So, when you move to Israel...
Yeah. I'm like a native, buddy.
When you move, when someone moves to Israel, they actually reverse their generation and they become a first generation in Israel. So, you actually have this ability, this window in time now where people can actually choose to reverse their generations and become, as my parents are, first generation or second generation, depends who, again, they came, you can argue who came first, them or their parents.
Um, don't cause your parents to argue. I saw them sitting in the audience.
Um, and then, sort of the ability to create that agency. I think that's what drives the agency, the fact that you can actually have the responsibility to reverse your generation and that you know that that's in the DNA. I think that goes to your growing agency idea.
I think it's a little different. You're probably right, but we're in the middle of a project. I said this in another place. This is like 1866 in America, okay? And you're like 80 years into America. Look what happened there after 1866. A massive growth. And so, we're right now building a project and you're pointing about you can reverse what generation you are. My wife is like a, I guess, a first generation American on some level. Her grandparents are from Poland. Her mother was born in Israel and they moved to America when she was old. So, my wife is a first generation American. So, I guess she comes here, she's now, does that make her also a first generation Israeli on some level? But I think the point is unlike immigrating to another country where you're kind of fighting as the minority and how do I find my place on an individual level, you've come to build a country. And you're welcome then expected to bring your talents to build a country, not just a life for yourself and your family. It's a project that's bigger than all of us. And so, the amazing thing about Israel because of the, you know, it respects agency is you can turn up here as a newbie and say, 'Hey, come build a country.'
So, it's that point that I actually want to touch on because you are a point of contact for many people who make that move. You founded the Nefesh B'Nefesh network for mainly Olim in tech, but it's much broader than that, the number of people who reach out to you saying I'm making Aliyah. And actually, when the best and brightest, the people with the agency leave, it creates a void in the communities that they left. And my question is, what is the responsibility these people have now that they are here to the communities that they came from?
You know what? I've spent, I think I read the Megillat Ha'Atzma'ut once before 5 years ago when the Justice Report issue happened and everyone started touting it. And you discover when you read it, definitely not a constitution. But, you know, the most interesting thing about the Megillat Ha'Atzma'ut for me, as someone who came from chutz aretz, is this call by the signers and Ben-Gurion to the Jews of the diaspora to support the state. It's interesting. And you know, everyone grew up and at least in my grandparents' house there was a blue box for Keren Kayemeth and the JNF and planting trees and there was an expectation, but I'd say more so based on the Megillat Ha'Atzma'ut, there was a need. There was a need for the Jews of chutz aretz to support the fledgling state of Israel. 78 years later, the roles are reversed. Completely. It's very obvious, as Rav Stav was mentioning, the future of relevant Torah is here. It's clear. All of the interesting, innovative Torah that meets where Jewish society and the Jewish people is at is coming from here. All of it. Since the motion of diggers, motion of salvation of Israel and the diaspora and issue of money and people, all of the relevant Torah is coming from here at this point. That's I think one point.
We're now the largest population of Jews by my estimation. You can't say that publicly because there's all sorts of logical implications that nobody's ready to deal with yet. But it's true. Right? We are the largest population of Jews in the world right now. We are at the forefront of what Israel does impacts world Jewry for good or for bad or for whatever it is in a way I think it didn't in the past. And we are now responsible. By the way, I was very pleased to see Amichai Chikli help pass this funding 200 million shekels for Jewish education in the diaspora. That is a good thing, not a bad thing. And we are certainly compared to 30-40 years ago a wealthy country at this point. We have issues, there's problems, we've got to spend too much on defense. All that is true. But that confers responsibility and I think I'll say this, this will surprise some people and if it's being recorded, oops. But I think we're not far from a day where Israel is going to need to rescue a Jewish community. It's not far away. It's scary to think about, but it's not far away. Where is it we're going to need to? No, we are responsible to do that. That is our response in Ethiopia. We are responsible for that. That is our responsibility to them. The diaspora Jewry was here for Israel in its early days and now the roles are reversed. And it is absolutely incumbent on anybody who moves here, incumbent. It's not only a mitzvah, it's a responsibility and then if you don't fulfill it, in my humble opinion, you have rejected your responsibility as a Jew and as an Israeli to reach back out to those communities, provide them what they need, and help them move here.
There's an incredible, you mentioned the vote before. There are these two French and two Italian Olim who are working in tech. They launched a project called Accelerazione. It targets PhDs, Jewish PhDs in France and Italy. Doesn't say come to Israel. They actually do the whole process of getting them identified, aliyah papers, and jobs. They come and they land with a job at Google, at Dassault Systèmes, at all these places. They've already brought six. All right? These young two people, by the way, have done this on 25 grand. The economic impact of this of six PhDs coming to these companies is staggering. By the way, the taxes pay for themselves in less than a month. They pay for the whole organization in less than a month. Just the income taxes. It's stunning, but they view this as their responsibility, and they're correct. It is their responsibility. When they came to me with the idea, I said to them, 'Should we do it?' I said, 'Why should you do it? You have to do it. This is your responsibility.'
So, is there, and this just before we finish, I want to ask maybe one from your experience and then just the experience you just said, is there a glass ceiling for these people coming?
The Olim specifically, Anglos that are coming now to Israel because we see if you look today at Israelis in the industry leaders, you can count on I'd say two hands the single number of people who made aliyah from Anglo countries in the past decade.
I'll point out that our new head of the Mossad was born in Belarus and grew up there. Moshe Arens was the Minister of Defense. He came from America. But I think something's happened. And I think with apologies to the Kiddush Times for a second, as the Anglo Olim population in Israel has grown, I see a growing tendency to make Aliyah and settle into more Anglo communities. And I think that creates the glass ceiling. And when I get questions from Olim coming to Israel, the most important thing I say is go to work in an Israeli environment. That is critical. You have to integrate. And the reason you have to integrate is to quote LeBron James, is we need to bring those talents to Israel. And the way to bring those talents to Israel generally cannot escape an Anglicized community. By the way, your father was the ambassador to the UK. There's no glass ceiling. And so, but earlier Olim were forced to more integration than I think current Olim. And so therefore they need to force themselves out of English, out of the Kiddush Times, sorry.
And I think you've just now closed a deal with Al Arab Star of translating Kiddush Times into Hebrew. I think that's the outcome here.
Michael's going to sponsor.
And so, that's the key point. You have to integrate in order to kind of... But there's no glass ceiling.
If we had to, and this is the last question before a very quick lightning round. We spoke about the past 78 years and now we're thinking about the next 78 years. If we had to give a narrative or a headline, a direction, a vector for what the next 78 years looks like, maybe 78 years is a lot, let's look at the next generation, and how that looks like as a joint venture between Israel and world Jewry, what does that look like?
I think part of your asking the question says we're missing a mission. The mission was 78 years ago we got to build the country, sell land, create a defense force that can defend us, and then we had another mission. We had to kind of build an economy that can support our defense needs, which we still need to do. And I wrote a piece in the paper about building the trillion-dollar Israeli economy, and I think that's important. But I think the key thing right now we have to define is what is our national ethos. And I think that national ethos is actually a project that is combined between Israel in the lead and the Jewish people globally. And I would summarize it in one word, which is bracha. But the word bracha has unfortunately been trimmed or slimmed down by 2,000 years of galus or galut. And the word bracha when Hashem says to Avraham, 'Heyeh bracha.' V'avarechah m'varchecha um'kalelcha or v'nivarechu v'cha kol mishp'chot ha'adamah. And Bilam in last week's parsha tries to undo this. There's a lot of parallels between Avraham and Bilam. What does bracha mean? Bracha means expanding physical and material bounty to other peoples of the world. V'avarechah m'varchecha v'nivarechu v'cha kol mishp'chot ha'adamah. We have a responsibility to expand physical prosperity to all of the nations around us and to the nations of the world through innovation, through economic success, through partnership. But we need to do that by calling out in the name of Hashem, of God. We are a people under God. That's where we started that. From Avraham Avinu, so people understand that there is a set of truths that come along with this and a massive amount of responsibility that comes along with this notion. Bracha is the tzivui to Avraham. That is the tzivui to Am Yisrael. That is when Yaakov tells his children at the end of his days, you can look at it. If you read it carefully, it's economic bracha. What is v'yirbu b'chol ha'aretz u'mishkon? He's going to trade. What is the logistics, right? These are all economic blessings that we're supposed to develop here and spread to people because through economic blessings you actually spread the word of God. And that is, that's a demand. We are responsible for that. And I think if we infuse kids in this generation with responsibility spread out, they have a mission to go out with to the world. We don't need to convert people. It's not our job. Our job is to make sure they live significantly better, more successful lives and that is attributable to the, that's the notion.
