Jw israel now 06 03 2017

ISRAEL NOW A SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE JEWISH WEEK | JUNE 3, 2016

SABRAS IN THE CITY Israelis’ imprint on New York City

Israelis in Shul, Really! page 25 The Hummus Diaries.

page 28 3 Generations of Jazzers.

page 36 The Expat Author Boom.

page 34 Start-up Island Taking Shape.

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The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

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Turning Israelis From Voyeurs To Congregants Programs to lure Israeli-Americans to synagogue are popping up, but it’s a slow road to shul membership.

Orli Santo Contributing Editor

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s it really happening? Are Israeli-Americans, the longtime refuseniks of Jewish-American institutional life, finally coming to shul?

The answer today is yes, at least in the physical sense.

For several years now, some synagogues around New York have been independently hiring Israeli directors to develop the kind of Hebrew-centric, culturally relevant programming that would lure Israeli-Americans. Their efforts have been hugely amplified by the work of the juggernaut IsraeliAmerican organization IAC (Israeli American Council), which for the past two years has been conducting its own programs in partnership with synagogues, with the specific aim of getting Israelis to physically walk into the building. It’s safe to say that today most Israeli-American cultural life, from kids’ activities in Hebrew to holiday parties, takes place inside synagogues. So you can lead an Israeli to shul, it seems — but can you make him drink?

Mount Sinai Congregation, a smallish egalitarian synagogue in Downtown Brooklyn, has seen a dramatic increase in its Israeli presence over the past two years. Besides running its own Hebrew and Israeli culture program for kids, called Shimshonim, it has been hosting the IAC’s Keshetot program for Hebrew-speaking toddlers. Every Saturday morning a dozen or so Israeli families participate. Afterwards, some stay for the communal kiddush (or as they refer to it, the free lunch), and strike up conversations with the congregants. Connections form; sometimes a Keshetot family will show up for synagogue events or holidays.

Mount Sinai’s Rabbi Seth Wax recalls when two Israeli tots escaped their Keshetot classroom and began wandering around the sanctuary, asking him questions. “We ended up opening the Aron [ark] and looking at the Sifrei Torah, touching them, talking about them,” he said. “This may be a common thing in any kind of Hebrew school, but for an Israeli family that might not be interested in any kind of Jewish framework this was a moment of real engagement with the Torah, with a rabbi, with the Jewish community.”

Inserting Israeli programs into synagogues inevitably opens “new dimensions” for the participants, said Wax. But, tachlis, how many new Israeli mem-

Sabras in the City: An Unofficial Timeline Here is a look at the arc of the Israeli story in New York City:

1948-1959

Architect Daniel Libeskind, who was born in Poland and made aliyah with his Holocaust-survivor parents, who briefly lived in Israel, moves to

Singer-songwriter Shira Averbuch leads her charges as part of the Keshet program, which is aimed at Hebrew-speaking children. COU RTESY OF IAC bers did it bring his shul? “None,” he replied. “Yet.” Adi Brosh, an Israeli-American mother of two boys and a longtime Keshetot participant, has also found herself becoming inadvertently involved in synagogue life, staying for the post-class kiddush and the occasional event. She’s also a frequent attendee of B’nai Jeshurun’s musical Hebrew Kabbalat Shabbat program, Shishi Israeli, and participates in many of its holiday parties. But between that and becoming a synagogue member, she says, there’s still a long way to go.

“We’d like to, we’ve been thinking about it, but we still didn’t find something that fits,” she explained. Even with everything that’s going on, Brosh said, “It’s still hard to find a synagogue that can combine both cultures [the Jewish-American and the Israeli ones] because they are just so different. We have very different needs.

“I’ve been here for 19 years,” she continued, “and

New York City. He is best known for designing the reconstructed World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, and the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Other prominent Israeli-American architects include Eran Chen and Michael Arad, designer of the National Sept. 11 Memorial.

Tel Aviv-born violinist Itzhak Perlman makes his U.S. debut on the

I still can’t understand the differences between all the denominations. “But maybe now [that Israeli programming is available] I don’t have to anymore.”

Another Keshetot parent, who asked that his name not be used, stressed the cultural gaps.

“It still feels weird to me that I’m bringing my kids into a synagogue on a Saturday. I would never do this in Israel.” He added that while he is very pleased with the Keshetot program, the sound of prayers coming from the adjacent sanctuary sometimes makes him feel, “I don’t know, a little uncomfortable.”

It’s a well-known axiom that Israeli-Americans don’t do shuls. Their reluctance stems from many aspects — from an immigrant’s natural social discomfort to Israelis’ very different perception of religion and Judaism. Coming from the Jewish state, most Israelis consider Judaism a national and cultural

“Ed Sullivan Show.”

1960-1969

Israel Discount Bank opens its first branch in New York City. Other Israeli banks that operate here: Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim.

The Jordache clothing company, established by the Nakash brothers,

continued on following page

opens a store here. The firm, at first known for its designer jeans, subsequently diversified into real estate and other ventures.

1970-1979

Clothing designer and philanthropist Elie Tahari, from an Iranian family that had lived in an Israeli transit camp in the1950s, emigrates to the

The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

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Voyeurs To Congregants

The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

continued from previous page

affiliation, rather than a religious one; coming from a state where one is considered either religious or not, most Israelis are confused by the idea of multiple denominations. Add to that the deep suspicion that comes from living under a top-down, state-enforced religious system, and you have an aversion towards religious establishments that’s hard to fix. This issue has blocked Israeli-Americans from integrating into Jewish American life for decades, and according to the 2013 Pew survey, has led to high levels of assimilation among their second and third generations.

“Israeli-Americans were looking for a framework to experience both their Jewish and their Israeli identities,” explained B’nai Jeshurun’s Rabbi Roly Matalon.

“But they feel foreign in the synagogue, so they look to explore it in a context that’s culturally familiar.”

Every couple of months BJ conducts a cultural, bilingual Kabbalat Shabbat, drawing dozens of Israeli-Americans and American-born Jews alike. The evening was developed in close partnership with the IAC, which meant “negotiating every single word and acting to make sure Israelis would feel comfortable with them,” said Yehudit Feinstein-Mentesh, the IAC’s New York regional director.

“We had to be very careful never to let [Israelis] feel any kind of religious pressure,” added Rabbi Matalon. “They’ve been traumatized.”

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when synagogues began acting on the understanding that to appeal to Israeli-Americans, they needed to create a framework centering on their Israeli, rather than Jewish, values.

Artwork: Elizabeth Rosen

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The seeds may have been planted as early as 2006, when the invention of Facebook allowed IsraeliAmericans to organize and form groups, making their voice clear as never before. In 2009, membership in a Facebook group called Israelis In Brooklyn swelled into the thousands and began organizing activities for kids in Hebrew. Seeking a location and funding, as well as a bridge into the wider Jewish community, the group’s founder, IAC’s FeinsteinMentesh, turned to Park Slope’s large Congregation Beth Elohim. The synagogue housed the group and supported its cornerstone programs, becoming a working model for the programs that followed.

The 2013 Pew survey underscored the danger of Israeli-Americans drifting apart from the larger Jewish community; determined to prevent this scenario, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue launched Chofshi B’Manhattan, a comprehensive platform offering Israeli-Americans everything from High Holiday and Shabbat services in Hebrew to lectures on Israeli literature and cooking.

This turned from a budding trend into a welloiled mechanism in 2014, when the kingpin of Israeli-American organizations, the nationwide IAC, opened its New York chapter. The organization took up funding many of the existing initiatives, added a bunch of its own, and partnered with synagogues to implement them throughout New York City. Today, Israeli-Americans in all boroughs have access to Israeli-centered programming in a nearby shul.

Feinstein expects that within a decade or so, the strategy of making synagogues into Israeli-American cultural hubs will reframe the dynamics between Israeli and American Jews — not only in New York but also across the nation. She sites the Shishi Israeli program (launched with the support of the Charles H. Revson Foundation), which is now being replicated in synagogues throughout Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, New Jersey, and will soon launch in Washington and Seattle. “The changes we are seeing [in synagogue attendance] soon won’t be anecdotal anymore,” Feinstein predicted. “The numbers are about to change. ... This is getting big.”

So far neither B’nai Jeshurun, Stephen Wise or Mount Sinai have seen a change worth mentioning in their Israeli membership. Sarit Ron, the Israeli program director of Stephen Wise’s Chofshi B’Manhattan, said, “Anybody who knows Israelis knows not to hold their breath for them to pay for membership.” Given enough time, though, the distinction between voyeur and congregant becomes academic.

“You know when I knew this was working?”said Ron. “I heard this little girl, whose parents go to Chofshi B’Manhattan, ask them ‘to go to our synagogue.’”

“Honey, we don’t belong to a synagogue,” said the parents. “Of course we do,” she replied, perplexed. “We go there every week!”

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28 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

The Hummus Diaries

In search of the best thick-and-grainy or silky-smooth chickpea and tehina spread around.

Sandee Brawarsky Culture Editor

T

here are few secrets in New York City, but the proportion of mashed chickpeas to tehina is held tightly by the city’s growing number of hummus outposts.

Some add lemon, cumin and garlic, mineral water instead of urban tap, a touch of baking soda.

New York hummus is healthy, dairy-free, glutenfree, flavorful, filling and meant to be shared. In search of great Israeli hummus in the city, I encountered a Chinese aficionado, a Palestinian woman working the counter, Mexican chefs, a pair of African-American sisters, a Thai waitress and a kibbutznik-turned-entrepreneur. A hummus tour of New York is as much about the stories swirling around the chickpeas as the hummus itself.

My main informant is my cousin David Wachs, an information technology director of a hedge fund by day, who enjoys exploring New York’s food culture and maintains an impressive database of best U.S. He establishes a reputation for making luxury ready-to-wear clothing and accessories. Other successful designers with roots in Israel include Pnina Tornai and Nili Lotan.

Mordechai Spiegler, one of Israel’s best-ever soccer players, plays for the New York Cosmos of the North

Top, the scene at Michael Solomonov’s justopened Dizengoff, in Chelsea Market. Above, the award-winning chef with his hummus and pita.

P HOTOS BY M ICHAEL DATI K ASH

places. After a trip to Israel a few years ago when he drove around the north in search of the best hummus, he was inspired to turn his eye and palate to New York. His personal favorite is Taim, chef Einat Admony’s downtown chain of two lively locations

American Soccer League. One of his teammates is Pele, the sport’s consensus best player in history.

1980-1989

A good-looking and fluent English speaker named Benjamin Netanyahu takes New York by storm beginning in 1984 during a four-year

and a truck. For atmosphere, he prefers Taboonette near Union Square, an airy place that’s a sibling of Taboon in Hell’s Kitchen, specializing in “Middleterranean cuisine.”

I covered most of his Manhattan list and more, adding New Jersey to the mix (Brooklyn and Queens next time), dipping, or as the Israelis say, wiping (linagev), pita into mounds of homemade hummus, some thick and grainy, others silky smooth. As for my own favorite dish, I’d say it was usually the one I was finishing at the moment.

Israelis in New York seem to have an idealized version of hummus, dating back to teenage adventures or their mothers’ kitchens. It’s hard for them to find that blend of nostalgia and flavor in any food made outside of the Land of Israel.

A friend who prefers to be anonymous recalls his most memorable serving: In the late 1970s, he was stationed in the Jordan Valley with the IDF. The soldiers weren’t allowed to go into Jericho, but almost every day he and his buddies would travel there by armored vehicle to buy hummus and pita. “If we got caught, we would have been court-martialed.”

stint as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Natalie Hershlag is born in Jerusalem. As actress Natalie Portman, living with her transplanted family on Long Island, she wins an Academy Award and becomes a leading voice for pro-Israeli causes.

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Tel Aviv native Moishe Mana, a law school dropout, comes to the U.S. with a one-way ticket, and $800 from his father in his pocket. He sleeps on a park bench in Manhattan and in an abandoned Brooklyn building, is swindled by his boss, an Israeli contractor, before scraping together some money to buy a moving van ... which grew into

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Hummus Diaries continued from page 28

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Vardit Buse, whose Upper West Side hair salon is called Vardit, is mostly disappointed by local hummus; it’s not up to her Israeli standards — she finds many places water it down.

The best hummus she’s ever tasted comes from a guy called Gingy who sells his homemade version from a truck parked near her hometown of Rosh Ha’ayin, from early morning until whenever he runs out.

A New Yorker for 27 years, Buse is likely to initiate conversations when she hears others speaking Hebrew, and is even more likely to do so in the small hummus places where she sometimes meets friends.

“I can credit a long relationship to a hummus place. After an Israeli concert, an Israeli man asked if I would like to join his friends’ table for hummus, and I said sure, ‘for the hummus.’” She then went on to date that man for seven years.

These days, new humasiyas, or hummus joints, keep opening. They’re modeled after simple Israeli places where the hummus is homemade, the recipes handed down and the clientele including politicians, construction workers and families. The chefs praise the quality of the sesame seeds as key to fine hummus; they use no preservatives, no short cuts.

In a 2012 documentary film that will send you searching for the real thing, “Make Hummus Not War,” a Tel Aviv taxi driver heads to his favorite humasiya regularly. “It puts me in a mood of ecstasy,” he says. “I forget about the taxi. I love the atmosphere, the noise, it’s like poetry.”

In a 400-square foot brick-walled storefront in Hell’s Kitchen, Gazala Halavi graciously serves the food of Daliat-el-Carmel, her native Druze village in the north of Israel. She is the only woman of her generation to leave the village, let alone open up a business in New York. When she first came to the city, she cooked Druze specialties at home and, as though she were still in the village, shared with her neighbors. That led to catering, which led to Gazala’s Place, opened in late 2007.

Her parents’ photo is on the cover of the menu, and a photo of her grandfather and the village elders hangs inside. In an oven up front, Halavi bakes her own pita, in a style thinner than a crepe, midway between soft and crisp. Her hummus is light and more delicate than most; she overcooks the chickpeas to achieve the perfect consistency. No garlic in her hummus. When she first opened, the majority of her customers were Israeli Jews, and she credits them for getting the word out.

Last week, Michael Solomonov, the award-winning chef who runs Zahav and other restaurants in Philadelphia, and his partners opened Dizengoff in Chelsea Market; the spot is plastered with Hebrew billboards

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The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

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32 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

Plant an Olive Tree

to Seed Desert Research Plant an olive tree in Wadi Mashash, the experimental farm of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and support invaluable agricultural research that could mean the difference between starvation and sustenance for men, women and children who live in drylands and deserts.

Planting a tree for research in honor or in memory of a loved one, or to commemorate a milestone occasion, is a great way to show you care, while also helping to make the Negev desert bloom.

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Ohad Fisherman (with an employee) and some of his Hummus Joonam.

SAN DEE B R AWAR SKY/JW

Hummus Diaries continued from page 30

recalling Tel Aviv. They make their own pita in a taboon oven, and top their hummus with a creative and changing array of toppings (avocado and peanut harrisa, roasted asparagus, fresh corn when in season over the summer). For chef Emily Seaman, a partner, “it’s all about the texture and the seasoning.” They whip the tehina so that it’s like buttercream.

“Hummus is one of those dishes that can be eaten at any meal, at any time of day,” Solomonov says. “I think there’s really something just primal about eating hummus with pita.”

Ohad Fisherman is also making a name for himself in the hummus scene: A real estate broker who grew up in his family’s Tel Aviv restaurant, Mifgash HaSteak, he started producing the restaurant’s recipe here three years ago, and now uses the kitchen of Chabad House Bowery. He had been making 500 containers a week and after a recent New York Post story, he’s up to 1,000. His Hummus Joonam is sold at Holyland Market in the East Village — people send car services to pick it up on Friday.

By coincidence, I ran into Fisherman at Holyland as he was about to schlep a large bucket of tehina back to Chabad for production. In an interview in the back seat of a taxi, he shared his simple list of ingredients — chickpeas, tehina, lemon, sea salt and water — and the fact that he plans to open a stall in the New Gansevoort Market. Back on the Bowery, he offered tastes of hummus to the members of a film crew working on the street. Also connoisseurs, they approved.

Before hours, I meet Zwika Pres,

Israeli hair stylist Vardit Buse is mostly disappointed by the local hummus; it’s not up to Israeli standards, she says.

a partner in the Nanoosh restaurant chain, in its Upper West Side spot, which features a chickpea chandelier.

The Nanoosh concept is to combine hummus with an organic kitchen, offering salads and grains. When I ask Pres, who grew up on Kibbutz Dorot in the Negev and worked in diamonds before quitting his job to open the first Nanoosh, whether he had expected to be doing this, he says, “Not in a million years.”

Sharon Hoota, who opened his first Hummus Kitchen in 2008 and now has two others, grew up in Kiryat Bialik, near Haifa, and learned to cook “between the pots with my mom.”

But it was tasting hummus made by an Arab woman in Acco — the best he ever tasted — that made him want to learn to make it. His place is rustic, stylish and kosher, serving meat dishes along with hummus.

Hoota, like most of those interviewed, isn’t caught up in the debate over who “owns” hummus, whether Jews or Arabs, and who made it first, often a point of contention in Israel.

“You cannot say that someone owns it. Maybe they did it before. But if you go back in history, the Greeks made hummus too,” he says. “It’s food. They make it. I make it.”

A couple used to come into Hummus Kitchen in Hell’s Kitchen weekly before leaving New York. When Hoota asked where they were from, they said, “We’re neighbors.” Turns out the couple was from Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon. “I’ve been there many times in my life,” Hoota said, recalling his days in the IDF. “Maybe we saw one another. We wanted to kill one another just a few years ago. For nothing. Now we are eating hummus together.”

The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

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Celebrating Israel in the heart of NYC, and celebrating NYC – and the rest of the world - in the heart of Israel!

The Museum of The Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot - Israel’s champion of Jewish life and culture around the world - sends best wishes to all those taking part in today’s New York City Celebrate Israel Parade.

Looking forward to seeing you, your friends and families at our new wing in Tel Aviv, or online at www.bh.org.il.

The new wing includes two permanent exhibitions and two temporary exhibits.

Permanent Exhibitions:

Temporary Exhibits:

• Hallelujah! Assemble, Pray, Study – Synagogues Past and Present

• Operation Moses – 30 Years After • Forever Young – Bob Dylan at 75

at The Alfred H. Moses and Family Synagogue Hall

• Heroes – Trailblazers of the Jewish People at The Tamar and Milton Maltz Family Gallery

You Are Part Of The Story

34 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

Living In Translation The ‘in between-ness’ of the Israeli expat writer.

A recent panel discussion at Ansche Chesed, top right, featured expat writers Maya Arad, left, Reuven Namdar and Ayelet Tsabari. It was presented twice, once in English and once in Hebrew. AM ITAI HALB ER STAM Diane Cole Special To The Jewish Week

T

he life of the imagination can take writers on any number of different journeys. But what happens when real life takes native Israeli authors to live and work in the English-speaking lands of the United States and Canada?

For one thing, they keep on writing.

For another, they can find themselves at the center of controversy.

Case in point: Last year, the Israeli-born author and current New York Upper West Side resident Reuven Namdar won Israel’s highly prestigious Sapir Prize for his second novel, “The Ruined House.” It was the first time the honor — which includes a generous cash award — went to an Israeli who does not make Moishe’s Moving & Storage, the biggest independent moving company in the tristate area. Soon, Israelis become a major force in the city’s moving industry.

1990-1999

Avik Kabessa, CEO of Carmel Limo, an Israeli who briefly worked as a bike messenger and hotel clerk here, then founds a car service that merges

his home in Israel.

It may also be the only time. Responding to criticism over the award going to an expat, the Sapir Prize administrators revamped the eligibility rules to exclude anyone whose main residence is not in Israel — a decision that spurred a furor of its own.

But perhaps what was most striking about the entire brouhaha was the attention it brought to certain facts on the ground: a number of Israeli writers are, indeed, working, living and thriving in different communities outside of Israel, including in the United States, Canada, Germany and elsewhere.

Highlighting this phenomenon, three prominent Israeli writers now residing in New York, California and Toronto took part in a recent panel discussion at New York’s Ansche Chesed synagogue: Reuven Namdar and Maya Arad, both of whom write with 6-year-old Carmel. The firm has expanded around the U.S. and internationally, and car services here with Israeli roots have become a prominent part of that industry.

Jazz bassist Omer Avital, born in Givatayim, arrives in New York City; he is on the leading edge of a wave of musicians with Israeli roots who exert a

Maya Arad is the author of a novel in verse, “Another Place, a Foreign City.” JTA

“Israeliness creeps into everything I write,” says Ayelet Tsabari. VIA T WIT TER in Hebrew, and Ayelet Tsabari, who shared was living in translation. writes in English. As if to dramatize “It is strange, not easy to read [my the complexity of living in different work] out loud in English,” said Namlanguages, the event was presented dar, whose book is being translated twice, one after the other, in two itera- into English by the highly regarded tions — one in Hebrew, the other in writer, scholar and translator Hillel English.

Halkin and is slated for publication in And there was another twist: in the United States in 2017. But it was the Hebrew session, Arad and Nam- also gratifying, he quipped, to find his dar read excerpts from their works in audience laughing in the right places, the original language in which it was whether in Hebrew or English. written, Hebrew, in contrast to Tsabari, The general phenomenon of expawho read a Hebrew translation of a triate writers is by no means new: think story originally written in English. The Hemingway and Fitzgerald in 1920s second session reversed the equation. Paris. Nor is switching the language Still, the common experience they one chooses to write in: Born in Iremajor influence on the city’s jazz scene.

Their ranks also include saxophonists Eli Degibri and Uri Gurvich, siblings Avishai Cohen (trumpet), Anat Cohen (clarinet/ saxophone) and bassist Avishai Cohen.

(See photo spread beginning on page 36) Hip-hop violinist Miri Ben-Ari, from Ramat Gan, moves to New York City, taking jazz classes at The New

School. She has played at the White House and at Carnegie Hall, has won a Grammy Award, co-founded an organization to encourage Holocaust education in the U.S., and was named one of the 10 most influential Israelis in this country by Ynet in 2011.

The Ahava cosmetics firm begins exporting its products to the

the themes of her short story collection, “The Best Place on Earth,” which won the 2015 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. Unlike the Sapir Prize, it is not limited to residents of any single country.

“Israeliness seeps into everything I write,” she says.

Namdar, who arrived in the United States after his army service, admits that the decision to change the Sapir Prize rules felt personal. “I am very invested in Israel and very invested in the Hebrew language,” he said. “Yet I feel it alienating” when someone suggests that by living in New York he’s “not Israeli enough.”

He believes a larger conversation is now beginning to explore a broad array of issues: “Can you be a good Israeli living abroad? Is it really relevant what language you teach your children? ... In some

continued on page 48

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,

ISRAEL!

land, Samuel Beckett lived most of his adult life in Paris and wrote in both English and French. Just this past year, the Indian-American Jhumpa Lahiri, brought up in Rhode Island, decided to swap out writing in English for the language of Italy, where she now lives. When her latest book appeared in English, it was in translation from the original Italian.

But the idea of an expat Israeli — writer or not — carries baggage that these other examples do not.

The very language used to describe Israeli expats can sting. While Jews who move to Israel from different parts of the diaspora are said to make aliyah (literally, to ascend), Israelis who move away from Israel are described as yordim (people who descend). Although the judgment is less intense today than in the past, all three writers on the panel agreed that it remains in

‘Whether or not the phenomenon of expat Israeli literature makes a lasting impact on Israeli literature remains to be seen.’

the background.

When people ask Arad if her children speak Hebrew (the answer is yes, they do), she sees the question as ideological. “You can take me out of Israel, but I am still and always Israeli,” she said. Currently writer-in-residence at Stanford’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Arad has lived abroad for 22 years.

She is the author of several highly acclaimed books, starting with her 2003 novel in verse, “Another Place, a Foreign City,” and most recently “Suspected eDementia,” which is currently in the process of being atranslated into English by the well-known translator -Jessica Cohen, for whom she has nothing but praise.

-“I never thought to write fiction in English,” Arad esays. “Even writing the preschool newsletter” when nher children were young was excruciating, she said.

Tsabari describes at times feeling that interviewers bring “a sense of accusation that I write in Eng-lish rather than in Hebrew,” even though she spends etwo months each year in Israel, and Hebrew remains

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her mother tongue. She moved to Canada when she was 25, about 17 years ago. At first, she tried writing in Hebrew, but no longer immersed in the spoken language, she felt “stripped” of her tools, in a kind of limbo in regard to her writing. Then someone suggested that writing in another language might be likened to transferring from one art medium to another, like switching from painting oils to watercolors. At first the notion sounded crazy, she said, but the transition has worked.

Her writing is “informed by the in betweenness” of being both Israeli and Canadian. “You’re never quite here or there.” The tension between the familiar and the unknown, the search for comfort and familiarity amid the displacement of immigration from one country to another (including, in many stories, Mizrahi families in Israel) are among

La Dor V’Jazz

36 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

THE FIRST WAVE Bassist Avishai Cohen

Declared one of the 100 Most Influential Bass Players of the 20th Century by Bass Player Magazine, Cohen, 46, has been hailed by DownBeat as “a jazz visionary of global proportions.” Like several of his contemporaries, his signature sound blends Middle Eastern, Eastern European and African-American musical idioms. The New York Times describes it as a “heavy Middle Eastern groove with a delicate, almost New Age lyricism.”

Welcome to New York: Cohen moved here in 1991, at 22, to study jazz at The New School. [Its jazz program would prove to be a big lure for Israeli musicians.] The beginning was rough. “I was performing on the streets and working in construction just to get by.” Luckily, he had an old aunt living in the city who “took care of me and gave me always a good lunch. You know New York is rough, but I just

Meet members of the three generations of Israeli jazz musicians who have staked a claim here, and made their rhythmic and melodic mark.

Interviews by Orli Santo a member of Chick Corea’s New Trio and an original member of Corea’s young guns ensemble, Origin.

He would play with him for the next six years. “Performing with Chick played an important part in shaping my musicianship ... for me Chick is a teacher, colleague and friend.”

The Scene Back Then: New York in the ’90s “had a significant jazz and Latin scene, but not too many musicians from Israel.” Cohen believes that his own success over the past two decades, along with that of his compatriots, had much to do with spurring the proliferation of Israelis in jazz today.

Cohen moved back to Israel in 2005 but still plays here regularly. (His trio will be playing the Highline Ballroom on June 28.)

Guitarist/Oud player Amos Hoffman

Hoffman, 46, plays modern jazz with a heady Middle Eastern accent. After graduating from the High School of the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem, his search for new musical experiences led him first to Amsterdam and then to New York City, where he performed with the likes of pianist Jason Lindler, bassist Avishai Cohen and vocalist Claudia Acuna.

Hoffman has recorded five solo albums, and in 2013 was awarded one of Israel’s most prestigious prizes: the Landau Prize for Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in jazz.

Welcome to New York: Hoffman moved here when he was either 21 or 22, “sometime in the early ’90s … maybe ’92? That whole period is a little foggy,” he

had to be there at that time. It changed me completely as a musician.”

Breakthrough Moment: Cohen’s luck changed in 1997 with a call from the legendary pianist Chick Corea. “I had passed one of Chick’s friends a demo tape, without particular hope of being noticed,” Cohen says. “Chick called me back a few weeks later and told me he listened to it in his car and was ‘blown away by its freshness.’” Cohen soon became U.S. Its kiosks, and those hawking other Israeli cosmetics products — among them, Sabon, and Dead Sea products — eventually become a familiar sight at shopping malls and parks in Greater New York and around the country.

Yediot America begins its U.S. version of Israel’s prominent daily

newspaper to serve the growing number of Israelis in New York City and other major cities in this country.

Fashion designer Yigal Azrouël launches first collection in U.S. (1998), opens a boutique in the Meatpacking District (2003), then moves to Madison Avenue (2012).

2000-2009

apologizes. “It was right after a year in Amsterdam.”

The New York of the ’90s was easy enough to get by in: “I was renting a two-bedroom on the Upper East Side with a roommate and could cover the rent with four $50 gigs a month,” he recalls.

The Scene Back Then: Arriving at the same time as Israeli bassists Omer Avital and Avishai Cohen, Hoffman describes a jazz scene that was wide open and largely un-institutionalized. While there was no Israeli presence to speak of yet — “If you said you were Israeli, that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone” — one could play with some big names at various jam sessions. (Smalls, in the West Village, which became a home base for some Israeli players, opened several years later). Soon after Hoffman arrived, he took up playing in the subway with singer Evelyn Blakey, daughter of famed jazz drummer Art Blakey.

Breakthrough Moment: Hoffman had played the oud since childhood, but considered it more of a private hobby than a calling. One night, though, an American peer came to visit and convinced Hoffman to bring the oud out with him. “Suddenly I saw people go crazy for this instrument, how it fit in. ... It was a sound that didn’t exist [in jazz circles] before, you know?” Later that year, bassist Avishai Cohen invited Hoffman to play oud and guitar on his debut CD; Omer Avital soon followed suit with his own brand of jazz/Middle Eastern fusion.

Israeli Sound in Jazz: No such thing, says Hoffman — not really. “If you think about the original Israeli music, we’re thinking about a mixed group of composers that drew from many traditions, like classical, European and Eastern European music.”

The Israeli sound in jazz, he suggests, “is still new and still coming into its own.”

THE SECOND WAVE Guitarist Yotam Silberstein

At 21, Tel Aviv native Silberstein, 36, won the coveted Rimon School of Music’s “Israeli Jazz Player of the Year.” In 2005, he received a scholarship to The New School and relocated here. Since then, he’s released three albums and collaborated with the likes of bassist Avishai Cohen, James Moody and Roy Hargrove. About Jazz summed up Silberstein’s 2009 release, “Next Page,” as an “unadorned hollowbody guitar work [that] freely invites comparison to releases from the heyday of Blue Note Records.”

Welcome to New York: During his first visit here when he was 17, Silberstein was hit by the revelation that here “you can actually live a life centered on music.” By the time he made it back, though, at 25, he was leaving behind an already established life and career “to become a complete unknown, living in a pretty crummy apartment in a pretty crummy

Sculptor-artist Nir Hod, who trained at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy, arrives in New York City. His most noted work is a series of ten large paintings that depict the famous photograph of Nazi soldiers clearing out the Warsaw Ghetto. Other prominent Israeli artists here include Tamy BenTor, Ilana Raviv and Noa Charuvi.

Aroma Espresso Bar, one of Isra-j el’s hippest cafes, opens its first U.S.B site in Soho. Its combination of foodh and ambiance serves as a draw fore expatriate Israelis and American Jewsi who want a taste of Israel. r O Einat Admony, a native of Tel AvivS who worked as a cook in the Israeli army, opens the Taim (Hebrew for tasty) falafel

The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

… I’d check that he was alive and then step over him.” 37 The Scene Back Then: The first wavers had created a New York-Israel corridor; those musicians were also “coming back to Israel and bringing us the word, so to speak, teaching us this New York sound,” says Hekselman. It was clarinetist Anat Cohen who opened the door for him, inviting him to play with her ensemble the moment he landed. Another important connection from his earlier visit was the manager of Smalls, who threw gigs his way early on.

Israeli Sound: Apart from what Hekselman terms “falafel jazz” — a term of derision for a kitschy infusion of Middle Eastern rhythms into popular jazz — Hekselman feels there actually is an Israeli jazz sound. “One thing that might be seen as unifying Israeli jazz is a tendency toward lyricism,” he notes. “One of the things I aspire for in my music is a certain earnestness, to create an emotion. ... I see this same drive with many Israeli musicians.”

Gravitating towards the simple and the direct, he adds, might just be part of the Israeli culture.

” y t h

e , n o u ” s h d e n . d a n w tneighborhood.” His first two years, he said, were ,mostly just lonely. n The Scene Back Then: By 2005 the handful of t“first wavers” had already established themselves. nStill, their presence “was about 20 percent of what it is today,” says Silberstein. Today, “there are more -names than I can remember.” He attributes much l of this proliferation to The New School scholarship pprogram. e Israeli Influences: Though his compositions ”don’t sound particularly Israeli — if anything, he’s wknown for his Brazilian sounds — Silberstein says he draws much of his inspiration from the mix of imported influences that make up mainstream Israeli music. In fact, his interest in Brazilian music comes from his love for Mati Caspi, a still-popular Israeli musician who translated “Carnival” songs into Hebrew.

- Breakthrough Moment: Trumpeter Avishai Cor hen was among the Israeli musicians who welcomed oSilberstein to town, inviting him to play several gigs. ,But it was Silberstein’s 2007-9 stint with the great esaxophonist James Moody — “someone who I never deven dreamt to be in the same room with” — that scatapulted him. Moody, he said, “was the reason I -wanted to play jazz to begin with.” o

Guitarist Gilad Hekselman

eBorn in Israel in 1983, Hekselman, 33, performed -regularly throughout his teenage years with the band dof a weekly children’s TV show. After graduating tfrom the jazz department of Thelma Yellin High eSchool of the Arts, he received an America-Israel gCultural Foundation Scholarship to attend The New ySchool, where he completed his BFA in performing

-joint in the West Village. Next comes .Balaboosta and Bar Bolonat, expanding dher Israel-Mediterranean culinary influrence. A colleague, Nir Mesika of Timna, sin the East Village, was named best new restauranteur by USA Today last year.

Other prominent Israeli chefs include Uri vScheft and Ron Ben-Israel. , l In 2006, Max Fichtman and Oded

THE THIRD WAVE Guitarist Tal Yahalom

Yahalom, 24, leads Kadawa, a collective experimental-rock-jazz trio. He is also a member of the Sagi Kaufman Trio, which mixes free improvisation, classical music and jazz standards. Yahalom is the recipient of the AICF scholarship award for excellence in jazz performance for 2014-’15, has performed as a leader at the 2015 Detroit Jazz Festival, 2016 Bern Jazz festival and at various New York venues; next month, he’ll take part in the Montreux (Switzerland) Jazz Festival Guitar Competition.

Welcome to New York: Yahalom arrived here

continued on following page

arts in 2008. One of the more sought-after guitarists on today’s jazz scene, Hekselman has released five albums as a leader; All About Jazz said he “has a pristine, crystalline sound … with a quiet assertiveness and expertise that is winning throughout.”

Welcome to New York: A 2004 grant from AICF and a partial scholarship from The New School made his dream of moving to New York possible. But living off random gigs in pre-gentrified South Slope, Brooklyn, was anything but glamorous. “My nextdoor neighbor was a drug dealer, my other neighbor had served time for murder and there was a junkie sleeping in the hallway in front of my door. But I was doing what I wanted to do, so I just went along with it.

Brenner open their first chocolate bar, Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man, in the U.S., on Union Square. The company was founded a decade earlier in Ra’anana.

Israeli-born Andrea Meislin opens a gallery that bears her name in Manhattan. Her gallery features the works of established artists,

interspersed with historical photographs from her homeland.

The LeeSaar dance company (its founders are Saar Harari and Lee Sher), which was founded in Israel and temporarily based in Australia, moves to New York City.

2010-2016

The Technion, Israel’s Institute of

Technology, announces that it and Cornell University will open a high-tech campus on Roosevelt Island in 2017.

A New York City branch of the Israeli-American Council, an umbrella organization that had formed in Los Angeles in 2007 to energize that city’s major expatriate commu-

continued on page 48

38 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

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La Dor V’Jazz

continued from previous page two years ago, at 22, as part of an 8-year-old twinning program between The New School’s jazz department and the Shtricker Center, an extension of the Tel Aviv Conservatorium.

The program created musical and social partnerships; his classmates became both his roommates and his bandmates. Suffering little of the assimilation pains of his predecessors, Yahalom had his own adjustments to make. “I never had to pay my own rent,” he laughs. “Figuring out how to survive wasn’t obvious.”

The Scene Now: Yahalom is well aware that he’s standing on the shoulders of giants. “It’s enough for me to say I’m Israeli and people say, ‘Wow, then you must be good,’” he notes.

He also recognizes the claim that his age group stays too much within their comfort zone, playing with the people they know from back home rather than opening up to the city’s multicultural scene. “There’s something to it,” Yahalom admits, “but I just want to make the music I want to make.

If that goal is served best by playing with Israelis, then why not?”

Breakthrough Moment: Winning the guitar player contest in the 2015 Detroit Jazz Festival began opening doors for Yahalom and lending Kadawa a measure of recognition.

“I got to hang out with [jazz guitar great] Pat Metheny,” he recounts. “I was like, ‘Wow, I’m in the big kids’ league now.’”

Israeli Sound: It’s all over the place by now, Yahalom suggests. But he does agree with Hekselman that there is an overarching tendency toward lyricism.

“I think that while American jazz institutions put a lot of emphasis on technique, Israeli ones put it on expression, feeling and rhythm.”

Drummer Ben Silashi

In Israel, Silashi, 23, played with the likes of Yuval Cohen, Hagai Amir and Yonatan Voltzok; here he’s been playing mostly in Tal Yahalom’s band (Kadawa), Benny Oyama’s Brazilian O ensemble and several other ensem- h bles that still haven’t worked out their names. Silashi was among the three students to represent The New School in the Bern Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

Welcome to New York: Silashi arrived here two years ago, along with his classmates Tal Yahalom and some others, through the same New School program — though he completed his studies in Israel during his army service. Perhaps the hardest aspect of the move was boarding the flight to New York almost straight from the army base, without much time to get organized or “wrap his head” around things. “This is my first time in America,” he admits. “It’s also my first time out of my parents’ house.” Having to adjust to a new country and also learn how to “take care of food, clothes, work, and apartment” was like having “reality slap me in the face.”

The Scene Now: “People that are already established here help you meet the people you need to know,” Israelis or others, notes Silashi. But while he jams in several venues and plays with a multiethnic group of musicians, lasting friendships seem to form much easier with other Israelis. Having such a well-established community of Israeli musicians here “does make for a soft landing.”

Musical Highlight: “There was one time I was jamming in Smalls, and jazz pianist Eric Lewis came up on the stage to play with me. It may have not been something that made my career, but it was one of the most intense and enjoyable experiences I had as a musician.”

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erusalem — When Terri Kalker and her husband, Richie Kalker, go through security at Ben-Gurion Airport, they’re not quite sure what to say when the screener asks, “Where do you live?”

Both hold dual American-Israeli citizenship and spend part of every month living in Israel and the rest of their time working in New York.

The Kalkers are among the thousands of olim who commute between Israel and their “home” countries because they own a business in the U.S. or because it would be difficult or impossible to do what they do in Israel. Others commute once every month or two due to family commitments — to care for aging parents or to spend time with grown children and grandchildren they left behind.

That many are from the New York area isn’t surprising given the size of the Jewish community there. For many New Yorkers, making aliyah was a lifelong dream, and commuting can give them the best of both worlds. At the same time, moving back and forth between two homes is at the best confusing at times, and sometimes detrimental, says David London, executive director of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI).

London said there has “definitely been an increase” in the number of commuters over the years, due to the

fact that so many immigrants are already professionals when they move to Israel, and the challenges related to re-qualifying in a foreign country.

Although their commute “usually starts with great enthusiasm,” the administrator said, for some the traveling becomes “tedious” and is “hard on the family” living full-time in Israel.

Commuting can also take a toll on the commuter’s identity, London said.

“As the family becomes more Israeli, the commuting spouse or spouses are less immersed in Israeli life and their Israel-based community.

That person often continues to feel more American.”

On the plus side, London said, if commuters don’t have to work while in Israel, they can devote much more time and energy to their families while they’re here. “And it’s a wonderful thing to not feel the financial pressures” many immigrant families experience when living on Israeli salaries.

Since making aliyah nine years ago, Richie Kalker, a physician’s assistant, has spent about half of every month as well as summers in New York because the profession doesn’t yet exist in Israel.

“I was fortunate enough to be able to keep my position in New York,” he said.

Prior to making aliyah, Kalker worked 12-hour shifts throughout the month, “and there wasn’t much time for family after work,” he said. “Now at least when I’m in Israel, I am off. It

continued on following page

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Are Two Jewish Identities Better Than One?

39

Commuters

40 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

continued from previous page allows me to spend quality time with family. Today, with Internet, Whatsapp and a local phone number in Israel, communication isn’t a problem.”

On the downside, he said, “you do miss some events, like birthdays, social events like weddings and bar mitzvahs.”

Terri Kalker, a criminal and traffic attorney, spends about 10 days a month at her New York practice and the rest in Israel.

“I’ve had my practice for 24 years.

I didn’t want to start from scratch in Israel,” a process that requires passing the Israeli bar and doing an internship, she said.

Kalker said she and her husband have embraced their dual national identities.

“I vote in both countries’ elections and time my trips accordingly.”

Being highly adaptable is crucial, she said.

“I wear different clothing when I’m in New York because it’s a different culture. I dress more conservatively in New York, first because I’m working and second because Kew Garden Hills, where we’ve kept our home, is religiously more observant. I wear jean skirts in Efrat, where her family lives in Israel.”

Barak Schecter, who moved to Israel 14 years ago from West Orange, N.J., and commutes to New York eight or nine times a year to recruit and raise money for Israel-based youth programs, said he has a complex identity.

Schecter, who was born to American parents who moved back to the U.S. when he was 9 months old, said, “I still identify and feel American. My formative years were based in New Jersey.”

The 36-year-old, who now calls Beit Shemesh home, “left behind” his parents and siblings in the New York region.

“I miss them and I miss American culture, especially the energy and electricity of New York, which is unmatched anywhere. It’s easier to make it big in New York, where you can have a house and a backyard.

But now I live in a duplex apartment with a view from Ashkelon to Rishon LeZion, and that’s amazing.”

Although Schecter is sometimes a bit homesick for New York, “I feel more spiritual when I’m in Israel. I feel a connection to the land and the people and the history. It motivates me. In New York, there are a lot of distractions and it detracts from my spirituality. Even though I spend my time in New York in a religious community, it’s harder to feel Judaism’s strength. I have to work harder on it when I’m in the States.”

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41

Frequent fliers: The 10-hour commute.

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Katz agreed that “it’s easier” for Jews in Israel to identify as Jews.

“Not necessarily for myself,” said the tour operator, who is an observant Jew, “but when I look at the mainstream population, even the nonreligious in Israel feel very Jewish.

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Katz, who was born in Panama, raised in California and educated in Chicago before he moved to New York, said he misses Costco and certain New York restaurants, but not as much as he misses his good friends from Woodmere, L.I. “What I miss most are the friends I left behind. Our kids grew up in North Woodmere [L.I.] and I have a lot of very close friends with the same ideology. We took a leap of faith when we made aliyah. I hope someday they will, too.”

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COU RTESY OF TECH N ION

Steve Lipman Staff Writer

O

n the south side of Roosevelt Island, in the East River between Manhattan and Queens, a massive construction project is taking shape. The shells of three towering buildings are rising amid a forest of building cranes, muddy roads and a mound of dug-up dirt.

This is the future of the Jacobs Institute, part of the Cornell Tech campus that is being built on the mostly residential island.

(Its official name is the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, named for the California philanthropists, Cornell graduates and longtime Technion supporters, who gave the lead $133 million gift.)

The joint academic program under the auspices of Cornell University and Israel’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology marks the first time an international university has granted an accredited degree on U.S. soil.

The initial part of the Roosevelt Island site — the three buildings now under construction — “is on schedule” to open at the start of the 2017-18 academic year, said Daniel Huttenlocher, Cornell Tech’s founding dean. The building of the entire state-of-the-art, environmentally green and energy-

efficient campus will take 25 years.

Think Silicon Island.

At Cornell University’s recent commencement exercises in Ithaca, a dozen Jacobs Institute graduates received their diplomas, dual master of applied sciences degrees, from Cornell and the Technion. They are the first graduates of the Institute, which has been based — until the Cornell Tech campus opens on Roosevelt Island — at the Google headquarters in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

Two weeks before that, they were honored at a celebration in Bryant Park hosted by the American Technion Society.

The graduates are from six countries. Most have already formed their own entrepreneurial high-tech businesses or gone to work for established, prestigious firms in their specialized areas, according to the Institute.

The Institute has used Israel’s lauded Start-Up Nation ethos, which has earned the nation a reputation as an innovative leader in applying its high-tech expertise to the business world, to start operating before the Roosevelt Island campus opens its doors next year, said Adam Schwartz, the Institute’s Israeli-born director.

“It’s a very Israeli approach.”

Hence, the classes that began two years ago, and the Institute has already launched a program for Postdoctoral Innovation Fellows. Earlier this spring it announced an “Immersive Recommendations” research technology, developed at the Insti-

“Everyone will be an ambassador opposing BDS.” He called the Institute “one of the largest [examples of] cooperation between a university in the United States and one outside of the United States.”

The Institute already employs seven faculty members; that number, and the number of students, will rise when the Institute moves to Roosevelt Island next year. But Schwartz was reluctant to offer specific figures about the projected size of the Institute, or the long-range goal of its fundraising campaign.

The Institute’s emphasis will be in three areas:

n Connective Media, which will help New York City bridge the gap between technology and its uses in such areas as advertising, entertainment, finance and retail; n Healthier Life, which will promote high-tech research to reduce health care costs and improve the quality of health care services; and n Built Environment, which will urge faculty and students in such areas as architecture, energy and transportation “to help realize the promise of a more sustainable environment.”

“This is a completely new type of degree program,” Schwartz said.

Many of the prospective students who

have applied for admission to the In- 43 stitute are not primarily attracted by “a specific degree,” but by the Israelistyle “chutzpah” that has fueled the Start-Up Nation philosophy.

Institute students traveled to Israel earlier this year for two weeks of meetings with entrepreneurs.

The Institute’s faculty members are employed by Cornell; Technion partners on the academic side, interviewing applicants and designing curriculum. Technion, which has advertised for “individuals [with] exceptional academic records and demonstrated engagement and im-

continued on following page

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tute’s Connected Experiences Lab, which, according to Cornell, “translates personal digital traces from one platform recommendation to another” — such as Netflix and Twitter.

At a time that the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement finds growing international support, the establishment of such a program with highly visible Israeli ties, despite initial opposition from pro-Palestinian advocates here and in Ithaca, is a strike against anti-Israel forces; it is likely to create “ambassadors” for Israel through students’ and faculty members’ “personal connections” with successful Israelis, Schwartz said.

Taking Shape

44 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

continued from previous page

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pact outside the academic world,” is, as a foreign public institution, not allowed to invest in capital projects on the new campus or to take an ownership stake in physical facilities.

The Institute was formed as part of an applied sciences and technology campus envisioned by thenMayor Michael Bloomberg; that campus was, in turn, part of an intensive Applied Sciences NYC initiative, to increase entrepreneurship and create jobs in New York City, and to leverage the city’s large number of high-tech firms.

New York donated the land for the 11-acre campus; Bloomberg gave $100 million.

“This is a very different campus,” Schwartz said — one that will break standard academic boundaries and encourage experimentation.

Cornell Tech will be open for master’s level, doctoral and post-doctoral students. It has begun four master’s programs and will begin two more later this year; eventually, it will offer eight degrees.

The Institute is designed as a “bridgehead” for Israeli companies to better establish themselves in

the U.S., and as a way for Israeli expatriates in this country to make “half-aliyah” by working under Israeli auspices.

A major feature of the Institute is its interdisciplinary approach, Schwartz said.

“The Institute is a place for experimentation on campus, where traditional institutional boundaries disappear,” a mission statement issued by Cornell states. “That leads to academic programs focused on domains of economic need, or ‘hubs,’ instead of disciplines; a postdoctoral program aimed at turning research into startup companies; and the introduction of commercial models for the monetization of in-w tellectual property to drive univer-w sity innovation.”

Y The Institute will sponsor businessh competitions, provide legal supportw for startups, form research partnerships with extant companies, sponsorM entrepreneurs-in-residence, and offerp pre-seed financing for promising re-m search projects. n Huttenlocher declined to commentl on what type of security the Institute, because of its Israeli connection, willU have. “In New York City, security is ah concern all over the place.” n t steve@jewishweek.org & v l a o

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The Tech Matchmakers Meet the guys helping Israeli entrepreneurs make it big in the Big Apple.

Beth Braverman JTA

T

he hoodie-clad millennials tap furiously at their laptops. They’re perched on colorful couches, or sitting at long, communal tables, munching on Fruit Loops from the built-in dispenser in the open, subway-tiled kitchen.

In other words, AlleyNYC is your typical coworking space. There are plenty of international workers here, yet the space is quintessentially New York with its upscale, industrial look and “work hard, play hard” philosophy, complete with biweekly happy hours.

Its location in Chelsea, on the West Side of Manhattan, makes it a hub for local entrepreneurs, particularly those in the tech scene. That cachet made it the perfect home for ICONYC Labs, a new accelerator program that helps Israeli startups launch their businesses stateside.

Israel has earned a global reputation as “StartUp Nation” for its lively tech scene — Israel is home to nearly 7,000 high-tech companies, and nearly 80 percent of those are startups, according to a report from the business information firm Dun & Bradstreet. But despite its track record of innovation, Israeli startups often struggle with finding local investors. Additionally, Israeli deals generally require entrepreneurs to cede a greater share of their companies than a typical American deal.

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So a main goal of ICONYC Labs is to connect Israeli entrepreneurs with New York investors.

Additionally, the program helps Israelis adapt their pitches and products to better appeal to American investors, who typically have a longer decisionmaking process than their Israeli counterparts.

“In America, it’s about building relationships over time, but that’s not something that’s in Israeli DNA,” says ICONYC co-founder Eyal Bino. “It’s definitely a mindset we are trying to change with our founders, and it’s not always an easy task.”

But this incubator program isn’t just about generating money — through the shared workspace, the program also embeds Israeli startups in the city’s tech scene.

“While they’re here, they’re mingling with the other entrepreneurs in the kitchen,” says cofounder Arie Abecassis. “They want to be here and get to know New York, and one of the goals of this program is to help them exponentially expand their social network in tech.”

Other goals include providing mentorship, assistance with media relations and branding, as well as operations support on logistics like immigration, banking and accounting. In addition to these services, ICONYC Labs provides the startups with $20,000 and office space in AlleyNYC in exchange for a small equity stake in the firms.

ICONYC Labs’ first cohort, which began last April and finished the end of October, consisted of Myndlift, a mobile health solution targeting those who suffer from ADHD; Flux, a smart agricultural product enabling water-efficient growth of food and plants; DandyLoop, a cross-promotional marketplace for independent online stores to gain traffic; Clickspree, an ad-tech firm focused on video engagement and return for brands, and Gaonic, a platform for businesses to monitor Internet of Things data.

While working with ICONYC Labs, the companies’ founders must spend at least a week each

continued on page 47

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The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

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46 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

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Tech Matchmakers continued from page 45

month in New York, although many stay longer. During the weeks they are all here, ICONYC hosts networking events and fireside chats with high-profile startup success stories.

It also sets pitch meetings with potential investors and advisers.

“At the end of the program, they’ll have the ability to expand their business to New York and raise money here,” Bino said.

Going forward, the incubator will shorten the program to four months already have a viable product with and accept companies on a rolling the potential to scale in the United basis. Two startups began in January; States, along with a committed team three more will enter the program and a willingness to learn. this month.

Bino, 40, ICONYC staffand Abecasers sift through hunsis, 49, are “In America, it’s about dreds of applicants uniquely poto select businesses sitioned to building relationships to accept into the help Israeli program — there’s over time, but that’s not companies no shortage, after acclimate to all, of companies York’s something that’s in Israeli New hoping to be the next startup Waze and make it ecosysDNA,” says ICONYC big in the U.S. They tem. Both put potential appliwere born co-founder Eyal Bino. cants through a seriin Israel — ous vetting process, Abecassis which includes outside experts as- moved to the U.S. as a young child, sessing their business prospects and and Bino attended college here and an investigation into their reputation moved here for work a few years in the Israeli startup community. later.

They’re looking for companies that When they met in 2014, Bino was

Arie Abecassis, left, and Eyal Bino are the co-founders of ICONYC Labs, an “accelerator program” that helps launch Israeli startups in New York. COU RTESY OF ICONYC L AB S

working as a business development consultant for international startups in New York, and Abecassis was serving as a board member, adviser and investor for several startups.

Bino tapped Abecassis to mentor some Israeli startups, and the two began discussing the specific needs of Israeli entrepreneurs in New York.

The pair saw a gulf between the growth potential of many Israeli startups — the talent and the ideas were strong — and their ability to connect with a wider variety of investors, and turn those connections into meaningful business opportunities.

One challenge facing Israeli entrepreneurs in New York is their products may not yet have an American following.

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continued on page 48

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The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

47

48

Tech Matchmakers

The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

continued from page 45

our founders prove their concepts in the U.S. markets, so they are worthy of funding from venture capitalists in New York,” Bino said. “The more traction our founders have, the better their story becomes.”

For Omer Rachamim, co-founder and CEO of DandyLoop, moving his business to New York was always the long-term plan because it’s a global hub e-commerce.

“ICONYC came along at just the right moment,” he said. “They helped us do a soft landing in the city, and really leveraged their connections in a way that helped me to be completely emerged in the startup community and the VC community within a few months. It’s like integration into the city on steroids.”

Since completing the program, DandyLoop, which is now incorporated in the U.S. and has an office in the city, has added advisers, investors and clients in New York.

Timeline

continued from page 37 nity, starts operating. IAC, with financial support from billionaire Sheldon Adelson, quickly becomes the major player in the Israeli community.

Israeli-owned Hap Invest-

In recent years, New York City has become a hub for Israeli-based startups — nearly 300 Israeli companies have a presence in the city.

While Silicon Valley grabs a lot of the startup spotlight, New York typically makes more sense for Israeli entrepreneurs — the time difference (7 hours versus 10 hours) makes business calls more conducive, and it’s an easy train ride to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. “They see New York as the market where they can meet clients and investors as well as the big American corporations they want to do business with,” said Guy Franklin, founder of Israel Mapped in New York, which tracks the Israeli startup community.

Plus, in some significant ways, New York City is more culturally similar to Israel than Silicon Valley.

“There’s the food, the holidays,” Bino said.

“Israelis may not be able to see themselves renting a house in the suburbs in California, but they could live on the Upper West Side.”

ment buys a lot in Chelsea for $51 million. A growing number of Israeli entrepreneurs are investing in New York City real estate.

The Osher Ad supermarket chain announces that it will open a branch in Brooklyn, supplying only kosher food and becoming the first Israeli super-

market with a U.S. outlet.

In spring 2016, Israeli cosmetics and soap shop Laline (part of Israeli fashion giant Fox) opens a 640-square-foot shop on Times Square.

Compiled by Steve Lipman

Living In Translation continued from page 35

ways it could be a good thing for Israeli culture to spill over and become more universal,” he says. For instance, part of the news his books bring back to Israel is the rich spiritual life and cultural experience of American Jewry. Living abroad also opens writers to the literature of other countries — and in return brings an awareness of Hebrew and Israeli literature to a broader audience, as well.

David C. Kraemer, professor of Talmud and rabbinics and librarian at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, who attended the session, sees the emergence of expat Israeli writers as “healthy. ... Carrying the Israeli identity abroad should be affirmed because it shows that it is an established entity,” he commented.

“One of the great things about leaving home is that it allows you to look back with a different perspective.”

As for the larger perspective of Hebrew literature, there are some “definitely gifted” writers among this global cohort, says Nili Gold, associate professor of modern Hebrew language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania. But whether or not the phenomenon of expat Israeli literature makes a lasting impact on Israeli literature remains to be seen.

“We need to sit and wait and maybe the picture will be clarified in time.”

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In honor of...

THE STATE OF ISRAEL

!‫כוחר כוחינו‬ Your Strength is Our Strength Perry Raphael Rank, Rabbi Joel Levenson, Associate Rabbi Ezra M. Finkelstein, Rabbi Emeritus Adam Frei, Cantor

Mason Salit, President Lisa Stein, Religious School Principal Sandi Bettan, Early Childhood Director Joel Podell, Executive Director

Temple Beth El of Cedarhurst, N.Y.

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Reach 141,000 readers looking for vibrant new communities all summer long!

Contact: Arielle Sheinwald 212-921-7822 ext.219 arielle@jewishweek.org.

TEMPLE HILLEL 1000 Rosedale Road No. Woodmere, NY (516) 791-6344

Broadway & Locust Ave. Cedarhurst, N.Y. 516-569-2700

A Celebration of Israel at 68 Rabbi: Matthew Futterman Rabbi Emeritus: Sholom Stern Cantor: Ethan Leifer Ritual Director: Jay Stern President: Richard Holland Executive & Education Director: Edward Edelstein

TEMPLE BETH SHOLOM 401 Roslyn Road • Roslyn Heights, N.Y. 11577 516-621-2288 A Conservative Egalitarian Congregation

CELEBRATES ISRAEL Rabbi: Alan B. Lucas Associate Rabbi: Paul Kerebl Cantor: Ofer Barnoy Executive Director: Donna Bartolomeo President: Pearl Halegua Co MBS Director: Rabbi Sean Jensen Co MBS Director: Rabbi Paul Kerbel Religious School Director: Sharon Solomon Early Childhood Director: Helayne Cohen Endowment Director: Bernice Cohen Camp Director: Holly Firestone

BEST FOR BESTWISHES WISHES ISRAEL’S AON HEALTHY AND 68THNEW YEAR HAPPY YEAR CONGREGATION FARMINGDALE WANTAGH BETH JEWISHTIKVAH CENTER 3710 Woodbine Avenue Avenue 3710 Woodbine Wantagh, Wantagh, NY NY 11793 11793 Rahamim Bazini

Rabbi Alan Lavin President TobyWohlstetter E. Kase Jerald President Vice President

CELEBRATING ISRAEL AT 68 Rabbi: Steven M. Graber Ritual Director: Steven Blitz President: Kenneth S. Fink Exec. Director: Irene Nelson

PLAINVIEW JEWISH CENTER

95 Floral Drive West, Plainview, N.Y. 11803 516-938-8610 • Fax: 516-938-2737 www.plainviewjewishcenter.org

Celebrates Israel’s 68th Year Rabbi: Steven Conn Cantor: Morris Wolk, D.Mus. President: Shea Z. Lerner Education Director: Philip Dickstein Family Education Director: Judy Alper Youth Director: Dani Hauser

49 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

Long Island Celebrates

MANHATTAN BEACH

50 The Jewish Week ■ www.thejewishweek.com ■ June 3, 2016

Ongoing My Turn Program at Kingsborough Community College, New York State Residents over 60 eligible, more than four hundred courses in art, music, history, computers, health educa-

and Thursdays Senior League of Flatbush-Midwood, activities include yoga, social dancing, book reviews, trips and parties, 1625 Ocean Ave., (718) 253-0508.

First Thursday of month AARP Midwood Chapter meeting,

11:45 a.m. Saturday mornings, Bay Ridge Jewish Center, 405 81st St., (718) 836-3103.

Saturdays

Services with Rabbi Joel Weintraub, prayers in English and Hebrew, 9:30 a.m., Temple Sholom, 2075 E. 68th St., (718) 251-0370.

BENSONHURST

followed by Shacharit at 9 a.m., kiddush after davening, Yeshiva Ohel Michele Chabin Moshe, 7914 Bay Parkway, Contributing Editor(718) 236-4003.

I

Avenue U, (718) 444-6868.

Shabbat youth program, 9:40 a.m., ages four to eight, games, prizes and davening, Flatbush Park Jewish Center, 6363 Avenue U, (718) 444-6868.

’m a born and bred New Yorker, and the fact

I carry my New York-isms with me wher-

Fridays at 8:15 p.m., ever I PARK go. They are myother personal New YorkSaturBOROUGH

1895 FLATBUSH AVENUE BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

(1 block North of Kings Highway) Our helpful and experienced staff remains the same Our telephone number remains the same:

(718) 338-1500

Executive Office: 98-60 Qns. Blvd, Forest Hills, NY 11374

MEMORIAL OBSERVANCE Call 1-800-KADDISH Colel Chabad

Monday of the month

Holocaust survivor program, 1 p.m., offering information, seminars, social programs, resources and access to a social worker, Kingsbay YM-YWHA, 3495 Nostrand Ave., call Laura Mezhiborsky, (718) 648-7703, Ext. 226.

A longtime oleh wants her kids to have a taste Services, Talmud and Torah groups, Shabbat services, shiur at 8:30 a.m. of that New York diversity.

Flatbush Park Jewish Center, 6363 Saturdays

Ask the Rabbi with Rabbi Herbert that I’ve spent the past 28 years living in JeruPROSPECT HEIGHTS Horowitz, during Shabbat services, salem hasn’t diminished my pride in being a 9 a.m., Shore Parkway Jewish Cen- Fridays and Saturdays New Yorker. ter, 8885 26th Ave., (718) 449-6530. Services: first Friday at 6:30 p.m.,

We are pleased to announce that PARKSIDE MEMORIAL CHAPELS, INC. has relocated its funeral home to

school system, in addition free workshops, tutoring a classes in math and Engl prep, regents, and statewi tutoring, Marks Jewish Co House of Bensonhurst, 7 Parkway, (718) 331-6800.

That Other Home, Across The Sea

First Saturday of Month

Still Jewish Family Owned and Independently Operated

KINGS BAY

ESSAYSecond and fourth

MIDWOOD

Thursdays Caregivers support group for those taking care of disabled parents, spouses and children, 1:30 p.m., Council Center for Senior Citizens, 1001 Quentin Road, Room 3C, (718) 376-8164.

Teen Center After-School for Middle School students Teen Employment Training an ship Programs, Marks Jew munity House of Bensonhu Bay Parkway, call Violetta information, (718) 331-6800,

STATEN ISLAND

Ongoing

Classes for infants and t

days at 10:30 a.m., Union Temple of State of Mind.

"Baby Boogie," 6 to 24 month Brooklyn,shaped 17 Eastern Parkway, Fridays and Saturdays Growing up in Bayside, Queens, my taste (718)The author’s sons at the former Toys “R” Us in ration of music; "Going to th STATEN ISLAND 638-7600.

Services Friday evening 8 p.m., buds, fashion sense at and love of theater. It gave me a Times Square. SI D SLIVKO Fair," 2 to 3 years, animals and Saturday 10:30 a.m., Progres-and chocolate cheesecake. passion foratpotato knishes OCEAN PARKWAY Weekly behaviors and habits; "Youn sive Temple Beth Ahavath Shalom, For years I purchased my clothes at Manhattan sam- thisChesed visit to be a heritage Connections' Jewishtour, Be- a kind of “Birthright 1515 46th St., (718) 372-0933 or (718) ers," 15 to 24 months, craft Saturdays ple sales, a perk enjoyed by even junior editors like New York” Support for myGroup Israel-centric reavement for those kids.

436-5082. and movements; "Arts and R Shabbat services and after-service me, when I worked at Cosmopolitan and Seventeen Iwho want to learn about American havethem lost a spouse, callsomething for exprograms led by Rabbi Robert Blus2 to 3 years, introduction to p magazines. Even the harsh New York winters played andact American Jewish dates and times, offershistory. practicalI want them to take the First Friday of the month tein, Ocean Parkway Jewish Cena part in making me who I am: A February blizzard, ferry to Ellis Island and trace family’s nearly all requireEuropeactive par coping strategies, 10 weeks, JCC oftheir Family services, with children from ter, Sixteen” 550 Ocean Parkway, betweento-New York odyssey, just as mybymother which fell the day of my “Sweet party, shut and I did Av a a parent or caregiver, Staten Island, 475 Victory Blvd., (718) the Hebrew school often leading the Avenue F andand Ditmas Avenue, down the public transportation system made it (718)couple of years ago.

I want them to visit the Statue Shore JCC, 1297 Arthur K 981-1500, Ext. 301 or (347) 203-3512. prayers, 8 p.m., Progressive Temple impossible for my friends and436-4900.

I to get to Manhattan of Liberty, go to the top of the Empire State Build(718) 356-8113, Ext. 103.

Beth Ahavath Shalom, 1515 46th St., to see “Grease,” the most popular Broadway show at ing,Mondays see Rockefeller Center and enjoy a meal in the STATEN ISLAND Classes for infants and t (718) 372-0933. the time. (Back then, a ticket could be had for $20.) Diamond want them to experience the CaregiverDistrict. support groupI for children "Baby Boogie," 6 to 24 mo More importantly, growingSaturdays up in New York and World Trade ofCenter Memorial and spouses people afflicted with and I want to share KENSINGTON ploration of music; "Young attending public school provided with them how I felt on JCC Sept.

2001.

Flying outEx disease, 1-2 p.m., of 11, Class inme parsha of thelifelong week, betweenwithAlzheimer’s 15 to 24 months, crafts, ga Saturdays lessons about embracing diversity, having toler-Center,of New year earlier I had seen the tops of the StatenYork Island,a1297 Arthur Kill Road, Minchaand and Maariv, Chabad Free Shabbat dinner and lunch, movements; "Arts and Rhythm ance for others’ opinions. a thick Naomipeaking Mirensky through (718) 981-1500, Ext. layer of clouds. The 389 Bradley Ave., (718) 370-8953. towers Torah 964 E. Third St., for years, introduction to presch In Annex, Jerusalem, where I’m Torah raising my children, next time I flew into New York (actually Newark), 234, or Ruth Lieberman (718) 981study, 10 a.m.; services, 11 schedule and reservations call, (917) dler Tunes," 2 to 3 years, mu there’s not a whole lot of embracing of diversity or less than a week after the Twin Towers collapsed, a.m.; Temple Israel, 315 Forest Ave., 1500, Ext. 236.

468-4840. tolerance for others’ viewpoints, despite the city’s the flight attendants on our American Airlines ing program; "Senseflight of Shab (718) 727-2231.

Second Thursday of the diverse populations.

Jews, 3 years, exploration of Sha Shabbat services, 8:30 a.m., Flat- Muslims and Christians, wept as we approached the wreckage. month up in Jerusalem, my ultra-Orthodox and modern right-wing, Growing boys know the bush & Shaare Torah Jewish Center, religious, Jewish holidays through Support Self-Care for the Caregiver,” left-wing and moderate often eye one another fear“Positive of terrorism, and while I don’t want torequi be Congregation Ahavath Achim,Israelis 327 stories, etc.;them nearly all workshopsin for caregivers of Alzheimwith York, the goal in frightened New York, I wantparticipation them to know that E. Fifthsuspicion.

St. at ChurchAnd, Avenue,unlike (718) New BAY RIDGE by a parent or c er’sand patients frail elderly 60, everywhere.

Jerusalem badorthings canover happen 871-5200. seems to be to get a leg up on the competi- good Joan and Alan Berkinow J reduce stress, learn coping skills, to see the Monets at tion, especially when it comesTuesdays to municipal budgets, But mostly I want them Manor Road, (718) 356-8113 KINGS HIGHWAY Spouses and partners M.S. Support refreshments served, free, advance rather than to walk a mile in another’s shoes.

MoMA, a Broadway show (well, if we win the Lot8-9:30 p.m., Bay Ridge Jewishtery), registration required, 1-3Circle p.m., JCC/ theBrooklyn Brooklyn/S I’ve been back to New York Group, City at least once a year take a trip on the Line,Items crossforthe Saturdays Center, 405 81st St., (718) 836-3103.

Avis South Shore facility, 1297 Arthur since I’ve moved here, to visit family, attend confer- Bridge and walk through the Village, I lived forb landwhere and Update must Shabbat services, Jewish Center of Kill Road, call toIregister (718) 356-8113, ences and speaking engagements.

But it’s been three several years. want them to see New York in all its Items also must be recei Kings Highway, 1202 Avenue P, (718) Wednesdays Ext. 131, orfrom (718) 981-1500, Ext. 236. years since my kids have been back to my “home.” diversity, Ft. Tryon to the Battery, and experiweeks prior to desired p 645-9000, Ext. 1.

Bereavement group, 2 p.m., 6323 Now that we’re planning a family visit to the U.S. for ence the Fourth of July fireworks tion. overSend theevent, East date, River. tim Seventh Ave., (718) 630-2649.

First and Third Thursdays MADISON the summer, I’m looking forward to sharing my birth I also want them to see the pluses and minuses of and cost to Brooklyn of the monthJews — the compromises city, again, with my Israeli-bornBROOKLYN 14-year-olds. being diaspora so many HEIGHTS Jewish Week, 1501 Bro Fridays andbeen Saturdays “Stress Reduction Yoga andso many They’ve to New York several times before, have to make, thethrough struggles face to retain Suite 505, New York, NY Shabbat services, Fridays at 8 p.m., Mondays Meditation," workshops for caregivbut spent most of their time visiting with family — their Jewish and pro-Israeli identities, the differences fax to (212) 921-8420, e Saturdays 9 a.m., followed by kidof Alzheimer’s or frail and support we have atalmost none in IsraelCaregivers — so they havegroup, somefacili-thaters separate thempatients from Israelis the common valadam@jewishweek.org dush luncheon, Madison Jewish over 60,them. reduce stress, licensed social my worker, 6ues elderly idea of what my New York lifetated wasbylike.

Because that unite I wantlearn them to understand that Week Center, 2989 chair-based yoga net-andinform p.m., Congregation B’nai Avraham,living parents haveNostrand lived inAve., the(718) same Bayside home for more in Israel is techniques, a privilege, that The it’s Jewish so easy tow ongoing for program ends.

Remsen St., callofforwhere information,takework develop better 339-7755. than 50 years, my kids already117 have a sense theirandJewishness andcoping “Israeliness” granted. and how I grew up.

Every time I go back to the New York, I wax a little They’ve also made the obligatory pilgrimages to nostalgic. I have no illusions that it’s perfect, but I still Toys R Us, Target, Costco, the Museum of Natural miss it tremendously. You can get good knishes in History and Six Flags Great Adventure. They’ve Jerusalem, the bagels aren’t half-bad, and enough New travelled by subway, played baseball in Central Park, Yorkers live in our neighborhood that this corner of attended a Mets game, and bought Slurpees at 7-11. Israel almost sounds like home. But it’s not New York, They know Spiderman is from Queens and Captain and it never will be.

America is from Brooklyn, but they’ve never really I want my kids to know the long path I took from experienced what it’s like to grow up in either place. New York to Jerusalem. Maybe to help them underIn addition to going to Ben’s Deli for a turkey stand my husband and me a little better, but maybe sandwich, watching TV and seeing relatives, I want also to help them understand themselves.