On the evening of March 1, just before a private Israeli-American Council (IAC) event for college students at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington, D.C., it was difficult for two of IAC’s co-founders, Shawn Evenhaim and Adam Milstein, to walk more than a few feet without being approached by attendees.
Some thanked them for their support (both Milstein’s family foundation and the IAC have helped sponsor many students’ trips to AIPAC), others sought advice on Israel advocacy and on their careers, while the rest seemed simply to want to talk.
The post-dinner gathering was an opportunity for various pro-Israel campus activists from across the nation not only to meet one another and share tactics and vision, but also to hear from a few Capitol Hill lawmakers and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens.
Coming less than four months after IAC’s big November inaugural conference just a few miles away, and two days after Milstein and Evenhaim announced that the IAC had decided to launch a Washington, D.C., chapter (its eighth nationally), the message was clear: IAC — the largest, if not the only, national educational group in the nation geared toward Israeli Americans — is entering the Beltway and plans to put some of its resources toward creating a federal advocacy arm.
In a March 2 interview at the 12th-floor M Club at the Marriott adjoining AIPAC’s conference center in downtown Washington, Milstein and Evenhaim said IAC’s D.C.-area branch will play two roles.
First, like its branches in other cities — including ones in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Boston — the D.C. branch will serve as an educational, religious and cultural resource for Israeli Americans in the area. The group says it has reached about 150,000 people through this programming, and its state branches already work with state and local officials on a range of issues.
Second, the D.C. office will be an advocacy arm for Israeli-American interests on Capitol Hill. Evenhaim, the group’s chairman, said IAC’s advocacy activities in Washington will not constitute lobbying. Without elaborating, Milstein and Evenhaim referred to visa laws and education as two issues that particularly concern the nation’s Israeli-American community, which, IAC says on its website, numbers more than 500,000 people.
“Our target is much wider than Congress,” Milstein said, emphasizing that the D.C. branch will be more than just a policy arm for domestic issues important to Israeli Americans. “We feel that we have the natural knowledge to be the ambassadors for Israel.”
And that’s where AIPAC came in. IAC sees its membership as assets for AIPAC, and Israeli Americans who are at AIPAC as assets for IAC. Even when IAC got its start as the Israeli Leadership Council — a group of Israeli-born businessmen formed the group in Los Angeles in 2007 and it was officially renamed the IAC in 2013 — the mission was to bring delegations and sponsor student trips to Washington.
At the March 1 evening event for Mishelanu, IAC’s on-campus arm, pro-Israel college students took the stage one after the other, discussing the challenges they face defending Israel on campus and learning from one another’s successes. Two of the speakers were Jewish students from UC Davis who had successfully appealed to that school’s student judiciary to overturn a recently passed Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) bill, on the grounds that it was primarily political and thus violated the student senate’s obligation to focus on student welfare.
And perhaps most exciting for the students Sunday night — and a second early indicator of IAC’s networking abilities on Capitol Hill — Congressmembers Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Ed Royce (R-Calif.) stopped by to give remarks.
“I’m here tonight because of the efforts of this organization to rally Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans to support this incredibly decisive effort to stand up on the university campuses,” Royce said.
At IAC’s inaugural conference in November, some of the group’s draws included former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, and billionaire rival political kingmakers Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson, who are both major supporters.
Asked what he anticipates will be the balance in the D.C. branch between its normal work within that region’s Israeli-American community and its advocacy efforts in Washington, Evenhaim didn’t offer specifics but said it will operate similarly to how IAC’s other offices operate.
Evenhaim anticipates the D.C. branch to be “fully operational” within three months.
Philanthropist Adam Milstein thinks there is a problem with the culture of many Jewish and pro-Israel organizations. Because their priority is to raise funds, each one wants to stand out as the most important, effective organization. “Just give us the money, and we can take care of it, is the way they present themselves,” he said. If they work together, they can’t take all the credit, and then they can’t raise as much money.”
Milstein, 63, thinks he has a better solution. It started in Los Angeles, where Milstein and his wife live. He brought big donors together in the council of philanthropists, so that organizations could share ideas and resources. Functioning as a connector, the Adam and Gil Milstein Family Foundation supports a variety of organizations and ensures that programs funded share resources among multiple groups. Included are organizations working in the areas of media accuracy and non-governmental organization monitoring, Jewish and Israel education, youth and young professional engagement and outreach, combating anti-Semitism and anti-Israel activity on college and university campuses, health and medical issues, Israeli-American and Jewish community services, connecting non-Israeli Americans with Israel, policy research and democracy think tanks and supporting Israel’s legitimacy.
Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation’s active philanthropy is about connecting organizations, giving financially and getting involved in the cause.
As Milstein told JNS.org, “Everything that I do, I put a few organizations together, I make them work together, make them empower each other and create a force multiplier.” Working with the American-Israel Educational Foundation (AIEF), the educational wing of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Milsteins helped to create the Campus Allies Mission to Israel and the Campus Allies delegation to AIPAC’s annual Policy Conference. Both Campus Allies Missions engage African-American, Christian, and Latino student leaders and educate them to become advocates for Israel.
Milstein’s passion is active philanthropy, which means giving money and getting involved in the cause. “The easiest thing is to write a check, and nobody knows where they money goes, Milstein explained. “I wanted to create impact, and I selected programs where I could put my own stamp and connect organizations.”
The Milsteins serve on the board of several organizations; one of them being the board of the Israeli-American Leadership Council whose mission is to build an active and giving Israeli-American Community in order to strengthen the State of Israel and our next generation and to provide a bridge to the Jewish-American community. Through this organization they not only sponsor, but helped create several programs:
Sifriyat Pijama B’America: The Milsteins believe that by learning about Jewish values from a young age, Jewish children are likely to share a strong appreciation and affinity for their shared Jewish culture and retain a strong Jewish identity as they grow older. This is why they were inspired to help fund a program that provides free Hebrew children’s books to Jewish families across the United States in order to promote the use of Hebrew in the home and establish Hebrew as the language of the Jewish people.
Shagririm (The Ambassadors) is a program that trains and educates current college students to help them build coalitions with primarily non-Jewish organizations in an effort to promote Israel advocacy on campus.
The Israeli Fellows (Shlichim) are young people who have served in the Israeli Army, finished their university studies and have agreed to a two-year mission to work on a U.S. campus as the voice and face of Israel. They coordinate all the pro-Israel activities on campus for the local Hillel house. The Milsteins help sponsor many of the Israeli Fellows for the Southern California area and have initiated positions for them at UC Irvine, CSUN, and San Diego State University (SDSU). Adam and Gila Milstein not only sponsor them but provide resources, connections and funding for many of their campus projects and activities. There are more than 50 Israeli Fellows nationwide, and the Milsteins stay in touch with all of them. By introducing them to many organizations, Adam and Gila are able to use them to represent all Jewish organizations on campus.
While Milstein is based in LA, his impact is felt all over California and beyond. Locally, he supports Shalom Family at Jewish Federation & Family Services, Tarbut V’Torah Community Day School and OC Israeli.
Milstein, who left Israel 35 years ago, explained that charity is very different there. It is not tax deductible, and religious and secular organizations go their separate ways. While people volunteer their time and belongings, the culture of monetary philanthropy is lacking, Milstein said. After his modern Orthodox friend and business partner educated him about ma’aser (tithing), the Jewish tradition of giving 10 percent of one’s income to charity, he created the Israeli-American Council to show by example that charitable giving could be a good thing.
“Israelis are always connected to Israelis, but they are not always connected to Jewish life in America,” he said. “In Israel they don’t have to pay for schools, and they don’t come from a culture where they pay for shuls and Federations. We give them some free services, hoping that we connect with them and get them involved. Now that the concept has caught on, a gala in March raised more than $1 million.”
Connection to Judaism and connection in Israel go hand in hand, according to Milstein. “We have religion, history, culture, values, homeland and language in common,” he said. “We are part of one peoplehood.” He is a “major player” in Birthright, as well as Taglit Shelanu, which sends people of Birthright age who have Israeli parents to Israel.
Milstein became more observant when his daughters started to date non-Jews. Motivating them by setting an example, he got involved with Aish HaTorah, which introduced him to advocacy organizations. Believing that the same people who are assimilated are the ones who are disconnected from Israel, he tries to bring people into Jewish life, educating them about philanthropy and connectedness at every stage.
The way philanthropist Adam Milstein sees it, the priorities of fundraising and survival mean that Jewish and pro-Israel organizations are held back by a natural instinct against intimate and robust collaboration.
“Every one of those organizations would like to take all the credit for themselves [and say], ‘The BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel) resolution did not pass because we stood there, and we trained the students, and we stood with them all night long, and without us it wouldn’t have happened,’’ Milstein says. “And then you have some organizations trying to take credit and discredit the others. There is no huge interest for them to work together, because if they work together, then they can’t take all the credit, and they have a harder time raising the funds.”
Milstein, however, has decided to intervene and become a connector. His Los Angeles-based Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation supports dozens of organizations, 58 of which are listed on its website, and ensures that every program it funds is shared among multiple groups.
“Everything that I do, I put a few organizations together, I make them work together, make them empower each other, and create a force multiplier,” Milstein, 63, tells JNS.org.
As an example, Milstein cites his work with the American-Israel Educational Foundation (AIEF), the educational wing of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Through AIEF, Milstein and his wife helped create the Campus Allies Mission to Israel and the Campus Allies delegation to AIPAC’s annual Policy Conference. Both Campus Allies Missions engage African-American, Christian, and Latino student leaders and educate them to become advocates for Israel.
From left to right: former Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and Jewish philanthropist Adam Milstein at the Israeli-American Council national conference in Washington, DC, in November 2014. Credit: Shahar Azran.
Additionally, the Milsteins support many Jewish students seeking to attend the Policy Conference in partnership with other Jewish organizations. The Campus Allies delegations bring together seemingly unlikely partners such as Aish HaTorah, a Jewish religious outreach organization, and the politically focused AIPAC.
Milstein explains that from Aish’s perspective, the organization is able to recruit students who are primarily interested in attending the AIPAC conference, rather than growing religiously or spiritually. But at the same time, he says, Aish is “not only going to connect [those students] to Israel through the AIPAC convention, but you are going to connect them to Judaism because you’re putting the group together, and then you can recruit them [to Aish] and do the follow-up.”
Besides the collaboration aspect, such efforts illustrate an approach Milstein is both practicing and promoting: “active philanthropy.” He says it is “very easy to write a check” and forget about it, but that he gives not only his money, but also about 80 percent of his time to philanthropy—with an emphasis on developing programs that make his donations more powerful.
“It’s not just philanthropy, it’s active,” says Milstein. “I go, I select organizations, I build special plans, special programs, I supervise the implementation, I connect this organization and this program to other organizations and other programs. It’s more much intense what I’m doing compared to regular philanthropy. It takes much more of my time.”
In a way, he adds, it takes “more time to spend your philanthropy money than to make it.”
The Milstein foundation says it supports organizations working in the areas of media accuracy and non-governmental organization monitoring, Jewish and Israel education, youth and young professional engagement and outreach, combating anti-Semitism and anti-Israel activity on college and university campuses, health and medical issues, Israeli-American and Jewish community services, connecting non-Israeli Americans with Israel, policy research and democracy think tanks, and supporting Israel’s legitimacy.
“Adam is strategic and he has become a tremendous role model for other philanthropists to follow,” says Roz Rothstein, CEO of the pro-Israel education group StandWithUs, for whom the Milstein foundation funds an annual educational weekend for 200 college students called the StandWithUs Milstein Israel in Focus conference. “He is not only generous and makes good work possible, he is a good listener who recognizes the strengths of each organization and helps bring organizations together for the greater good of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Josh Block—president and CEO of The Israel Project (TIP), an educational organization “dedicated to informing the media and public conversation about Israel and the Middle East”—says the approaches of Milstein and TIP have common ground.
“One of the things we do at TIP is bring partners together so that we can share our unique strategic communications capabilities for the benefit of all, and that kind of devotion to synergy and collaboration across organizations is something Adam shares,” Block says.
Jacob Baime, executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, calls Milstein “a passionate and committed champion of the pro-Israel movement” who “always offers fresh and inventive approaches to familiar challenges.”
“Adam is a very astute philanthropist who knows the issues well and works with a lot of groups and individuals to fight the defamation of Israel,” says Andrea Levin, executive director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. “He’s tireless.”
How did Milstein become a philanthropist, and how did his philanthropy become the “active” kind? He moved from Israel to America in 1981 with his wife and two daughters, earned a Master of Business Administration, and started working in commercial real estate. Israelis, he says, are not accustomed to philanthropy. But Milstein’s modern Orthodox friend and business partner educated him about ma’aser (tithing), the Jewish tradition of giving 10 percent of one’s income to charity.
“Whatever we give to charity, God gives us 10 times more,” Milstein says he learned from his business partner.
From there, Milstein says he experienced “a lot events that really showed that the formula works. Whatever you give, you get more. Not necessarily 10 times more, but you just get more.” Accordingly, Milstein found himself following his business partner’s lead on where to donate.
Next came Milstein’s “wake-up call,” when his two daughters started to date non-Jews. Asked by his daughters why they should make a point to date fellow Jews, Milstein found himself without a good answer because he himself was not religiously observant. That prompted him to try to start motivating his family by doing rather than telling. Milstein connected with Aish HaTorah and became more involved with Jewish life. His daughters both married Jews. Aish would introduce him to Israel advocacy organizations such as AIPAC, laying the groundwork for his “active philanthropy.” At that point, Milstein was no longer mimicking his business partner’s giving, but instead, he was putting significant thought into choosing recipient organizations and going even further by crafting programming for those organizations.
In 2007, Milstein co-founded the Israeli-American Council (IAC), a fast-growing organization which in 2014 ran programming that reached more than 100,000 of the estimated 500,000-800,000 Israeli Americans.
“As an Israeli American, [Milstein has] done great work to bring more folks in that growing community into philanthropy and activism, and I’m sure we’ll see him continue to make a really meaningful impact in a variety of areas for years to come,” says TIP’s Block.
As is the case with many advocates for Israel, the growth of Milstein’s public profile has been accompanied by public criticism and what he considers to be defamation. Two anti-Israel websites, The Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss, used a past conviction on tax evasion as a jumping-off point for broader coverage on Milstein. The Electronic Intifada ran with the headline, “Why did Israel intervene for convicted U.S. felon Adam Milstein?” Mondoweiss, meanwhile, routinely labels Milstein as an “Islamophobe,” a “Muslim-basher,” and a “racist.”
Milstein says he takes full accountability for his conviction, which originated when he voluntarily took responsibility for a past violation to help a friend. Ed M. Robbins, Jr., Milstein’s attorney, adds, “In retrospect, Adam finds it hard to explain why he would do it when the amount that he was writing off represented a very small fraction of the taxes that he paid.”
The Electronic Intifada’s headline, according to Milstein, was a manipulation of one of the 100 character reference letters he presented to the judge in his tax case. He says the letter was written by the Consul General of Israel in Los Angeles, but was simply a personal letter of support and far from an official Israeli government intervention, as The Electronic Intifada claimed.
“You have to understand the way our enemies operate,” Milstein says. “They try to intimidate, harass, and defame whoever they think is an enemy in order to shut him down. And that’s what [these anti-Israel websites] were trying to do here. They tried to shut me down not by debating me or arguing against my positions, but by shaming me, defaming me, harassing me, and spreading lies about me. They feel that it’s enough for them to throw it out there [on the Internet], because some of it will stick and people will not question if it’s true, and that will discourage me from continuing my activism.”
Milstein says anti-Israel activists use the same strategy to bully Jewish college students, who are looking to build their resumes and determine their career paths. Due to the anti-Israel side’s tactics, he says, “The last thing [a Jewish student] will be interested in doing is being a pro-Israel advocate because you’re being named and harassed, intimidated, and shamed, they’re calling you an ‘Islamophobe,’ and a Muslim-basher, and a racist. For a young person, they just don’t want to be involved. It’s too much harassment, too much of a headache.”
At the same time, the Jewish community is faced with rising assimilation. According to the Pew Research Center’s much-debated October 2013 study on American Jewry, 58 percent of Jews marry outside the faith. Milstein believes the assimilation and Israel challenges operate on parallel tracks.
“The Jews that are assimilating, they’re also the people that feel disconnected from Israel,” he says. “The people that are more connected to their religion, they’re more connected to the homeland of the Jewish people, which is Israel. Both the state of Israel and the Jewish people have existential threats, and for the Jewish people and the state of Israel to survive and continue, their needs to be a stronger relationship between our being part of the Jewish people and having a strong Israel.”
Israel is a vibrant democracy with full rights for women and gays, a free press and independent judiciary. You would think that the United Nations would celebrate such a country. Instead, the UN condemns Israel at every turn to the point of obsession. How did this happen? Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights, explains in five eye-opening minutes.
The content was produced by Prager University and was sponsored by the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation.
The annual StandWithUs Israel in Focus conference brings together 150-200 college students from across North America as well as StandWithUs Israel Fellows (shlichim) to a weekend-long conference in Los Angeles. The conference is funded by a generous grant from the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation. Over three days, participants learn the skills and facts that will help them better discuss Israel on campus and beyond as well as network with other student leaders and discuss programming and strategy ideas.
Other StandWithUs student conferences have taken place in various cities across the United States and in the UK, Australia, Israel, and South Africa. For further information, please contact us at[email protected].
More than 700 Israeli-American gathered earlier this month in Washington, DC, for the inaugural Israeli-American Council (IAC) conference. Talks by politicians, deplomats, academics, busdinessmen, philantropists and media personalities, coupled with well-attended sessions on relations between Israel and the U.S. and the role Israelies play in the larger American community, made it clear the IAC intends to be an integral part of the Jewish community and a strong advocate for Israel.
The conference opened with a “shuk” (marketplace) showcasing the numerous cultural programs IAC funds throughout the United States to strengthen Israeli identity: Taglit Shelanu, IAC Machane Kachol Lavan, Sifriyat Pijama, which distributes Hebrew books for free to 15,000 homes, IAC Mishelanu, serving Israeli college students in the U.S., and the Israel Scouts youth movement “Tzofim.”
IAC co-founder Adam Milstein has stated, “We have national programs that are not bound to geographical specifications. [We] want to reach more Israelis nationwide and expand our programming, placing special emphasis on Israeli-American identity, culture and education.”
As Shabbos set in, Rabbi Levi Shemtov, director of American Friends of Lubavitch of Washington, opened the kosher dinner by leading the traditional “Shalom Aleichem” song and recitingKiddush. He said he agreed to participate on the condition there would be no chillul Shabbos at the dinner. There were no microphones, all amplifiers in the hall were covered, and dinner invitations requested that everyone refrain from using their electronic devices.
As Rabbi Shemtov stood on the stage and looked out at the attendees, he told them that “Rather than take photos with your cellphones, take a mental photo and keep this Shabbat in your mind and take it with you throughout your life.” He later said the evening was one of the highlights of his career as a Chabad shaliach in Washington. He was surprised that when he asked people to put on a kippot, everyone immediately scrambled to reach for one of the indigo blue suede yarmulkes on each table and spontaneously rose to their feet as he dedicated “Eishet Chayil” to Dr. Miriam Adelson, wife of businessman/philanthropist Sheldon Adelson.
After dinner, elected officials addressed the conference, speaking of the values shared by the United States and Israel and their commitment to strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The IAC was founded in 2007 by a group of businessmen in Los Angeles at the request of the then-Israeli consul general of Los Angeles, Ehud Danoch, who was dismayed by the lack of involvement in Jewish and civic affairs on the part of Israelis in the U.S. (There are an estimated 650,000-800,000 Israeli citizens living in America.)
Many Israelis in the U.S. saw themselves as temporary transplants who would soon return to Israel and so were disinclined to become active in the Jewish community. But at the same time there were growing fears among Israelis in America over the rapid assimilation of their children. One IAC leader said this became a reality to him when his own children began dating non-Jews. The need for an organization specifically geared to Israeli-Americans became increasingly apparent.
“Our Israeli-American community,” said Milstein, “consists of people who were born in Israel and reside in America, or are the children of at least one Israeli or Israeli-American parent, or were born in the United States but lived a few years in Israel and identify as Israeli-American.”
Milstein rejects the use of degrading terms such as ex-pats oryordim. “Several reporters and public leaders call us ‘Israelis,’ but in my opinion this isn’t accurate,” he said. “Most of the people in our community come from Israel; however, we are Americans. Our goal is not to create a new Israel or [new] Israelis, but rather to galvanize Israeli-Americans as a leading force within the Jewish American community and the American public.”
When Sheldon and Dr. Miriam Adelson infused the IAC with a $10 million grant in late 2013, the organization began aggressively expanding to major cities with clusters of Israelis, including Las Vegas, Miami, New York, and Boston.
The IAC inaugural conference culminated on Sunday morning with philanthropists Haim Saban, Sheldon Adelson, and IAC Chairman Shawn Evenhaim sharing the stage.
Adelson gave a thorough history lesson on the land of Israel and said, “We aren’t dealing with a real estate issue, we’re not dealing with a grievance, we’re dealing with a religion [Islam] that doesn’t like anybody who isn’t like what they are.” He insisted a two-state solution would be unworkable unless the other side were demilitarized.
Reflecting on the recent snag in the U.S.-Israel relations, Adelson said: “My wife and I are together 26 years. We have never had one serious argument. How many [couples] have [gone through] their lives without having arguments? I would say very few. Fortunately, Miri and I are one of the very few. The relationship between Israel and the United States is like a marriage; there are times there are arguments and you disagree on things, and it’s okay, it doesn’t mean you don’t love each other anymore. The most important thing is that we share the same values…. They see that, we see that, the long-term relationship is what counts, not the short-term ups and downs.”
Asked whether the IAC is a Republican organization that will follow his political leanings, Adelson said the organization is bipartisan. “Between Haim [Saban, a leading supporter of Democrats] and myself, it’s very clear we have a big difference of opinion politically. I think everyone in this room, Republican or Democrat…when it comes to Israel we are on the same side.”
“Ditto,” replied Saban. “If you want, I can repeat everything Sheldon just said.”
At the Israeli-American Council’s (IAC) three-day inaugural conference in Washington, D.C., last weekend, nearly 800 attendees and Washington journalists witnessed the high-profile entrance on to the public stage of what was, until recently, a quietly expanding and well-funded Los Angeles group created with the comparably modest vision of providing educational, cultural and religious resources for Southern California’s large Israeli-American community.
The IAC’s first foray into the national spotlight — and its ability to attract top politicians from both parties and their donors — points to a group on its way to becoming the go-to resource for Israeli Americans across the country and their political voice in Washington.
“We will be a growing community in the United States. We will rise to national recognition and will influence the Jewish community,” said Adam Milstein, an Israeli-American businessman and philanthropist, and a founding IAC board member.
Milstein said that the group’s goal in holding its inaugural conference in the heart of the nation’s capital was to make Israeli Americans a “brand name community in the United States and to make sure that Washington notices.” On the latter point, it undoubtedly succeeded: Political correspondents for top news outlets filled the press section to cover the IAC’s prominent speakers, including former (and possibly future) Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and billionaire rival political kingmakers Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson.
That Friday evening, as a packed ballroom at the Washington Hilton enjoyed Shabbat dinner, Romney told his former foreign policy senior adviser Dan Senor, in an onstage discussion, that President Barack Obama has been “divisive and dictatorial and demeaning to our friends,” and also that Democrats were routed in the recent midterm elections partly because voters felt the Democratic candidates had been disingenuous in distancing themselves from Obama’s policies.
Meanwhile, Senor and former Sen. Joseph Lieberman both strongly suggested they would like to see Romney attempt another presidential run: “It would be doubly refreshing to hear your voice in the public debate going forward,” Senor told Romney as he concluded their discussion.
The following night’s plenary, while modest by comparison, saw Graham threaten to cut off funding to the United Nations if it “turns into the most anti-Semitic force on the planet,” and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer — who was a frequent and vocal guest on cable news during the recent Gaza war — joked that the key to a happy marriage between an American and an Israeli is for the American to “preemptively concede the argument to the Israeli spouse.”
“Then you’ll actually have a chance of having your way,” Dermer said to an admiring crowd. “Now what that means for diplomacy and U.S.-Israel [relations], I’ll leave it to all the sharp reporters in the room to figure out.”
The conference’s first two plenaries, though, were only the starter for the weekend’s highlight: the first-ever public discussion between billionaires Saban and Adelson, two of the country’s most sought-after, and generous, political donors for Democratic and Republican politicians, respectively. While their conversation, which was moderated by IAC Chairman Shawn Evenhaim, at times sounded like a debate, Saban stole the spotlight when Evenhaim asked him what he would do if he were in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes and Western powers signed a nuclear agreement with Iran that risked Israel’s security.
“I would bomb the living daylights out of those sons of bitches,” Saban said to thundering applause, striking a tone starkly to the right of Adelson, who only spoke in general terms of Israel needing to “take action” and “not just talk.” Earlier, Saban said that if such a deal is signed, he would come to the “full realization we are screwed, baby.”
Adelson, for his part, provided his own memorable remarks, sharply criticizing journalists in general and particularly The Forward’s Washington correspondent Nathan Guttman. He also cast doubt on the importance of Israel remaining a democracy and called the Palestinians “an invented people.”
Saban, a media mogul, and Adelson, a casino tycoon, then engaged in what sounded like either banter or an impromptu investment strategy session, discussing how to influence mainstream American media outlets when it comes to coverage of Israel, which Saban called “very left-wing” except when it comes to “maybe a bit the Wall Street Journal and definitely Fox News.”
“I wish that [Amazon.com CEO] Jeff Bezos didn’t buy the Washington Post,” Saban said. “It would have been nice if you and I could have bought it, Sheldon.” For $250 million — bupkis!” Saban continued, as the audience laughed. Adelson responded: “I wish I had known it was available,” then asked Saban, again to raucous applause, “Why don’t you and I go after The New York Times?”
Saban said he has tried to purchase the news giant, but that “it’s a family business” and would not sell. Adelson, sharing some corporate takeover advice with the audience, told Saban that the only way to get The New York Times would be to bid more than its worth and count on the family shareholders rejecting the offer, which would give minority, non-family shareholders a right to sue for a sale.
While marquee attractions such as Saban and Adelson provided the bang for IAC’s weekend, mornings and afternoons were filled with speakers from across the Jewish and pro-Israel world who talked about sensitive topics, especially for a group seeking to tow the line between American and Israeli and Jewish identities—such as the dilemmas facing a possible “double identity” and how to integrate Israeli Americans into the American-Jewish community.
Evenhaim, in a telephone interview following the conference, said he wants Israeli Americans to integrate within America’s broader Jewish community, but said that integration has not been a priority of the organized American-Jewish community, in Los Angeles and across the United States. “If the Jewish-American community put that as a priority for them, there probably wouldn’t be an IAC,” Evenhaim said.
At the same time, though, IAC’s goal is to help foster a unique Israeli identity among not just Israeli expats, but their American-born children and grandchildren, too. “We don’t want to become just Jewish Americans,” Evenhaim said. “The Israeli message is important to us, and it’s important to give to the next generation.”
To that end, the IAC runs programs including Celebrate Israel festivals across the country every year and Sifriyat Pijama B’America, which sends free Hebrew-language children’s books and music to Israeli-American families.
“Israel is our homeland,” Milstein said, when asked to discuss the vision of IAC in the context of America’s historical success in assimilating immigrants. “Our relationship with Israel is more unique than Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Chinese Americans — we are different.”
He said the IAC plans to become a “catchall” group for Israeli Americans, focusing not just on Israel advocacy, but eventually seeking to influence national policy on things like access to charter schools and Jewish education. “Our community has issues that are important to them, and it will be our mandate to advocate for those issues in Washington,” Milstein said.
Formed as the Israeli Leadership Council (ILC) in 2007 at the request of Ehud Danoch, the Israeli consul general of Los Angeles at the time, the ILC rebranded itself two years ago as the Israeli-American Council when its leadership realized the need to be viewed not as Israelis or as Americans, but as “Americans of Israeli descent,” as Milstein wrote in the Times of Israel one year ago. Until then, he wrote, “The State of Israel labeled us as yordim [a derisive characterization for Israelis who leave]. Americans saw us as U.S. citizens, and our children definitely didn’t want to be perceived as kids of foreigners.”
Now viewed as a potential asset by top American politicians as well as the Israeli government — as evidenced by the presence last weekend of numerous Israeli politicians and diplomats — the IAC plans to open four to six new regional councils in the next year, in addition to the existing five, and has its eyes on a 2015 conference, which Milstein said will likely again be in Washington, D.C., and, he predicts, will attract two to three times as many people.
When a storm wreaked havoc on East Coast air travel last winter, among the thousands of travelers stranded were several dozen Israeli-American teens from Washington and Philadelphia. But these youths, who were en route to the annual meeting of the Tzofim, the Israeli scouts, were luckier than the many others forced to mill about air terminals.
Soon after their flight was canceled, a private executive jet landed at Baltimore-Washington International Airport to take them directly to their destination in Los Angeles. For most of the excited teens it was their first trip on a private jet. Some told their parents it was the highlight of their winter camp. All they were asked in return was not to take any photos.
The private jet’s owner was billionaire Sheldon Adelson. And it was an act that mirrored, in its small way, the broader goal of Adelson’s philanthropy and high-profile political giving, of which Tzofim is just a part: to be not just supportive, but also transformative.
Thanks to this approach, Adelson now plays a role unlike that of any Jewish philanthropist before him. “The Adelsons tend to go narrow and deep,” said Mark Charendoff, president of the Maimonides Foundation and former president of the Jewish Funders Network. The philanthropic couple, he explained, identifies specific causes near to their hearts, rather than giving to broader-based communal organizations. “They tend to choose a couple of things and go very, very big.”
For many Americans, the name Adelson is synonymous with outsized political donations and the opening of corporate floodgates to back candidates following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010. The Las Vegas-based casino mogul is also known as a prominent backer of often hawkish pro-Israel organizations. But less noisily, he has also established himself as one of the leading donors to purely charitable Jewish and non-Jewish groups, ranging from schools, to elder care, to medical research.
Ranked as the ninth largest donors in America in 2013, Adelson and his Israeli-American wife, Miriam Adelson, split their giving between Jewish and pro-Israel causes, which are funneled mostly through their family foundation, and medical programs funded by the Dr. Miriam & Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation.
As with the teens on their way to California, in many of these cases Adelson is not just one among a number of large donors — he’s the donor who changes the destiny of the organization. The growing significance of his giving and, in some cases, of his private investments, has made him into something new in Jewish life: a man with an empire of his own.
“Sheldon is an example of the new kind of philanthropy that is emerging,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation who, as head of a significant fund himself, follows trends in Jewish philanthropy. “It will benefit the community, but the community won’t necessarily have a say.”
In Ruderman’s view, Adelson embodies the new reality of Jewish philanthropy in a gilded age where more and more depends on the wealthiest few. It is a type of charitable and political giving driven by the donor’s agenda, not by communal consensus.
According to the most recent records available, Adelson’s philanthropic and pro-Israel contributions in 2012 amounted to about $44 million. Since its founding in 2007, the family foundation has given out $191 million. This sum does not include gifts given in 2013, and excludes all political donations. It also excludes the huge sums Adelson is sinking into several for-profit ventures with political ramifications, such as Israel Hayom, Israel’s largest newspaper.
A close look at his giving offers two contrasting views of the Vegas billionaire: One is of a political-minded player willing to spend whatever amount it takes to promote his goals and ideology; the other is that of a generous communal funder who provides huge donations to purely charitable enterprises, such as schools and elder care programs, and seeks no influence in return.
On November 7, Adelson’s latest philanthropic investment will take on a newly prominent profile with its first-ever national conference, in Washington. The Israeli American Council was, until several years ago, a sleepy Los Angeles-based group of Israeli expatriates. Thanks to the support it has received from Adelson and his wife, it has been transformed into an increasingly visible domestic presence in support of Israel.
Their donation of an estimated $2.5 million this year has eclipsed the gifts of the group’s previous main funder, Haim Saban, which reached a peak of $400,000 in 2011. The IAC’s Washington conference is intended to broadcast its emergence as a rapidly expanding national organization.
In recent years, the Adelson Family Foundation has supported dozens of Jewish organizations by making seven-figure donations. Such organizations include the Jewish federations of Las Vegas, where Adelson currently resides, and of Boston, where he was raised. Major gifts have also gone to the Newton, Massachusetts, Gateways organization, which helps children with special needs gain Jewish education, and to Hebrew SeniorLife, an innovative elder care organization in Boston.
In 2012, the Adelsons’ medical research fund awarded more than $22 million in grants to advance the development of cures for disabling and life threatening illnesses. Here too, the Adelsons give big, with six and seven figure donations. They also combine this with their passion for Israel in some cases by providing grants to Israeli research institutions, such as the Weizmann Institute and Tel Aviv University.
The donations stand out mainly because of their transformative size. They include a $50 million gift to construct a Jewish day school in Las Vegas; large donations to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum, and, most notably, the annual $30 million-plus gift Adelson gives to Taglit-Birthright Israel, the Jewish community’s flagship program for sending Jewish young adults on free 10-day trips to Israel that aim to bind them to the Jewish state.
Adelson was a latecomer to Birthright. The program was initiated and funded by mega-donors Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt. Until Adelson entered the stage, the two men were considered the top Jewish philanthropists, alongside the Schusterman and Mandel families.
Adelson, true to form, joined Birthright in 2007 with a massive cash infusion that eliminated in one fell swoop the program’s waiting list. His unprecedented annual largesse also ensured its sustainability despite a decrease in funding from the Israeli government.
“His donation allowed the participation of many more, but I am not aware of any attempt on his behalf to influence the content of Birthright trips,” said Theodore Sasson, senior research scientist at Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies.
This does not suggest, however, that Adelson refrains from using his wealth to advance his ideology — a mixture of support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sympathy for the settler movement and hostility toward the Palestinian Authority.
Adelson has devoted large sums to supporting a cadre of hawkish pro-Israel scholars who provide intellectual backing for Netanyahu’s policies. Key to this effort is his support for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a conservative think tank headed by Dore Gold, adviser to Netanyahu and former Israeli ambassador the United Nations. Funding to the group is given through Baltimore’s Center for Jewish Community Studies, which Gold also heads. Adelson’s $1 million gift last year represented nearly two-thirds of the think tank’s budget.
In 2007, Adelson gave $4.5 million to establish an institute for strategic affairs carrying his name at the Shalem Center, another Israeli research center known for its hawkish positions and its closeness to Netanyahu. Adelson also recently announced a $25 million contribution to Ariel University, the only Israeli higher education institution in the occupied West Bank.
Another $1 million went last year to the Friends of Israel Initiative, an international pro-Israel platform headed by Spain’s former prime minister José Maria Aznar. Aznar’s group also counts among its leaders former Bush administration U.N. ambassador John Bolton and former Democratic New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Adelson’s gift tripled the group’s budget within one year.
Adelson also supported The Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors Arab media, though his donation of $250,000 in 2012 made up less than 5% of the group’s annual income.
In recent years, the 81-year-old Jewish philanthropist, whose $32 billion in net worth has made him the 12th richest man in America, has shifted his support away from mainstream pro-Israel groups. In the past, Adelson was one of the top donors to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the large Washington-based Israel lobby. But in 2007, when AIPAC, following Israel’s lead, expressed support for increased aid to the P.A., Adelson cut his ties to the group.
He now backs much smaller groups to AIPAC’s right. Among these organizations are the Zionist Organization of America, which does not support a two-state solution; the Endowment for Middle East Truth, whose board is made up of neoconservative former American officials, and Christians United for Israel, an evangelical grassroots organization that has voiced support for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“Adelson believes in the right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria and so do we,” said Morton Klein, ZOA’s national president, referring to the territories by their biblical names. “AIPAC has never supported the right of Jews to live there.”
Adelson’s ties with Netanyahu run deep.
In September, Adelson was seated in the front row for Netanyahu’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly. Nevertheless, Adelson made the limits to his support for even Netanyahu clear afterward. “He shouldn’t have talked so much about the peace process,” Adelson said. Then he moved on to dine with Netanyahu at a midtown New York restaurant, drawing media attention in both the United States and Israel.
The most important manifestation of Adelson’s support for Netanyahu is his investment in the daily newspaper Israel Hayom, which is seen widely as strongly supportive of the prime minister. The paper was launched in 2007 with money from Adelson, and it stays afloat, even now, as Israel’s largest circulation daily, thanks to his cash. According to court documents filed in Israel, Adelson is losing nearly $33 million a year on the paper. He nevertheless intends to soon launch a news website that aims to be the largest in the country.
In the United States, alongside his purely charitable giving, Adelson devotes much of his money to supporting the Republican Party. In 2012, he gave the party $93 million through super political action committees, making him the party’s top donor.
He has made a point of channeling some of his political money into the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group of Jewish activists devoted to supporting the GOP. The RJC saw a significant leap in its funding during the 2012 election cycle. Though the group is not required to disclose its donors, estimates are that the lion’s share of the $6.5 million it put into advertisements and campaigns in the previous election cycle came from Adelson.
His support also made the RJC’s annual meeting last March a required destination for Republican candidates vying for the backing of the party’s most generous donor. Hosted by Adelson at his Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, the RJC meeting attracted nearly every person then seen as a possible presidential candidate, leading some in the media to describe it as the “Adelson primary.”
With the midterm congressional elections approaching, Republican activists are once again courting Adelson. His role in 2014 is nowhere near as crucial the part he played in the 2012 presidential election, but it remains significant enough to place him among the top funders of GOP candidates. Recently, Adelson wrote a $5 million check to a Republican super PAC and has reportedly given much more to funds that do not disclose their donors.
Posted on October 22, 2014 by Jacob Kamaras / JNS.org and filed under Israel, U.S., Features.
By Jacob Kamaras/JNS.org
The so-called “alphabet soup” of American Jewish organizations covers seemingly every communal concern and interest group. Yet despite their direct connection with the Jewish homeland and firsthand knowledge of issues prioritized by American Jews, Israelis living in the United States have historically been both neglected and unorganized.
But the fast-growing Israeli-American Council (IAC), which was founded in Los Angeles in 2007 and started expanding nationally in 2013, is working to change that. This year, IAC’s own programming has reached more than 100,000 of the estimated 500,000-800,000 Israeli Americans, and another 50,000 Israeli Americans have participated in programs sponsored by IAC.
IAC’s stated mission is “to build an active and giving Israeli-American community throughout the United States in order to strengthen the State of Israel, our next generation, and to provide a bridge to the Jewish-American community.” Its growth plan since last year has been twofold. First, to open regional offices in areas with large Israeli American populations—recently launched offices include Boston, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Las Vegas, on top of the initial Los Angeles office. Second, in areas not served by its regional offices, IAC sponsors programming in places like Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Dallas.
From Nov. 7-9, IAC will hold its inaugural national conference, “The Israeli-American Community: A Strategic Asset for Our Future,” in Washington, DC.
“[IAC is] a welcome and important development,” Brandeis University professor Dr. Jonathan Sarna, a leading expert on American Jewish history, told JNS.org. “We’ve seen a similar effort on the part of Jews from the former Soviet Union, where similarly there have been organizations like the Genesis Philanthropy Group that seek to work with Russian-speaking Jews to preserve culture and to really allow them to preserve their identity going forward.”
“For a long time, Israelis in the United States did not similarly organize—different from [the strategy of] all other Jewish immigrant groups in the United States—and the reason was that whereas the other immigrants had left countries where Jews were persecuted and the Jews had no intention of returning to those countries, Israelis often argued that they were here only for a short time, that they hoped to return, and they did not organize in this way,” Sarna explained.
So what has changed?
“With Israel under attack, from BDS (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement) and the like, it’s easy to understand why those American Jews who have roots in Israel and know it best feel that they want to organize, in part in order to defend it, in part in order to promote their own identity as Israeli Americans,” said Sarna.
Adam Milstein, one of IAC’s founders and president of The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, agrees.
“I think the Israeli people are best equipped to communicate the truth about Israel, because they are not naive like many in the American Jewish community,” Milstein told JNS.org. “They know the Israeli people, they know that we have very high standards of human rights and freedom, they know the propaganda war of Hamas and Iran.”
IAC-affiliated programming connects with Israeli Americans at all phases of the lifecycle. Sifriyat Pijama B’America—the mirror image of Jewish philanthropist Harold Grinspoon’s PJ Library—sends free Hebrew-language books on a monthly basis to Hebrew-literate families across the U.S. Sifriyat Pijama will reach 15,000 families this year, according to Milstein, who explained that the goal is ensuring that the Hebrew language is spoken at home, as well as partnering with schools, JCCs, and synagogues in order to introduce Israelis to American Jewish life.
At the college level, IAC’s Mishelanu (meaning “of ours”) program serves Israeli students at 33 schools who are not fully comfortable with the programming of other campus groups. IAC also supports the Tzofim (Israel Scouts) youth movement, which offers programs for ages 10-18. For all ages, IAC runs the “Celebrate Israel Festival” to mark Israeli Independence Day in all of its regions. The 2014 Celebrate Israel Festival in Los Angeles drew 15,000 attendees.
Milstein explained that while American Jewish institutions typically seek membership fees, Israelis are accustomed to receiving Jewish communal services such as synagogue membership and schooling for free. When Israelis didn’t want to pay for those services in the U.S., Jewish organizations typically “disengaged” from Israelis unless they were donors, said Milstein.
“We (IAC) take a different approach,” Milstein said. “We’re investing in our community. We provide free services to every group, whether it’s educational or cultural or Jewish outreach. Everything we do is subsidized or free, and we’re engaging [Israelis] with no strings attached.”
Personal journeys
For Milstein and others involved with IAC, the endeavor is highly personal.
Milstein came to America in 1981 with his wife and two daughters, earned a Master of Business Administration, and worked in commercial real estate. He didn’t started his life in the U.S. attending synagogue but said he had a “wake-up call” when his daughters started to date non-Jews. When asked why his daughters should make a point to date fellow Jews, Milstein found himself without a good answer.
“I knew that unless I made a change for myself and tried to understand those issues, I wouldn’t be able to keep [my daughters] Jewish,” he said.
Milstein connected with the Aish HaTorah outreach organization and started becoming more involved with Jewish life. His daughters both married Jews. Aish would introduce him to Israel advocacy organizations such as AIPAC, laying the groundwork for his eventual philanthropy and involvement with IAC’s founding.
“I felt that [IAC] was going to be a channel for me to really tell my story and convince other people to send their kids to Jewish education, and to be more philanthropic, and to help Jewish identity and the state of Israel,” he said.
Like Milstein, Rani Ben-David, the IAC’s Florida chairman, cited his children as motivation for his involvement with the organization.
“[My two children] are Americans, they were born here, and their kids are definitely going to be American, so [this work is] just to keep that Israeli inside them, to have them keep loving Israel,” he told JNS.org. “If you look at the Jewish federations, and the American Jews, you see that they have a lot of love for Israel, and I think you want to keep that also with the Israeli kids.”
Yehudit Feinstein-Mentesh, IAC’s regional director in New York, recalled that when she became a mother five years ago, she “suddenly felt a sense of loss and a sense of ‘What am I doing here?’”
At Brooklyn-based Congregation Beth Elohim, Feinstein-Mentesh’s employer at the time, Rabbi Andy Bachman encouraged her to make the synagogue a meeting place for Israelis. “I started a Google group and started to volunteer and run different events, and so many Israelis started to come,” said Feinstein-Mentesh, who founded an organization called Israelis in Brooklyn.
While Israelis in Brooklyn “built an amazing, thriving, strong community” of Israeli Americans, she said, the group still found itself without the support system it desired.
“I was creative enough to create programs and find funding, but I never had the ability to find these people in the Israeli community who would be able to support us, and I always had to go to the Jewish American foundations for support,” Feinstein-Mentesh told JNS.org.
When she applied for an IAC grant to support Israelis in Brooklyn, Feinstein-Mentesh recalled that approaching an Israeli non-profit for the first time was like “talking with your family… I really felt that they were taking care of me.”
Instead of the grant, she got her job with IAC.
“[My path to IAC] started from a very personal need and a very personal story, that I realized that I’m not alone, that there are thousands of people like me that are craving different things,” said Feinstein-Mentesh.
Building bridges
While advancing its own goals, IAC is placing a priority on partnering with the American Jewish organizations that preceded its existence. In Boston, the IAC-supported Mitchabrim initiative has hosted discussion groups to foster connections between organizations. One session focused on how to better welcome an Israeli newcomer to the community.
IAC’s Boston office also works closely with Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the local Jewish federation. During this summer’s Gaza war, Israelis understood “that we have to do something, to have an organized rally, and that it meant going outside on the street” rather than just holding indoor rallies, said Na’ama Ore, IAC’s Boston regional director.
After drawing 1,200 people at an initial pro-Israel rally during the war, a second rally that IAC promoted in partnership with the Jewish federation involved about 115 organizations and attracted 3,500 attendees.
“Besides building the Israeli community here, we definitely understand the need to merge and to see where we can collaborate with the federation,”Ore told JNS.org.
IAC’s New York and Florida leaders expressed similar sentiments.
“We are not trying to exchange other organizations [for ourselves],” Feinstein-Mentesh said.
“I see it as a very important thing to build that one community, that we’re all together,” said Ben-David.
Ex-pats earn respect
While the IAC works to better integrate Israelis into American Jewish life, its existence also comes at a time when Israeli ex-pats are increasingly accepted by their countrymen back home.
“It was certainly true in the early decades of the state, when there was a great desire to enhance the [Israeli] population and to promote aliyah, that those who left Israel were portrayed negatively,” said Brandeis’s Sarna. “Today, there are so many Israelis who have lived for part of their lives in America, and with the rise of globalization so that an Israeli in America can constantly be in touch with developments back in Israel through email, through Skype… the sense that one who leaves Israeli is abandoning Israel I think is no longer proper, and I think Israel itself understands that it is far better to ally with Israelis in the United States than to criticize them.”
MR ADELSON LAS VEGAS – NEVADA – USA – APRIL 6, 2005 PHOTOS BY DENISE TRUSCELLO
Similarly, Ore said that while for many years leaving Israel was “kind of betraying the country,” the Israeli government now recognizes “that Israeli Americans can be an asset for the country if we are organized as communities.”
Additional IAC regional offices that are in the works include Chicago, Philadelphia, and possibly Houston and Phoenix, according to Milstein. IAC is also planning the first Taglit-Birthright Israel trip for Hebrew speakers, which will take place in December. For November’s inaugural national conference in Washington, IAC’s program features major speakers such as Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, former Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, Jewish philanthropists and Zionist activists Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, and Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor.
“We’re succeeding, and [U.S. Jews are] taking note that we’re a power in the Jewish community in America,” Milstein said.
ATTITUDES TOWARD ISRAELI EXPATS HAVE CHANGED IN RECENT YEARS. NOBODY IN ISRAEL CALLS THEM ‘TRAITORS’ ANY MORE, WHILE AMERICANS NOW VIEW THEM AS ENTREPRENEURS RATHER THAN BLUE-COLLAR MIGRANT WORKERS.
The Facebook page “Olim Le-Berlin” (calling on people to migrate to Berlin) managed to stir things up in Israel last week, but the truth is that emigration to Berlin from Israel is still a marginal phenomenon. According to World Bank figures, the number of Israelis currently living in the United States is larger than that in all European countries combined.
Apparently without Facebook pages and protest movements, a proud Israeli community is establishing itself in the U.S. without attempting to assimilate into American society. And it is actually establishing leadership institutions with the backing of the Israeli government.
The nature of the Israeli-American expatriate has been changing over the past few years. Whereas in past years, newcomers tended to keep a low profile with regards to their country of origin as they tried to blend in and assimilate into American society, today more Israelis are quite comfortable with their Israeli origin and image. They are proud of it and try to preserve it, although they feel quite good about their American lives.
One should be wary of generalizations – not every Israeli living in the U.S. has an Israeli flag stuck on his face. Nevertheless, Israelis fitting this pattern can increasingly be seen in recent years.
Israelis living in the U.S. always knew how to find one another and maintain social contact. This was less prominent among academics and white-collar workers, who were more easily absorbed into American society. Anyone for whom Israeli culture was important chose to live in areas where other Israelis tended to live, such as Brooklyn and Queens, ate at Israeli (Mizrahi-style) restaurants, purchased Israeli food products (which are often cheaper in the U.S.) and often participated in public singing of Israeli songs. However, the truth is that the majority wished to blur their origins in their new homeland. Many did not have the inclination, time or patience to seek out other Israelis or Israeli culture.
Over the last decade a new wave of Israelis began arriving in the U.S. These included professionals, high-tech people, lawyers, people dealing in finance and real estate, as well as those who barely finished high school. In contrast to earlier migrants, they are not keeping a low profile at all. They don’t strive to become American. They see themselves as Israelis who live in the U.S. One of the main reasons for this conceptual change is the transfer of hundreds of high-tech Israeli companies, both large and small, to the U.S.
What one book can do
According to figures released by the World Bank and the Central Bureau of Statistics, there are some 150,000 Israelis living in the U.S. However other (conservative) estimates consider the number to be at least 200,000, while others claim that at least half a million Israelis live in the U.S., mainly in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. For years, Israelis coming to the U.S. wanted to blend in, confident that they would not be returning to Israel. Their Israeli image was not something they were proud of, to say the least.
Among American Jews there is great sympathy toward Israel, with a Pew Research Center survey from last year showing that 70% feel some degree of affiliation or sympathy. However, for many years the attitude toward Israelis living in the U.S. was not particularly positive. Israelis were occasionally associated with crime or with manual labor such as house movers or carpet cleaners. Israeli government policies also aroused discomfort among some members of Jewish communities, leading to reserved attitudes toward Israelis in the U.S.
If that were not enough, many Israelis tried to blur their origins in order to wipe out the negative stigma associated with emigrating from Israel. Their labeling as “cowardly dropouts” by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had a significant impact.
All this has changed in recent years. The 2009 book “Start-Up Nation” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, which depicted Israel as a country replete with start-up ventures, had a great influence on altering perceptions. The buzz surrounding the book served as a source of pride. The new Israelis are no longer stereotyped as taxi drivers and schleppers (an image which was not accurate to begin with). They are now stereotyped (again inaccurately) as entrepreneurs.
Ethan Bronner, deputy national editor of the New York Times who in the past was the paper’s correspondent in Israel, knows Israel and Israelis in New York very well (he’s married to one). “There are Israelis across this city in key positions in real estate, finance, science, mobile software, art and architecture,” he says. “I have met Israeli graduate students here who say that companies like Google and Facebook are recruiting them. My sense is that Israeli professionals who come here are even tougher and more determined to succeed than those who stay in Israel, who themselves are pretty tough and determined to succeed. In that sense, the Israeli diaspora in America punches way above its weight and has made its presence felt quite strongly.”
Ariel Halevi, the co-founder and CEO of Choozer, a company which helps corporations quickly set up attractive job descriptions, says that there is “something wonderful about the community of Israeli entrepreneurs that has developed in New York. These are Israelis of a different type. They exhibit a wonderful amalgamation of successful and likable Israeli qualities such as vision, initiative, boldness and a sense of community with successful American virtues such as organizational skills, attention to detail, order and discipline and, of course, social refinement. It’s a wonderful blend of two cultures, taking the best of both worlds.”
Guy Franklin, an accountant at Ernst and Young, made a name for himself within the Israeli community in New York when he drew up a map of Israeli high-tech companies in the city. He overlaid 200 companies, some still in their early stages, across the map of Manhattan, highlighting how extensive the transfer of Israeli companies to New York really is. Franklin says that Israeli entrepreneurs get support from American startups and investors and feel comfortable expressing their Israeli origins. They are proud of them, seeking other Israelis and trying to maintain their Israeli character. They don’t consider themselves to be permanent expatriates and therefore don’t attempt to assimilate into American society, in contrast to the Israelis who left in the 1970s.
A change in the government’s attitude
One prominent indication of the Israeli community’s self-perception is the forming of organizations not seen in the past. Last year the Israeli-American Council (IAC), an umbrella organization for Israelis in the U.S., was formed in Los Angeles and is now gathering momentum. A “local council” of Israelis was formed in New York, trying to link Israelis living in the city and its vicinity.
Eran Hyman, the elected head of the council, says that “Israelis living in the U.S. are now more secure about their Israeli identity and feel more comfortable presenting themselves as Israelis and going out together.”
The council has an eight-member cabinet and an 80-member board. Hyman says that the initiative for establishing the council came from Israeli government institutions such as the Jewish Agency and the Zionist Federation. The Jewish Agency contributed $30,000 for setting up the council, and the Zionist Federation of New York added another $75,000.
The support of the UJA – Federation of New York, which encompasses New York’s Jews and their numerous organizations, is no trivial matter. For years the Jewish community took care to distance itself from Israelis in the city. Now it views them as an asset. The Jewish Federation has concluded that Israelis in the U.S. can serve as ground-breakers with regard to Jewish identity. Their secular cultural framework can serve as a model for emulation by New York’s Jews.
At the Stephen Wise Free (Reform) Synagogue, Israeli-American Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch is leading a campaign trying to attract Israelis to his synagogue. He raised a donation of $300,000 for this purpose and his synagogue holds activities designed to attract them. Among the federation’s activities are Hebrew classes and a job fair to assist Israelis in finding work.
Attitudes toward Israelis living in the U.S. have changed not only in America but in Israel as well. The Israeli government, the Jewish Agency and several Knesset members have recognized the fact that Israel is a normal country with a diaspora, as many other countries have. The government and Jewish Agency have now changed course after shunning expatriates for many years. Following behind-the-scenes arguments in government offices, there is now a willingness to invest resources in this community. They are now viewed as people who can bring business to Israel and strengthen Israel’s standing in the U.S. and the world, as well as donating money and potentially returning to Israel.
The increased attention to this community also stems from the ongoing failure to attract immigrants from the U.S. There are currently 2,000-3,000 immigrants a year, many of whom eventually return to the U.S. Reports of widespread assimilation among many children of Israeli expatriates also set off alarm bells in Israel. The Israeli government is now interested in strengthening Israeli communities in the U.S., trying to encourage children to return and enlist in the Israel Defense Forces.
The change in Israel has not just been institutional. Public attitudes have become more forgiving. Even people who aren’t happy with the phenomenon are more accepting.
Things started to change in the Los Angeles community earlier than in New York. Israeli businessmen like Shawn Evenhaim, Adam Milstein and Danny Alpert established an Israeli community organization eight years ago. They later expanded it and set up the IAC, which covers the entire U.S. The purpose was to unite the community and serve as its representative when dealing with Israel. The organization received $10 million from Sheldon Adelson and another donation from Haim Saban, who maintains a prominent Israeli profile. These donations made IAC, of which Evenhaim is now the chairman, a wealthy organization.
From many perspectives IAC is a success. According to its CEO Sagi Balasha, “It is now a national organization with six branches, supporting 40 Israeli-American organizations, with 150,000 members from coast to coast.”
Each branch receives $300,000 a year. During Operation Protective Edge the organization called on Israeli Americans to join demonstrations held in Los Angeles, Miami and Boston. Another big event expressing identification with Israel was held at a New York community center.
The IAC’s first national conference will be held in Washington on November 7. The “Israeli side” will be represented by Communications Minister Gilad Erdan and opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog. Israel’s ambassadors to the UN and the U.S., Ron Prosor and Ron Dermer, will also attend. The “American side” will be represented by Haim Saban, Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam. Mitt Romney and Joe Lieberman will be the keynote speakers. Also speaking will be Israeli entrepreneur and investor Yossi Vardi, a regular traveler between Israel and the U.S.
The IAC views this as a historic conference. There is some truth in this. There has never been an organization of Israeli expatriates with such extensive activity, receiving Israeli governmental backing. The participation of official Israeli representatives at such an event clearly expresses the new winds blowing from Jerusalem. It’s a far cry from the “cowardly dropouts.”
“With Israel under attack, from BDS (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement) and the like, it’s easy to understand why those American Jews who have roots in Israel and know it best feel that they want to organize, in part in order to defend it, in part in order to promote their own identity as Israeli Americans,” said Sarna.
