Editorials

Promoting e-commerce growth in Israel

The novel coronavirus is testing our resources and creativity in ways we never imagined. We look to government for support; we turn to communal social service organizations for assistance; we look to our scientific and medical community for innovation and answers; we look to our schools for creative educational approaches; and we look to one another for patience and understanding. Each of these relationships calls on a sense of mutuality — we are all in this together, so let’s work together to solve the problem.

Governments around the world have tried various approaches. Most include a financial infusion designed to help newly unemployed citizens through di cult economic times. In Israel, for example, the government has distributed the equivalent of $300 million to Israeli families. That has been a significant investment, and more will be needed. But is money alone enough?

Israeli venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg has proposed a di erent approach, which he argues will allow the government to provide needed relief support, while at the same time upgrade what he sees as Israel’s faltering e-commerce platform. In a recent series of tweets, Eisenberg suggested that the Israeli government support for pandemic-burdened citizens be in the form of vouchers instead of cash, and that the vouchers be tied to e-commerce activity, like online shopping. His goal is to promote more local e-commerce activity and, through competition, help build Israel’s e-commerce infrastructure and competitive edge. “The world operates on incentives,” said Eisenberg, managing partner at the Tel Aviv-based Aleph Venture Capital. “If you attached to the word “Talmud,” the corpus of Jewish law and lore that has been the subject of Jewish study and scholarship for close to 2,000 years. But becoming identified with his eponymous translation of the Talmud was only one of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz’s many accomplishments during a life of making Jewish texts accessible to all — from casual reader to scholar — without compromising the rigor of his analysis.

Steinsaltz, who died in Jerusalem on Aug. 7 at 83, was well known for his sharp intellect and tireless work ethic — with reports indicating that he regularly put in 17-hour workdays. Steinsaltz’s path to elevated Jewish scholar status was a bit unusual, as he was born into a secular family, and wasn’t drawn to religion until his teenage years. He eventually became associated with the Chabad Lubavitch movement, but was better known for his erudition, prodigious work product and overall scholarship than his Chasidic association.

In 1965, when Steinsaltz was in his 20s, he began a translation of the Talmud from Aramaic into modern Hebrew. That project, which became his life’s work, took 45 years to complete. In the process, Steinsaltz added his own commentary to each page — a move that courted some degree of controversy, since it was seen by some as an e ort to elevate his teachings to the level of Rashi, the preeminent medieval commentator whose glosses on the Bible, the Prophets and the give people money, they’ll stay at home. But if you give them money that they have to spend, they’ll spend it. And therefore proper channeling of money can jumpstart the entire economy.”

Eisenberg asserts that the e-commerce experience in Israel is lagging: “User experience is poor, as is customer service and logistics.” He posits that a little competition, spurred by government-sponsored relief vouchers, will help improve e-commerce and encourage brick-and-mortar stores to elevate their game and compete by investing in e-commerce technology. It will also help Israel wean itself from reliance on U.S. and Chinese online markets.

“The citizens of Israel are in need of jobs and investment in the infrastructure of the future,” Eisenberg tweeted. “Stop handing out money and start investing in the future — the future of business, the future of infrastructure, and the future of employment. It is happening with or without us. We will be better o taking part in the game.”

We think Eisenberg’s idea is worth exploring. His voucher suggestion could benefit those in need, help build business opportunity for those who innovate, and ultimately bring value to consumers and growth to the economy. And the idea of government money doing a form of “double duty” by helping those in need and promoting innovation and growth has the potential to be a win-win experience — a very rewarding

Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, z’l

It is a rare accomplishment for a rabbi to have his name

approach for the start-up nation. WJW Talmud appear with those traditional texts in a script that bears his name. But Steinsaltz was undaunted, and in the process made much-welcomed technical innovations to his new Talmud texts, adding punctuation and paragraph breaks to make the ancient block texts (with no punctuation) more open to the modern reader.

For a haredi Jew, his innovations were seen as radical, even heretical, by some. And perhaps those concerns contributed to Steinsaltz’s rock-star status in the Jewish world, where he was lionized as a “once-in-a-millennium scholar” who could “converse and relate with ease to the most brilliant scientist and the smallest of children equally,” as Rabbi Pinchas Allouche, a colleague of Steinsaltz, put it.

Accessibility and broad-mindedness were the hallmarks of Steinsaltz’s work. In addition to his writings, he established a network of schools in Israel and the former Soviet Union that helped advance his goal of making the entire canon of Jewish texts accessible to all, irrespective of knowledge and background.

Later in life, Steinsaltz Hebraized his surname to Even-Israel, but it is the Steinsaltz name — associated with this most humane, modest, prodigious, erudite scholar — that has become so well-known, honored and respected.

Adin Steinsaltz was a hero to the Jewish people and a scholar of our generation. May his memory be for a blessing. WJW