hitler’s intentions had been taken seriously early on, he could have been stopped. The Holocaust was further evidence that Jews are the proverbial canary in the coal mine. When Jews are persecuted, slandered or unfairly singled out, this does not bode well for others.

While Jews are often the first to be targeted by tyrants and bigots, it almost never ends with the Jews.

Remember that the next time you hear the news about an IDF operation. When Israel goes to war, it is not doing so just for its citizens or Jews around world.

When Israel fights, it does so on behalf of Western civilization as a whole. Israel is the floodgate – it sits on a strategic fault line between enlightenment and tyranny.

In the not-too-distant future, we will be without any Holocaust survivors who can provide us with direct personal accounts of the horrors they suffered. But the lessons of the Holocaust are more relevant than ever and they must be passed on to future generations.

This month, we lost one of the great bearers of these lessons, Elie Wiesel, who said of this cause, “Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.”

As Wiesel often shared, one of the most important ways to safeguard the memory of the Holocaust is to strengthen and support Israel. The Jewish state stands as a vivid rejection of everything the Nazis believed in. As long as the Jewish people can defend ourselves by ourselves, we will flourish and prosper for generations to come. And so will the world.

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.