Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumRelocation to startup nation: Why Diaspora tekkies are flocking to Israel
Israel is waking up to the potential of its reputation as a high-tech powerhouse to attract young Jews from abroad seeking to gain work experience, found a startup, work on their tans and maybe find a life partner too.
Meet Jesse Sultanik, CEO and cofounder of the Israeli startup YEEZ.it. He read Dan Senor and Saul Singers Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israels Economic Miracle as a college student in Colorado. The book, a best-seller in many countries, introduced him to the Israeli innovation scene across the sea and changed his life. Sultanik grew up in a Zionist home; one of his grandfathers held senior office in the World Zionist Organization. Israel was always important to him, and despite not having a background in engineering or technology he was enchanted by the link between Israel and innovation.
After graduating, in 2010, Sultanik came to Israel for a short study program, where he met his future wife. From there, the road to aliyah was a short one.
Sultanik is part of a growing number of young Jews from around the world who, attracted to Israels status as startup nation a concept popularized by the book of the same name and the well-publicized exits of many successful Israeli tech companies come to live here for a time or even permanently. With the rise of global anti-Semitism and high unemployment levels in Europe, Israels lively startup scene has become a strong attraction despite the security concerns, which have only grown stronger over the past month. If in the 1960s and 70s young Diaspora Jews came to pick oranges on kibbutzim, many of their counterparts today dream of joining the startups on Tel Avivs Rothschild Boulevard.
In the past year, many young Jews from abroad have flocked to Israels tech sector, drawn to the atmosphere of innovation and the rising standard of living. So what is it that makes a newly-minted graduate from a prestigious college overseas, who could find a terrific job closer to home, leave everything and come to Israel, which is not only far away but is also plagued by the occasional war?
There are countless places to work, a good social life and the beach helps too, says Michael Eisenberg, a founder and partner of the Aleph venture capital firm who immigrated to Israel around 20 years ago. Jewish young people have a Jewish future in this country. Theres a 55-percent rate of assimilation in the United States, and the numbers speak for themselves. Its cool to be in Tel Aviv. Its an amazing city, and even more amazing for young people. Its safe, innovative, creative, and the young peoples skills are even more in the forefront there. Hundreds of people have attended Eisenbergs events for English-speaking immigrants to Israel in the past five years.
http://www.haaretz.com/business/.premium-1.610959
msongs
(67,405 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)This is really what you believe?
hack89
(39,171 posts)MFM008
(19,808 posts)they are attempting to steal 988 acres of Palestinian land. So jews from Brooklyn can live where palestinian families have lived for centuries.
Israeli
(4,151 posts)....amazing how you manage to get around that paywall when you choose to ....
Ref : http://www.democraticunderground.com/113478262#post11
Here is the other article you claimed you could not read
Perhaps these " Diaspora tekkies " should give it a read before they decide ????
.......
An Israeli reservist asks: What did I fight for in Gaza?
For now, writes the soldier, the well-brought-up Zionist young people continue to show up dutifully for reserve duty. But they are also filled with despair.
Sayed Kashua has had it, the singer Miri Awad doesnt know how it will all end, the majority cant stand Gideon Levy, former MK Aryeh Eldad doesnt believe there is any chance for peace, and I my soul aches from the despair.
I got back from reserve duty in the Gaza Strip two weeks ago. Id already spent 69 days in uniform this year, in connection with the seizure of the ship Klos C. On the way home, I had lain with a friend on the roof of the bridge and looked with satisfaction at the Israeli flag we had hoisted over the arms ship, which was carrying vast quantities of weapons meant to be used against us. What can I tell you? I spent my formative years in the Reali School in Haifa, with a mom who was the coordinator of the personal commitment program and a dad whos involved in the success of Iron Dome. Zionism and contributing to something to society are not dirty words.
The walls of my (rented) apartment are adorned with original prints of photographs by David Rubinger: David Ben-Gurion in his room in Kibbutz Sde Boker, Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin in a helicopter on the way to Gaza at the end of the fighting in the Six-Day War. The apartment borders on Tel Aviv Port, and abuts a synagogue damaged by shrapnel during the recent fighting. I asked my father what the odds were that this would happen again, having in mind the range of zero probability. Quite high, he replied: If the next missile is fired from the same place, and has the same trajectory, the path of interception will also be similar. We decided to buy a lottery ticket.
After my mandatory army service, I went to the United States. I needed a rest from the military operations, from the wars and from being responsible for my buddies lives. I worked in Boston, studied business administration at Harvard, and throughout the whole period I was consumed with a desire to return to Israel. The Foreign Ministry had these terrific programs for reversing the brain drain. But what happens after that, when the brain starts to grasp whats going on here?
Channel 10 recently broadcast a harrowing interview with Col. (res.) Roni Bart, until recently a senior member of Israels National Security Council. It was appalling to hear him describe the impotence of those at the top. The NSC doesnt challenge , the army isnt challenged, the political level doesnt hold serious discussions, and if in the end there is a discussion, theres no follow-up.
Every Israeli ministry can appoint an adviser on strategy. There is a ministry with that word in its name thats supposedly in charge of security strategy. In reality, its in charge of very little, because there is no formulation of policy, no brainstorming, no proactive thinking. We have an army and we will not allow ourselves to be led again into concentration camps, but we simply cannot shake off the passive pattern of thought of ghetto dwellers.
We are no longer in Europe and are definitely not a light unto the nations. Maybe I was naïve, maybe I was dazzled by the ethos. For me, the penny first dropped when Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated. But my understanding became sharper the day a few bums burned to death an innocent boy, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, only because he was an Arab. I was ashamed of being a Jew. Of being a human being. Love your neighbor as yourself?
The hatred in Israel is abysmal. Im not talking about the price tag terrorists or the settlers who harass Arabs and uproot olive trees. Two young people, a Jewish woman and an Arab man, were fighting on the social networks for their right to get married. What happened to the freedom of the individual? Same-sex couples also have to flee abroad to be married. Whole population segments are delegitimized here. It starts with racism between Ashkenazim and Sephardim. It continues in an education system that spends millions of shekels on inculcating the Bible but declines to cope with racism.
The only time social cohesion ostensibly exists is during hostilities. If I were a cynic, I would ask whether hostilities are a means or a goal, because for policy-makers there is nothing like the status quo.
Maybe its more correct to say, Love yourself like yourself. Khaled Meshal and his cohorts are not the only ones lining their pockets with the money of their voters. Ehud Olmert, who in 2006 sent me (to Lebanon) to fight for my home, is on the way to jail. Throw a stone and youll hit corruption that affects all our lives. And while were on the subject of economic decisions, I was aghast when MK Stav Shaffir was kicked out of a session of the Finance Committee because she demanded transparency regarding the recent transfer of billions of shekels to the defense budget.
Entering Rafah
I spent Operation Protective Edge with the reconnaissance unit of the Givati infantry brigade, after I cut short a working visit to China to make a contribution, share in the project. Shayetet 13 the naval commando unit where I had served was loaded with medical personnel, so I volunteered to join infantry battalions, which in any case do the hard work. Wonderful kids. I accompanied them on their entry into Rafah.
At night, in the staging area, I met Benaya Sarel, who had originally been in the Shayetet and moved to Givati. I remembered him as a shell-shocked clown, but now he was a beloved commander. He told me about his forthcoming wedding, a newborn niece, and he whined a little about the cold that he had picked up in Gaza. A few hours later, we were fighting for his life and for the life of Liel Gidoni. The fate of Hadar Goldin was unknown at that time. Pulling them out was tough, under fire. Inability to help the wounded is the most searing failure for a physician.
The days we spent until we finally got out of there werent easy, and were sometimes surrealistic. At one point we heard Yehoram Gaon on the radio singing The Last War; between verse and refrain there was a mortar round, a tank shooting, a shell slamming into something. An off-the-wall situation. Death can crop up anywhere including from the D9 bulldozer that almost brought the building we were in down on us.
Back in Israel, I joined the physician and the paramedic of the reconnaissance battalion who were paying condolence calls. We went to Kiryat Arba and then to Jerusalem. There is nothing harder than looking a family in the eyes and trying to explain, with the few tools we have mostly empathy laced with a little medical jargon what happened during the last few minutes of their beloved sons life, what we did to help and why we didnt succeed. To implant the hope and the belief that his death wasnt in vain.
Death does not differentiate between political opinions, lifestyle, beliefs. I am constantly amazed at how unexceptional the human body is without a soul.
To assuage the pain, we went for hummus at a Jerusalem eatery called Between Gaza and Berlin. We were dying of hunger, and the name of the place sounded appropriate.
Blood is blood
A few of weeks ago, I shuddered when I saw a poster carried by bereaved parents at the demonstration meant to show solidarity with the residents of the south, at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. A few days later my heart ached at the words of writer David Grossman, who lost a son in the Second Lebanon War. Im not a leftie, nor am I right-wing. I am first of all a human being. Blood is blood is blood. How much longer?
Virulent comments are apparently the norm on the Web in our enlightened country. In a place where a courageous individual like Channel 2 commentator Amnon Abramovich, a war hero, encounters ignorance and intolerance, it will probably be superfluous to mention the distinguished service medal I received, or the fact that in every confrontation, this last one included, my sister and my fiancees two brothers were also in uniform. Or that my fiancée worked day and night to defend Israel in the international arena. Will I, like Haim Oron [I dare you to question the lefts loyalty to Israel, Haaretz, Aug. 22], also have to prove my loyalty to the state?
Instead, perhaps my actions so far give me the right to ask the state to prove its loyalty to me. Before we plunge frenetically into a new series of commissions of inquiry, and probably also a general election, I want to ask the prime minister, the members of the security cabinet, the expanded and reduced kitchen cabinet and the heads of the Israel Defense Forces to look me in the eye and persuade me that I have a future in a democratic State of Israel one that will be a little more honest vis-a-vis its citizens and a great deal more tolerant. Show me that you are worthy of the sacrifice you ask so blithely of bereaved families today and of families that will be bereaved in the future but dont yet know it, and of me and those like me.
Just before the emergency call-up order for Operation Protective Edge arrived, I was fighting with friends against a blood libel that appeared in one of the worlds leading medical journals, The Lancet. We managed to publish a letter of response, put in a good word for the IDF and for Israel. Shortly afterward, I found myself in combat in Rafah. War after war after war. So, while I am fighting on yet another front to save enough money for a first home in this country maybe this time the decision makers will look me in the eye, the ordinary citizen who drops everything and stops his life each time hes called to the flag, and persuade me that there is still something worth fighting for here. That the corruption, the nepotism, the hypocrisy and the intolerance havent destroyed all thats good in my land.
Despite everything, I am optimistic. I want to live here, build a home, raise a family and continue to share in forging a better future. It will be very disappointing if the politicians and the generals will lack the courage to look me all of us in the eyes.
The writer serves as a doctor in the reserves in a naval commando unit.
Source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.612954
King_David
(14,851 posts)War is a terrible thing for all involved . Very good reflection .
Sometimes Haaretz is behind a paywall and sometimes it's not, I'm not sure how it works but I can't subscribe to all the newspapers I read .
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)The last time David posted one of these threads about Jewish migration he went strangely quiet after I pointed out that there was net migration inflows from Israel to Australia.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)most other figures show net migration in - I would be surprised if there was net emigration out of Israel during this time.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)As those are not Israel.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)King_David
(14,851 posts)Your link you provided ends in 2012.
I know my posts are very memorable but I don't remember going quite .
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)If you click back to the overall figures you can see the total number of migrants for 2013. Again, no major change:-
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Immigration/Immigration_to_Israel.html
If anything, the number of migrants to Israel from the United States/Canada seems to be trending down quite substantially.
hack89
(39,171 posts)This is up 38 percent from the amount raised in the first quarter and 109 percent above the year-ago quarter, IVC, in cooperation with the Israeli office of consultancy KPMG, said in a report.
The quarterly figure included a $135 million investment in Landa Digital Printing by German specialty chemicals group Altana.
In the first half of 2014, 335 Israeli high-tech companies raised $1.6 billion, an increase of 81 percent from a year earlier, making it the strongest capital raising period on record for Israel's high-tech industry.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/07/15/israel-venturecapital-idINL6N0PQ1UV20140715
This is why BDS will fail - too many opportunities to make money in Israel for the global investors.