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 difficult 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 different 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 pandemicburdened 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 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 off 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 approach for the start-up nation. JT

Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, z’l It is a rare accomplishment for a rabbi and overall scholarship than his Chasidic to have his name attached to the word association. “Talmud,” the corpus of Jewish law and lore In 1965, when Steinsaltz was in his 20s, that has been the subject of Jewish study he began a translation of the Talmud from and scholarship for close to 2,000 years. But Aramaic into modern Hebrew. That project, becoming identified with his eponymous which became his life’s work, took 45 years translation of the Talmud was only one of to complete. In the process, Steinsaltz added Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz’s many his own commentary to each page — a move accomplishments during a life of making that courted some degree of controversy, Jewish texts accessible to all — from casual since it was seen by some as an effort to reader to scholar — without compromising elevate his teachings to the level of Rashi, the the rigor of his analysis. preeminent medieval commentator whose

Steinsaltz, who died in Jerusalem on glosses on the Bible, the Prophets and the Aug. 7 at 83, was well known for his sharp Talmud appear with those traditional texts intellect and tireless work ethic — with in a script that bears his name. But Steinsaltz reports indicating that he regularly put was undaunted, and in the process made in 17-hour workdays. Steinsaltz’s path to much-welcomed technical innovations to elevated Jewish scholar status was a bit his new Talmud texts, adding punctuation unusual, as he was born into a secular and paragraph breaks to make the ancient family, and wasn’t drawn to religion until block texts (with no punctuation) more his teenage years. He eventually became open to the modern reader. associated with the Chabad Lubavitch For a haredi Jew, his innovations were movement, but was better known for seen as radical, even heretical, by some. his erudition, prodigious work product And perhaps those concerns contributed to Steinsaltz’s rock-star status in the Jewish world, where he was lionized as a “once-ina-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. JT