Good Shabbos. We're going to start. We had this idea as part of the global distribution to start speaking to Anglos who are building Israel. People who are now in action or have been doing it for decades and will be doing it for decades. We're working to build Israel and there's nobody I could have thought who'd be better to kick this off with than Michael. Michael Eisenberg, for those who don't know, is a leading investor in Israel. He's an author of many books both in Hebrew and in English, involved in civic society, the chairman of Hashomer Hachadash. In the past few years, very actively involved in the highest and most closed-door rooms within the Israeli establishment and decision-making system. And also personally a mentor of mine for many years. So, Michael, thank you for being here.
So, Michael, you're someone who very uniquely is at the highest levels both of Israeli industry and decision-making positions, as well as in American society. You were just speaking last week in Washington, both in the Jewish world and the general leadership. If you had to say, what's the one thing American Jews don't understand about Israel, and what's the one thing that Israelis don't understand about American Jews?
Okay. Rostow kind of half mentioned this before. I think when you grow up in the United States, but I think it's true in general, your notion of Judaism is of a community and even more so for some of us a personal religion. And your scope of view of not just what's possible but what's necessary is limited by my community. And again, most people I think experience it also personally, the community is a way to express that personal religious outpouring. There is a giant difference between having a nation, having a people in a land and having a country, rather than having a community. Community's kind of the largest level of trade-off you can imagine is who's going to be the president of the shul, how high is the going to be, and whether we trust this guy or that guy. Sure, the trade-offs are not that meaningful. At a national level, the trade-offs are massive and the pain and upside are equally larger in that regard.
And so I think this also expresses itself in a language nuance that I think is critical. If I told you how many times in the last five years I've heard the scream of 'after this, after this, after this' from my friends in America. 'What about achtus?' It's enormous. I candidly don't think it matters in Israel. Achtus is less than important by a hundred miles than arvut. Than arvut. Which is really what matters in Israel. And arvut has trade-offs. You have to do something on behalf of somebody else and be willing to sacrifice in order to create arvut. There are costs, pain, and real sacrifice in arvut that there aren't in, let's call it, superficial achtus. 'Why don't we just get along? Come on, we can all get along here today.' And we spent 2,000 years in the diaspora practicing as much achtus as we can on a very, very small scale. I mean, the average community in chutz aretz is hundreds of people. It's just not that large. Practicing arvut on a scale of 10 million people is actually really, really complicated and we have no experience doing that. And so your average chutz aretz Jew goes to shul, asks for achtus, he goes to a kiddush, and he gives tzedakah, which is charity in a charitable way, but it ain't taxes. You know, that you have to split with other people who you're asking for trade-offs from. And it's fully voluntary. And arvut demands commitment that's not voluntary. And that's a big, big, big delta in understanding, I think, between the two communities.
At the same time, though, I think it's important to point out, and I've said this publicly in a number of places, Israel is entering a new phase right now. 78 years into its existence, we are, whether we like it or not, a regional superpower at this point, with all its risks and upsides. Israelis, I find this over and over and over again, don't take this personally, are far more provincial than those who grow up in superpowers, whether they grew up in Russia or the United States. No one get insulted. On some level still in England, but... yeah, but less. But less. And I think the value of growing up in a superpower is having a view of scale and of a global world that many Israelis don't have. And that's everything from do they speak and write in English, which is the global language, which is a big issue here, by the way, and a growing issue in many parts of the government too. And an issue of how you solve problems at scale on the global stage. And that's still something Israel as a country needs to go into. I think it's something that is more and more, what they call Anglos for some reason, come here. That's a big contribution that Anglos or Americans will make.
