Category: Uncategorized

This article was originally published in the Times of Israel on April 5, 2018.

Jewish history teaches us that it takes great leaders to overcome major challenges.

At the turn of the century, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, founder of Revisionist Zionism Ze’ev Jabotinsky, World Zionist Organization president Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first female prime minister Golda Meir, and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold saw growing antisemitism and acted to lay the foundations for an independent Jewish state.

During World War II, Mordechai Anielewicz led Jews to fight Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, at the same time that Peter Bergson (a disciple of Jabotinsky) managed a heroic campaign to form a Jewish army to fight for the allies, while raising awareness about the destruction of European Jewry.

A few years later, Col. Mickey Marcus, a tough Brooklyn street kid who built a strong reputation as an American military leader in WWII, left his home in America to help save Israel in 1948 and become its first modern general.

Today, the Jewish people face a new set of challenges.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which seeks to eradicate the State of Israel, is being waged around the world. It is working to divide the State of Israel from the Jewish family around the world, transforming from the glue that unites the Jewish American community into a wedge that separates it.

These extreme challenges demand action. They demand great leadership from us the Jewish people in the Diaspora.

The Jewish American community needs to identify, encourage and support heroes of our time: our Mordechai Anielewicz, our Ben-Gurion, our Henrietta Szold, our Mickey Marcus and our Golda Meir. We need leaders who will ensure the Jewish future in America by engaging and inspiring the next generation to be courageous Zionist leaders, fight antisemitism and support the Jewish people in America and the Jewish homeland, which will always be in Israel.

I have great hope and optimism that these high-caliber leaders will emerge. This is because I meet them every day.

In my work as a pro-Israel philanthropist and activist, I meet with the next generation of pro-Israel activists – passionate, innovative and incredibly hard-working leaders – who are rising to meet the challenges of our time.

I see these leaders in the young people who return home from Birthright, energized by their new connection to Israel, with a new understanding about the necessity of instilling a strong Jewish identity in their children.

I see them in Israeli-American Council, where young Israeli-Americans are being activated as a living bridge between America and Israel, as they work to strengthen our American Jewish community.

I see them in the teenagers participating in the Tzofim and B’nei Akiva youth groups – many of whom eventually make aliya and serve in the IDF.

I see them around the U.S. and around the world, fighting against antisemitism and for the global Jewish community.

These are the people who will shape the Jewish future.

Our job is to give them the platform to develop and the tools to succeed. All of us must support and empower the next generation of leaders with pride, courage, and resources. Why? If you are proud of your Jewish identity and heritage, you will be willing to fight and defend it. When you understand the history of your people, then you understand why it is so important for us to defend your community.

The task of being a great leader is not easy: leaders face isolation, ridicule and tough decisions. For instance, Jabotinsky was often condemned for his efforts to create a separate Jewish nation. But great leaders are necessary. We must invest in them, cultivate them and support them. This is how we support the next Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Henrietta Szold. This is how the next generation will be stronger than the last. And this is how the Jewish future will be secured.

This article was originally published in The Jerusalem Post on February 27, 2018.

Jewish history teaches us that it takes great leaders to overcome major challenges.

At the turn of the century, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, founder of Revisionist Zionism Ze’ev Jabotinsky, World Zionist Organization president Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first female prime minister Golda Meir, and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold saw growing antisemitism and acted to lay the foundations for an independent Jewish state.

During World War II, Mordechai Anielewicz led Jews to fight Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, at the same time that Peter Bergson (a disciple of Jabotinsky) managed a heroic campaign to form a Jewish army to fight for the allies while raising awareness about the destruction of European Jewry.

A few years later, Col. Mickey Marcus, a tough Brooklyn street kid who built a strong reputation as an American military leader in WWII, left his home in America to help save Israel in 1948 and become its first modern general.
Today, the Jewish people face a new set of challenges.

Antisemitism is on the rise on the Right and on the Left. In the US alone, antisemitic incidents rose 67% in 2017 compared to 2016 – and in Europe, increases in antisemitic messages in media and social media has fostered a reality in which only half of Jews feel safe wearing visible signs of their Jewishness. A poll released in February 2017 by the Jewish Federation of San Francisco found that only 21% of millennials in their community are very emotionally attached to Israel, and only 26% think it is very important to be Jewish, reflecting disturbing trends we saw in the 2013 Pew Survey of Jewish Americans and other research studies.

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which seeks to eradicate the State of Israel, is being waged around the world. It is working to divide the State of Israel from the Jewish family around the world, transforming from the glue that unites the Jewish American community into a wedge that separates it.

These extreme challenges demand action. They demand great leadership from us the Jewish people in the Diaspora.

The Jewish American community needs to identify, encourage and support heroes of our time: our Mordechai Anielewicz, our Ben-Gurion, our Henrietta Szold, our Mickey Marcus and our Golda Meir. We need leaders who will ensure the Jewish future in America by engaging and inspiring the next generation to be courageous Zionist leaders, fight antisemitism and support the Jewish people in America and the Jewish homeland, which will always be in Israel.

I have great hope and optimism that these high-caliber leaders will emerge. This is because I meet them every day.
In my work as a pro-Israel philanthropist and activist, I meet with the next generation of pro-Israel activists – passionate, innovative and incredibly hard-working leaders – who are rising to meet the challenges of our time.

I see these leaders in the young people who return home from Birthright, energized by their new connection to Israel, with a new understanding about the necessity of instilling a strong Jewish identity in their children.

I see them in Israeli-American Council, where young Israeli-Americans are being activated as a living bridge between America and Israel, as they work to strengthen our American Jewish community.

I see them in the teenagers participating in the Tzofim and B’nei Akiva youth groups – many of whom eventually make aliya and serve in the IDF.

This month, I will see them in Washington among the hundreds of college students that the Milstein Family Foundation brings to the AIPAC Policy Conference.

These are the people who will shape the Jewish future.

Our job is to give them the platform to develop and the tools to succeed. All of us must support and empower the next generation of leaders with pride, courage, and resources. Why? If you are proud of your Jewish identity and heritage, you will be willing to fight and defend it. When you understand the history of your people, then you understand why it is so important for us to defend your community.

The task of being a great leader is not easy: leaders face isolation, ridicule and tough decisions. For instance, Jabotinsky was often condemned for his efforts to create a separate Jewish nation. But great leaders are necessary. We must invest in them, cultivate them and support them. This is how we support the next Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Henrietta Szold. This is how the next generation will be stronger than the last. And this is how the Jewish future will be secured.

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.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to visit major Israeli tour spots, you can now experience some of them through virtual reality tours on the Virtually Israel 2.0 website.

A project of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation and the MERONA Leadership Foundation, Virtually Israel 2.0 features the following videos:

• Beaches
• Bible Land Museums
• Dead Sea Scrolls
• Independence Hall
• Jerusalem & the Dead Sea
• Sarona Market
• Startup Market
• Taglit Innovation
• Tel Aviv & Jaffa
• Tel Aviv Balloon Ride
• Tower of David Museum

Philanthropist Adam Milstein told the Journal in a phone interview that the idea for virtual reality videos came about three years ago, when virtual reality was becoming “very, very popular” and was clearly where the future is headed. They initially produced two virtual reality videos two years ago and they were very well-received among various Jewish organizations.

“We wanted to give people a much wider variety,” said Milstein. “We wanted to give them all the different things in Israel that will interest Jews and non-Jews, so we’re giving them a lot of tourist attractions.”

Milstein explained that they had a team of volunteers that went to those specific areas in Israel that took footage and pictures of the tourist sites from different angles in order to create the virtual reality videos. He added that more videos could be on the way.

“Based on our success, we’ll do more things that people feel we didn’t cover in the first ones,” said Milstein.

Milstein hopes that the videos cause people to understand the truth about Israel.

“Israel is not a war zone. It’s not a place of the conflict between the Palestinian and the Israeli,” said Milstein. “It’s a place of peace and prosperity and happiness and innovation, a place that anybody should go and enjoy. We’re showing Israel the way it is, the real colors, we don’t let the media contaminate the image that we have on Israel.”

“The main takeaway is we’re using innovation to tell the truth about Israel.”

The videos are all available on 2D and can be seen in 3D on platforms like Google Cardboard.

Original post: Jewish Journal

BY AARON BANDLER | PUBLISHED JAN 31, 2018

The Israeli-American Council’s Fourth Annual National Conference in Washington, D.C., held last month felt like a long-overdue family reunion. Enveloping warmth and a powerful sense of togetherness, the love for Israel was infectious, radiating to and from all the participants.

In the corridors of the Washington Convention Center, teenagers spoke with unique pride about their hybrid Israeli-American identity, rooted in the idea that they are deeply connected to their home in America while maintaining a strong affinity to their Jewish homeland in Israel.

Groups of Jewish-American and Israeli-American young professionals exchanged business cards and then headed to a packed dance floor, moving and shaking the steel floors of the convention center to the beat of Israeli music. A young Jewish couple —  the man from New York, the woman from Tel Aviv — joined with their 2-year-old and hundreds of other young families in a circle with picture books in Hebrew and English.

Groups singing Israeli songs blended with panel discussions about what it means to be Israeli and Jewish in America, centered around the idea that we were connected by the Israeliness in our character and the love for Israel in our heart. Many echoed the sentiment that Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans are one family, need each other and complement each other.

This sense of unity extended to the event’s political conversations. The politicians at the conference held views that spanned the ideological spectrum. They shared these radically different views on stage – in very frank conversations. All received thundering applause from the mixed crowd. In the many conference sessions and events, it was clear that Israeliness is a unifying force that can overcome political disagreements.

We live during a time of growing gaps and serious challenges in the Jewish community — both inside American Jewry and between Israel and the Diaspora. How do we address a declining Jewish population in the face of assimilation? How do we overcome divides among our different denominations, political orientations, ethnic backgrounds and geographic centers? How do we ensure that Israel is not a wedge that divides our community, but rather the glue that holds us together and strengthens us?

The nearly 3,000 participants in the Washington conference suggested the role that Israeli Americans can and do play as important partners for American Jewish institutions in addressing these questions and as bridge builders to the State of Israel and its people.

There are three unique value propositions that Israeli Americans — and groups like ours that represent them — can bring to the table for the Jewish community.

The first is our Israeliness, a character and multifaceted quality that brings together many aspects of our identity: Jewish values, the Hebrew language, Israeli culture, pride in our history and heritage, the unique accomplishments of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, and above all, a belief that “All the people of Israel are responsible for one another.”

Through Israeliness, our community is bringing new people into our communal conversations and re-engaging others from a wide variety of backgrounds. We understand the importance of Israel not just as a vibrant country and proud culture, but as a crucial part of our spiritual beliefs as Jews. We speak Hebrew at home and at shul — the same language with two unique and intertwined purposes. Our community offers new ways to engage with Israel and Judaism itself.

The second value proposition is our deep love for Israel, rooted in personal experience and an appreciation that it is not just the homeland of the Jewish people, but a source of our pride, common history, culture, courage, and strength. We recognize that Israel isn’t perfect but accept and support it without any preconditions.

As a result, Israeli Americans are uniquely equipped to advocate for Israel. The Israeli-American Council, for example, has worked to advocate for laws that keep states like California, Nevada, and Texas from allowing taxpayer funds to support groups that discriminate against Israelis with economic boycotts. In partnership with existing organizations like AIPAC and Jewish federations, the Israeli-American Coalition for Action and the Israeli-American community have acted to advance bipartisan support for the Taylor Force Act, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act and other important pieces of legislation.

The third value proposition is our willingness and ability to think outside the box. Israeli Americans have much to learn from the American Diaspora community about how Jewish culture and community can flourish outside of a Jewish state. Yet we are also contributing fresh perspectives that have brought a range of programs to American Jewish life – initiatives that are engaging not only Israeli Americans but also Jewish Americans of all ages.

By uniting Israeli Americans and partnering with existing Jewish-American institutions, we believe that we can strengthen the American communities we live in and build their connection to Israel. Our vision for the coming decades is optimistic: Where some see challenges and gaps, we see promise and opportunity to reignite Jewish life, re-inspire Jewish pride, and courage, and re-imagine our existing institutions so that they serve the next generation in our community.

By working together as one big Jewish family, Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans of all backgrounds can forge the future we desire.

(Adam Milstein is a co-founder and the chairman of the board of the Israeli-American Council.) 

Original post: JTA

Adam Milstein is chairman of the board of the Israeli-American Council.

Originally published in Israel Hayom

Radical Muslims are focused on destroying and delegitimizing Israel – the historic homeland of the Jewish People — and they fan the flames of antisemitism wherever they can.

Vicious antisemitism has long been present on the radical Right. It has been growing also on the radical Left. And it’s a cornerstone of radical Muslim movements. Although these three sources of antisemitism in our world today come from very different traditions, they are increasingly sharing ideas and tactics, reinforcing a wave of hate, bigotry, and racism.

In recent years, North America has joined Europe to witness a growing alliance between radical Muslims and radical leftists. Radical Muslims stone women, execute gays, trample on minority and human rights and abhor feminism. On paper, the far Left should be appalled by this ideology, but these unlikely allies happily cast aside their differences because they share a common hatred for Western influence in the world, pluralistic nationalism, freedom of speech, tolerance, and vile antisemitism.

How does the radical Left turn a blind eye to radical Islam’s very bigoted ideas, such as its treatment of women and minorities? How can it ignore radical Muslims’ conviction as to the superiority of Islamic morals and culture? It infantilizes Muslims and portrays Islam as a monolithic block. In doing so, it fails to distinguish between mainstream Muslims and radicals, and tokenizes them as a “people oppressed by the West.”

In the radical Left’s warped and ahistorical worldview, Israel is a colonialist oppressor targeting Muslims and – straight from the Elders of Zion itself – Jews are an all-powerful group who are at fault for every problem in the Middle East and in the world.

This alliance is typified by political activist Linda Sarsour, one of the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington, who is now hailed on the Left as a feminist leader, despite her admiration for the vile misogyny of Sharia law. She called a Jewish journalist a member of the antisemitic alt-right. She opened her “jihad against Trump” speech by thanking Siraj Wajjah, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. She has praised Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women. Yet, she is held up as a role model for women on the Left.

And this alliance is growing. Last month, leftist students at Tufts University published a “Disorientation Guide,” which attacked the university’s Hillel and called Israel a “white supremacist” state. It exposed the depth of antisemitism among leftists on college campuses and demonstrated how these groups use the same rhetoric as radical Muslim groups that call Israel a colonial occupier. One of the guide’s writers claimed this was not antisemitic because she was Jewish.

A similar guide at New York University myopically condemns Israel, referencing the country 55 times – more than the number of references to “Trump,” “alt-right,” “racism,” “fascism,” “white supremacy” and “socialism” combined.

Two recent rally events in Chicago further illustrate this trend: one, the Chicago Dyke March earlier this year – an event created to celebrate the LGBT community – expelled three people for having Stars of David on their pride flags, combining two symbols central to their identity. A few months later, at the Chicago SlutWalk – an event intended to oppose sexual assault – Zionists who marched were derided for trying to participate and condemned by organizers. The organizers then encouraged the walkers to attend a speech by Rasmea Odeh – a Palestinian terrorist convicted of killing two Jewish students, still believes her actions were justified and who was recently deported from the US.

This strange allegiance between Islamic radicals and radical leftists was famously on display during the Iranian revolution of the late Seventies – where the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the moderate shah with the support of leftists and Islamists, and in turn was quick to empower the radical Muslims and decimate the radical Left.

The 3,000-old Jewish population of Iran, some 100,000 Jews, could sense the inherent antisemitism of the radical leftists and their hatred of the West, before and during the Iranian revolution and emigrated in large numbers as fast as they could – mostly to the US and Israel.

Just as the far Left has a history of vilifying the nation-state of the Jewish People (and the Jews who support it), the Right has colluded with radical Muslims to spread its pure hatred of Jews and the desire to brutally subjugate – or murder – the Jewish People.

Radical Islamic nationalists also have a history of collaborating with the Right when they can – the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem told Adolf Hitler that Germans and Arabs have the same enemies – “the English, the Jews, and the Communists” – and the prime minister of Iraq initiated the Farhud, a horrific pogrom, under Nazi influence and allegiance. Today, the rhetoric of neo-Nazis is rife with conspiracy theories and centuries-old stereotypes about blood libel, and echoes the rhetoric of radical Islamist terrorists – and even radical Muslims.

What’s most concerning about the rise of antisemitism is how the ideology has entered the mainstream.

For instance, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders recently campaigned for UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has worked closely with antisemitic conspiracy theorist Paul Eisen, author of a blog titled “My Life as a Holocaust Denier.” Sanders wouldn’t campaign for a socialist who was a sexist, a racist, a homophobe, or Islamophobe, but he was willing to campaign for an antisemite because leftist organizations encourage antisemitism.

Radical Muslims are focused on destroying and delegitimizing Israel – the historic homeland of the Jewish People — and they fan the flames of antisemitism wherever they can to reach that goal – whether among those working to stop racism in present-day America or working to grab power in 1940s Iraq, or boycotting Israel through the BDS movement. By allying with the radical Left, they are building a coalition that seeks to destroy Western values of freedom, democracy, and tolerance – the foundational principles of America and of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.

The growth of this alliance and the mainstreaming of antisemitic leftism – especially on college campuses – threatens not only our way of life in America but the future of the Jewish People around 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.

Originally published to the Jerusalem Post.

Today, the collective strength of the Jewish people may be greater than at any other time in our history. We have an independent Jewish state with a booming economy and one of the world’s most powerful militaries. The American Jewish community has reached the heights of success in politics, business, arts and culture, and science, becoming perhaps the most influential Jewish diaspora community in history.

Yet, despite our strength, the challenges facing global Jewry are growing and multifaceted—in some cases posing an existential danger to our future as a people. Anti-Semitism is rapidly rising on the right and the left. Assimilation and intermarriage threaten to dramatically shrink the global Jewish population in the diaspora. The now infamous Pew Study, titled “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” found that approximately two-thirds of American Jewish millennials do not feel a strong connection to Israel, and a recent Brandeis University found that fewer than half of Jewish college students could correctly answer even the most basic questions about Israel. The American Jewish community and Israel—the two great centers of global Jewish life—face an increasingly complex and in some cases, strained relationship.

In the last decade, a new force has come roaring into the Jewish world that has shown the potential to be a game-changer in advancing solutions to each of these challenges: the Israeli-American community. As an American organization rooted in a profound and rich connection to Israel, the Israeli-American Council (IAC) is able to unlock many of the doors that separate Jewish Americans from their connection to Israel, through a multifaceted and rich concept we call “Israeliness.”

Israeliness incorporates many elements. It’s Israeli culture, Jewish values, and Hebrew, the language of our religion for thousands of years. It’s tremendous pride in Jewish tradition, our history, and Israel’s ability to overcome overwhelming odds—from wars and political conflicts, to a lack of wealth and natural resources. It’s the courage to take risks, learn from failures, and move on to success. It’s a deep belief in Zionism. And it’s a commitment to the idea “Kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh,” “All the people of Israel are responsible for one another.” Sharing our rich tradition with the next generation will further help them connect to Israel.

How can Israeli-Americans and the broader idea of Israeliness be leveraged to advance solutions for the Jewish people? This is the question that Rabbi Ed Feinstein, Jewish Journal/Tribe Media President David Suissa, and I will discuss at an upcoming panel on Sept. 6.

There are at least three ways that Israeli-Americans and Israeliness can be—and already are—game-changers.

First, Israeli-Americans can be leveraged as a bridge—both within the American Jewish community and between Israel and the American Jewish Community. The fact that we speak both “Israeli” and “American” has positioned us as a translator and facilitator of dialogue between the two communities. A prime example of this is the IAC National conference in Washington, D.C., an event where top civic, political, and business leaders from both countries come together every year.

Too many within the Jewish community take news media about Israel at face value— internalizing the negative stereotypes about our homeland and the Israeli people—which often leads to an inability to see the necessity of a Jewish state. Israelis then react to Jewish Americans’ disregard in a typically Israeli way: declaring that they do not need Jewish Americans and stubbornly refusing to engage in a gentler, American-style discourse. Israeli-Americans can bridge the gap.

Second, Israeliness can be used as a tool for the crucial task of engaging the next generation. Israeliness opens up a whole new world for young American Jews, many of whom have been conditioned to believe that Jewish identity must be centered on attending Jewish schools and synagogues. In discovering the people and culture of their homeland, young Jews are able to discover a piece of themselves.

The great success of many programs, such as Masa Israel, Gap Year, and in particular, Birthright—with its half a million alumni—illustrate how visiting, exploring and experiencing the people Israel makes a transformative difference in their lives. The best possible follow-up for these programs is to help their alumni reconnect with Israeliness through integration with the Israeli-American community.

Furthermore, Israel’s success is rooted in the young country’s willingness to take risks—in an understanding that failure is nothing shameful, but merely an opportunity to learn and move on to your next success. Being able to bounce back after failures is a crucial skill for young people to develop to handle life’s many challenges. The next generation can learn much from Israeliness.

Third, Israeli-Americans and Israeliness can be a powerful tool in fighting anti-Semitism and the BDS Movement. Israeli-Americans defend Israel by drawing on personal experience. Moreover, Israeliness means being proud to be who we are—and having the courage to stand up for what we believe in. We must communicate to the next generation that tremendous pride and willingness to stand up, speak out, and when necessary, fight back to protect ourselves when our faith, our values, and our homeland are under attack.

The challenges facing the Jewish community are complex. Israeliness is a secret sauce that can help ensure that our people will not only survive but continue to thrive.

Adam Milstein is the Chairman of the Israeli-American Council, a real estate entrepreneur, and the president of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation. 

On Sept. 6, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, David Suissa, and Adam Milstein will discuss the untapped potential of Israeliness on September 6, 2017 at 7:00pm at the IAC. This event is free for IAC Supporters and those registered to attend the IAC National Conference. The general public can buy pre-sale tickets for $10 at israeliamerican.org/israeliness, or pay $15 at the door.

Original article posted in the Jewish Journal