When he moved to Palo Alto, Offir Gutelzon did not imagine himself with a bullhorn, wearing a T-shirt that reads “Saving Israeli Democracy.” Nor did he imagine that he would be part of the founding group of UnXeptable, a grassroots movement launched by Israeli expats to support a democratic Israel.
He and his wife also didn’t imagine that it would be a crisis in Israel, halfway across the world, the would get their teenage sons invested not only in Israel, but in Jewish life writ large.
The earthquake in Israel is being felt in numerous ways far from the epicenter.
Offir Gutelzon served in a technology unit of the IDF and graduated from the Zell Entrepreneurship school at Reichman University (formerly IDC Herzliya). Offir is now a serial entrepreneur, and works as the CEO and Founder of Keepy, a multi-generational mobile platform that helps organize and save children’s artwork, schoolwork and other mementos.
He spoke with us about how the political crisis in Israel had affected Israelis living in the United States, in ways that might have been expected, and in others that were not. Once on the margins of American Jewish life, Israeli Americans are now moving towards the center, encourage fellow American Jews to join them in their work.
We’re making this conversation, as well as the machine-generated transcript, available to all readers of Israel from the Inside. The link above will take you to the recording.
UnXeptable has recently prepared a video explaining why they believe Israel is in great danger:
If you would like to support the work of UnXeptable, you can do so here: https://www.unxeptable.org/donate501c3.
If you’re interested in following UnExeptable, they are
here on Twitter: https://twitter.com/UnxeptableD/status/1698172724328472739
and here on Facebook: https://fb.watch/mPIF5RvEZy/
To purchase the t-shirt below (after all, what’s the point of a mass movement if it doesn’t have swag?), you can do so here: https://www.teepublic.com/user/unxeptable.
Later this week we will be sharing a conversation with Gidi Grinstein, who was the youngest delegate at the Camp David summit in July 2000. We discuss his new book, (In)Sights: Thirty Years of Peacemaking in the Olso Process, in which he shares his experience at Camp David, and hear why be believes that Oslo is not nearly as dead as many people say. Oslo, Gidi believes, may still lead to peace. We’ll hear why.
With the High Holidays just weeks away, we wanted to share the schedule for Israel from the Inside during that period.
During the week of Rosh Hashanah and the Fast of Gedaliah (on Monday, there will be no written column on Monday, September 18th, but we will post our regular Wednesday podcast on September 20.
During the week of Yom Kippur, there will be no written column on Monday, September 25th (which is the day of Yom Kippur), but we will post our regular Wednesday podcast on September 27.
During the week of the holiday of Sukkot (Monday, October 2 and Wednesday, October 4), we are planning not to post.
The regular schedule of written columns on Mondays and podcasts on Wednesdays will resume the following week.
To all who are observing and celebrating, our wishes for a meaningful and joyous High Holiday season.
Some of you may have heard not long ago that a very, very significant American philanthropist suddenly pulled his support out of the Kohelet Forum, which was the intellectual think tank that has kind of spurred what some people call the judicial reform, other people call the rudicial revolution or whatever, overturning, whatever you want to call it. And a group that was commonly spoken about in the press, which I had actually never heard about, is called UnXeptable. Very cleverly spelled, “un”, then with a big “X”, UnXeptable. And I looked into it, asked some friends about it, and it turns out it's a group of Israelis in the United States who are living there, working there, raising their children there, many of them, who have gotten very involved politically all of a sudden in trying to prevent what they see as potentially permanent damage to the Jewish state. And one of the people leading this really exceptional enterprise and fascinating enterprise is Offir Gutelzon. He is a member of the Israeli American community in the San Francisco Bay Area and a serial entrepreneur. In 2020, he helped launch UnXeptable in support of a democratic Israel, which means that it was long before this, so we'll find out about that. He holds a BA in Business and Entrepreneurship from Reichman University in Herzlia. He was born and raised in Israel in Kiryat Motzkin, and he has resided with his wife and two children, two sons in Palo Alto since 2014. So, first of all, Offir, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us today and tell us a little bit about UnXeptable so we can understand its work and then understand really the impact of this whole revolution in Israeli life on Israelis who happen to be living across the ocean. It's complicated, but it's also very powerful. So, tell us a little bit about yourself to get started.
Thank you, Daniel, for having me. It's really exciting to be here. So, as you said, I'm Israeli American. I was raised and born in Israel. I was heading a startup in Israel called PicScout, and when we sold it in 2011, we moved to Manhattan with my wife and my two young kids. And over times we started a new one called Keepy. And with that startup, we moved to Palo Alto in 2014. I was most of the time and still entrepreneur, high tech in the high-tech business. And in general, I was very uninvolved in political action or even activism until recently. And this is a change. I was also not involved much with the Jewish community, so that's a change too. And overall, we have been active very much in the Jewish community, Israeli community in Palo Alto, what we call the Oshman Family JCC and the IAC here. And through that activity, I got to learn more about the Jewish community here and learned about how you actually actively need to create your community. It's not coming by definition like when you live in Israel. So that's what brought me here and we can talk more about that.
Yeah, well, you're obviously very fortunate to be in a community that has such an amazing JCC. Zack Bodner, who runs that JCC, is a long, longtime friend of mine and he's really an extraordinary talented guy and he has been very committed to projects like Zionism 3.0 and others to really make Zionism a very live issue in the community and he's done, I think, a great job. You founded UnXeptable, though, in 2020, which was long before any of our listeners had ever heard of Levin or Rothman, probably even Ben-Gvir or Smotrich, although they were already around. What got you to start this in 2020? What was the impetus then?
So back in 2020, maybe some of us remember this was during the time, I mean, it actually started during COVID and if you all remember, during COVID we basically got to the point where Netanyahu and Gantz was actually forming a coalition and we were basically having an indicted Prime Minister for the first time. For some of you might sound familiar from the situation now in the USA. And at this point of time, there were big protests that we call the Balfour protest in Israel. Balfour standing for the name of the street where the White House or the Prime Minister house is in Jerusalem. And at some point, those protests were tried to be blocked because of social distancing and others, and they were asked to go and protest near like only a hundred meter from the house or 1 kilometer from the house. And people started to protest around the bridges in Israel. And together with a couple of friends, we kind of looked into what's happening in Israel. We basically said we need to stand in solidarity with what's happening in Israel. And the risk, I mean, even back then, the risk was that an indicted Prime Minister could influence the court system and risk the democracy, right? So, that's why from that time we called it UnXeptable: Saving Israeli Democracy. So, we went a couple of us to the Golden Gate Bridge because we figured out there is another bridge that is nearby and it kind of like created a movement because others saw us giving stand with solidarity and asked and reached out after we were interviewed in Ynet or something like that, asked us how can we do it too? And that's basically how it all started, really, about standing in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel. We never thought it will get to this point of time, four years, almost four years later, and with a big break in between because we were not really active after the Bennett- Lapid government was formed. And we reinitiated this process with some understanding of how to reach out to the Jewish community that was not involved back then.
Yeah, just to give our listeners some background. Those protests in 2023 were obviously much smaller, much smaller than we're seeing now….
2020.
Yeah, 2020. Thank you. They were a few hundred people, maybe a few thousand people at some of the big ones. And there was a big debate here as to whether or not the restrictions that were put on the protests because of COVID supposedly were genuinely COVID motivated or whether COVID was kind of a cover for the government then trying to subdue the protests. And that became a whole issue. It seems quaint now, back to look at what we were talking about back then. Even back then, people were very warped up about it. Relative to what we're experiencing now it seems quaint. So, you guys have re-energized UnXeptable since the November election, the formation of the government and what I'm sure you would call the judicial overthrow or whatever you're calling it in English.
Judicial overhaul is the term that people are using, again if we want to really go far judicial coup.
Yeah, that's far. Okay. But it may or may not be wrong. We'll see with time. So, tell us a little bit about how the group is organized. Is it all Palo Alto based? It's obviously had some impact in Philadelphia because that's where this philanthropist lives. So, you have chapters all over the country. Is it run out of Palo Alto? How does it work?
So UnXeptable is a grassroots movement that basically, again, started here in Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay area, but very quickly spread out into North America, Australia, Japan. And there are also protests in Europe that is actually run by another organization called Defending Israeli Democracy. But it's a grassroots movement because the organizers are locally, they're starting their own chapters, and then they reach out to kind of like be part of a network. UnXeptable is not a registered organization even yet. And we are really run by volunteers and without any financial support other than our GoFundMe. And the way we are working is we have our own website called UnXeptable.org that people can join. You can find the chapters, you can join on WhatsApp groups, which is kind of like we started to see more and more even local people joining the WhatsApp group, which is not that popular for Jewish Americans. And we also have our mailing list. But the most important thing is that we are really energized by the network because when one chapter is initiating an activity, we kind of like see this activity spread out to other cities. And if in one city a conservative rabbi is speaking now you can actually take it to other communities. And so, in reality, what we have done is we have built a very strong Jewish, Israeli American liberal communities that were not connected to each other in the past. And they are both now fighting for the identity of the state of Israel.
So ironically, what this crisis in Israel has done is it has actually created a network of Israeli Americans, American Israelis, call them what you will, who were previously living their lives and maybe spoke similar languages and had similar backgrounds, but were not terribly linked together. And this has actually created a kind of a network, a spider web, so to speak, of networks across the country.
It did. And by the way, they were connected, they were connected around, again, moving furniture when you move out or speaking about things that are not driven by politics. I mean a lot of Facebook groups for each community, but again, similar to I would say to Jewish Americans, I mean, like speaking against the policies of Israel or speaking about something that doesn't feel in Israel good. It always felt like it's not our place. So, what this network created is a group of people who felt that way but never had a place to interact around that.
So, this is actually obviously one of those moments where Israel is being talked about among American Jews much, much more than it has been in a very long time. And in this particular space, Israeli Americans are actually the leaders of this newfound community. So, in a way there's been a switch here, right? In other words, if you came to Palo Alto in 2014 or whenever, it was an American Jewish community and it was very welcoming to Israelis who either chose to join or not to join, to join intensively or to join a little bit less intensively. But it was a community of run mostly by young, middle aged and older American Jews and Israelis were invited in. Now, there's been a kind of a reversal, right? In other words, in this particular moment, the action and the direction and the energy are coming from Israeli Americans, and they are the ones who are inviting native Americans, the ones who have been living in America their whole lives, to join them. There's sort of been a switch in the direction of leadership here. Is that a fair assessment?
It's a fair assessment that is actually what's happening. We built a platform that give legitimacy in a way to Jewish Americans and other lovers of Israel that were kind of like always in a situation where you always have to stand by Israel. No matter. I mean when they see Israeli Americans who served in the army, who has family there, who has a business relationship there and they actually standing up with Israeli flags and with Israeli signs that would in any other time look like a pro-Israel rally. Right? But they are now seeing that those symbols similar to Israel are being reengaged under a different message. A message of democracy, a message of equality, a message of freedom, a message of being free people in your own country. Those are messages that you cannot avoid. And if you love Israel, you join. So, the leadership here is something that, again, we never really meant to become an organization that is leading the Jewish community. But I think that we are finally found our place in the community and either asked to join us or happy to join the Jewish community. And we do see different communities already started, especially after the reasonableness doctrine has passed in the 64-0. And kind of like the disappointment from the discussion at the president's house, like Herzog’s house table, people are saying like, okay, something is happening, we have to join, and we cannot sit on the fence anymore. And they are reaching out to us, and we are coming to synagogues, we are coming to other places to speak and to get on all the rallies that we have. Again, most of the speakers will be rabbis or Jewish community leaders. I mean other than just Israelis who are coming either from Israel or us locally.
Yeah, I think it's going to be fascinating to see who writes the next history of American Judaism. The main book now, it's phenomenal, is Jonathan Sarna's called “American Judaism”. But ten years from now, 20 years from now or something, somebody is going to write another history of American Judaism and I think it'll be fascinating to see whether 2023, 2024 gets pointed to as a transition point in which… how many Israeli Americans are there these days?
The numbers are saying, I don't know, 800,000. Whatever you define, it's definitely an untapped resource in the Jewish community…
Right, it’s been a long untapped resource. And there's been organizations like the IAC, the Israeli American Council, which in recent years have gotten much more engaged in trying to bring Israeli Americans and American Jews together. But we may look back 20 years from now and say that 2023- 2024 was the moment when some significant portion of these 800,000 Israelis who are living in America and as many more, of course, living around the world, chose to get deeply involved in the nature of American Jewish discourse and the nature of American Jewish leadership and the nature of American Jewish education perhaps, even all began to change. Now, let's go back to this incident of the particular philanthropist, who, according to the press, and you can correct me if the press accounts were wrong, but Israelis here in Israel, I get these, WhatsApps literally probably 50 times a day…. Minister so and so is leaving their house and they're going to place X and they're going to be there at 10:30 in the morning. And we need 30 people to show up wherever and hold signs or whatever. So, if you followed all these WhatsApps, you would actually not be able to do your job, you'd just be running around all day long chasing ministers, which I don't do. But it's fascinating that they have actually gone like it's a full court press. No minister walks around this country now without being followed by these people or met by these people. What happened with this particular philanthropist which I understand involved people protesting outside his house and so on and so forth was a kind of a similar tactic.
My two questions are number one, was it the local group that chose to do it or was it a kind of a more national decision to try to take that tactic on? Secondly, are there other people in the scopes in the sites that the group plans to try to pressure in similar ways because it seems to have worked in that particular instance, and well let's start with those two and then we'll come back to some other stuff.
First of all, I cannot take any credit on this success. I mean again there is a long line the people press and other people that actually researched Kohelet and the relationship again to the people who funded them. And locally, there were two kind of like main groups and as I said it's a grassroots movement so there is nothing that is happening top down. So, the local team both in New York and in Philadelphia started to kind of follow and work similar to “Achim L’neshek”, the brothers and sisters in arms and others in Israel and say like hey, we need to stop this funding, funding that is destroying the country. And the assumption, we kind of gave the credit, the benefit of the doubt, that Mr. Dantchik and other supporters of Kohelet are not really aware of what their money is doing. And so that's how the group of again non activist Israelis in Philadelphia, professors, academics, high tech people found themselves basically rallying in front of Dantchik’s house and office, the Susquehanna office, and because the assumption was that they are not aware, their community is not aware that that's what they are part of. And so that was definitely effective and we were very happy to see that happening. And again, all the credit is going to the people on the ground there that is doing that. Regarding the effectiveness for future people, we don't have a list of people that we are looking to protest in front of them. We are definitely actually just this morning whenever ministers from Israel are coming or anyone from this government or coalition is coming, we are definitely there. Just this morning there was a protest in New York City in front of Gallant’s visit to the UN and the ask was remember who kind of like kept your job back at the time where Bibi fired you and you are the one who can save Israel. So that is the type of the protest that we are doing. So no, there is no Dantchik type of protest planned and if there will be, it will be done grassroots by decision of people on the ground.
Now you have two kids, you have two sons, they're 14 and 17, right? So, they're definitely old enough to understand what's happening. And I assume there's a lot of talk about what's happening in the house, over the dinner table, in the backyard, wherever one has these conversations. How, in your estimation, has what's happened in Israel and their parents I don't mean just your kids, obviously, but in general, their parents' sudden political activism and involvement. How is it beginning to affect the identities of these teenagers who are growing up knowing that they had Israeli roots and Israeli parents and probably Israeli grandparents and aunts and uncles and all of that, but with parents who are very comfortable in America and now all of a sudden have taken on this challenge, this energy. How do you see it affecting that younger generation?
So, I can tell you that one of the reasons for me to go and do something is actually when I was exposed to how young Jewish Americans are being related to Israel, I was kind of like say like, well, I can see why they are disconnected more and more from Israel. Maybe because of values, because of other things that happening in Israel, maybe because they never saw an existential crisis in their own lifetime and there was never a reason for them to interact with Israel. And when… this January started and I was looking into the crisis of identity that my kids might be exposed to and they said like, well, I'm raising them as one type of Israeli. Maybe Israel is going to be different, what type of Israelis are going to be and by the expecting I'm not doing it because I'm expecting them to go back to Israel or because I expected them to go back to the army. They will do whatever they choose to. But I mean, the definition of being an Israeli American and values and around again the basic values we have been raised for under a Jewish democratic states with equality for all, this is not something that I want to be changed for them and that's why we're doing it now. Regarding yes, personally, my kids are taking a big toll. I mean, like seeing their dad doing 24/7 things around that and they're definitely coming and helping with drone photography and with creating signs. By the way, sometimes they let me go to the protest and not joining because suddenly there is a quiet at home and no one is dealing with protest. But the reality is that even though they are young, you can see that even my older son again, never been involved in Jewish life. We're not going to synagogue, we're not going to others… but now he's part of a Jewish club in his high school and now he's starting it with another friend, an organization called Youth Americans for Israeli Democracy. So, they are getting more involved. If in the past I thought that their involvement will come from going to a Jewish summer camp now I can actually see how their involvement is being done around democracy and Jewish values but from the other way around.
So, you should actually write a thank you note to the government for helping them get your kids inspired and involved. Right?
We can thank to the government for many things that out of this crisis will be born.
Yes, by the way, I think that's actually true because where everyone is on this and some of our listeners are left and some of them are middle and some of them are right and it's all good. And we actually, of course, interview people from left, middle, and right. Whatever comes out of this, I think that there has been born a new kind of civil discourse in Israel where people are taking issues of democracy much more seriously. They're thinking much more about what their own voting patterns mean. Speaking of voting, by the way, Israel does not allow absentee balloting. In other words, if you're not in Israel, unless you're working for the embassies, but unless you're working for the embassies and I think if you're a military assignment or something like that, but basically unless you're working for the government, if you're outside of Israel in the day of an election, you can't vote. There's been some discussion of that over the years, perhaps changing. Some people objected to changing it because they felt a lot of Americans of one type or another might declare citizenship and then without living in Israel, start voting, which could change the voting patterns. Is there a sense among American Israelis or Israeli Americans that they hope this rule might change because the polling is now going to, going to the polls is going to become almost sacred? I mean, if you look at the diaries of people who went to vote in 1949, they really wrote about it in almost religious terms. They got dressed up, they felt that they were doing something that was unbelievably powerful voting in a Jewish state for the first time. And I think people took it for granted. I would imagine that in the next elections the percentage of voters is going to be very high from all different sides. Is there interest among Israeli Americans to have the government rethink the policy? Or is the expectation that if they want to vote, they should get on a plane, come back for a few days, visit family, and then go home?
Again, I cannot speak on behalf of Israeli Americans, but I mean, what I can tell you is that there is definitely activities, I was personally activated in back in 2019 to try and get people on the plane. We thought that back in 2019 this will be like the most existential election we ever had and who thought that we will be here these days? But again, I think there is a discussion around that and it's not clear if you need to give everyone who has… because again, potentially by the way, one of the reason why Jewish Americans are joining those rallies is because of the risk to the Law of Return. Right? And the definition of who is Jewish and who is getting even ability to get citizenship. So, we are even at that stage. Regarding who can vote, there is another question. But I mean, the reality is that many of us Israelis that are coming here are not coming for the long term. They're coming for the short term. They're coming to do postdocs. They're coming to do a relocation. This was at least what happened recently until the current status of the government.
But the reality is that there could be a differentiation between those who are coming for the short term, the long term, those who were born here. There is a lot of abilities. But I mean, obviously, again, when you think about the amount of Jewish people here and the amount of Jewish people in Israel and Israelis and who can vote and who cannot vote, it's not a simple solution. So, again, personally, I think that those who, I mean, every one of us should have the ability to and I think that Rabbi Hartman said it, Israel should not be only left for Israelis. I mean, it's important that we can influence, but we can influence in many ways like we are doing today. Voting is just one way, and I don't know what the right solution for that.
Okay, I want to ask you one last question. I am getting some very interesting comments from people who live in America. Friends of mine. Obviously, I'm American. I lived America for 40 years. Tons of American friends who write me and say our experience here should be of comfort to you because in the last eight years, we've been through periods when we were certain the United States was coming apart at the seams. We watched television on January 6, and it really looked like a European capital being attacked by a mob and the government overturned. There was a point at which it wasn't 100% clear that what we thought was the right, the correct, fair outcome of the election would actually be certified as the ultimate result of the election. And then they say it actually worked out. America is obviously still in a very complicated situation. When you have articles in the newspaper talking about whether a candidate could be president from a jail cell, you know that you're in a new world, they say. But fundamentally, the judicial system in America held tight. Prosecutions were made, indictments were made, the country has held together. And you Israelis ought to take some comfort from what we've been through in America.
It can look bad; it can be very upsetting. You can feel distraught. But there's a long game here. And in the long game, you should have confidence in the systems of government. You've lived in America during that period, but you've also lived in Israel for decades, obviously. Does your experience of how things have played out in America give you confidence that Israel is going to emerge from this the way that you want it to emerge?
It's a great question. I saw what happened in 2016 after the election of Trump and how people woke up to the point where they had to take action, they need to be active. They didn't think it would solve itself by itself. So, they were organized here as a group of tech for campaigns. They were organized as technology people and created “Swing left”. It wasn't just solved by itself that's one. People were mobilized, activated and the blue wave happened in 2018. So that's one so I think that what we are seeing now in Israel is again the same effect, however differently from the US, where you have federal, state, two houses, constitution, there is so many checks and balances that actually have stopped January 6 from happened. And we see now the indictments that Trump is facing now. These are the things that in Israel the constitutional crisis is coming in a second. Because again, the reality is that we don't have two houses, we only have the Knesset and the government, which are basically one branch, almost one branch. The only checks and balances you have is the independent judiciary. And therefore, we have to make sure that we are coming out of this crisis, not just returning to the point where we were. We need to come to the point where we are strengthening our democratic institution and not anyone can create a basic law. And the basic law is not just a vote of like one week and we are done. And we see that the changes that the government is making, they are following a mechanism that is called autocratic legalism. So, it was not invented in Israel, it was invented in Venezuela, Russia, Hungary, Poland, et cetera, Turkey. It's a very fragile democracy. It's not as strong as America. It will not be solved by itself. I think we even heard Moshe Koppel saying like we should give up on this anyway, the demography, the demographic will happen, and we will actually be able to do it again a couple of years. So, we should not assume that even if we succeed to stop and we succeed so far to stop the blitz of laws, but we have seen one law and there are another 225 laws that are on the table. It's not going to solve itself by itself like it did in America. And even America is fighting for its institutions now as we speak.
Okay, so the countries certain similarities, but some basic fundamental differences and therefore we should not take too much comfort from the fact that America got through this and assume that Israel will because there are so many differences. I think this to me is just a fascinating conversation because all eyes are on Israel, all eyes are on the Knesset, all eyes are on President Herzog's house, all eyes are pointed towards Jerusalem and far away, whether it's Palo Alto or Manhattan or perhaps other parts of the world in Europe and Japan and Australia and so forth. Also, something very dramatic has happened that Israelis around the world are becoming activated as Israelis. But in your particular case, in the face of your community, Israelis and Israeli Americans that there's a new role for Israelis in their communities. There is a new identity for Israeli teenage kids who may have been brought up with Hebrew and have Israeli grandparents, but they're now involved in a way that they weren't. There's been a kind of an awakening, which is one of the silver linings that may come out of this dark period that there's a kind of a resurgence of identity and a resurgence of thinking and a resurgence of belonging. And we may come through this at the other side of the tunnel, however long the tunnel is seeing American born American Jews and Israeli born American Jews feeling a sense of partnership and cooperation and collegiality that has been elusive really for a very, very long time. So, it's possible that something very powerful is developing on the other side of the ocean too. And you're the first person that we've been able to talk to, really, who's actually living through that and helping to shape that. So, grateful to you for what you're doing on the ground and grateful to you for taking the time to talk to us and wish you and your family all the very best.
And if I could add one more thing, we are seeing not just Israeli born Jews and Jewish Americans coming together, but I think that we are finally seeing a whole new camp in Israel of Israeli liberals that can be connected to a much bigger group of Jewish in the Diaspora, there was a big disconnect until now. So, this new watershed that is being built right now between again and you mentioned that you were interviewing people from left, right, center. And we kind of like saying it's not about right or left, it's about right or wrong. What we are seeing is that this liberal camp that is being built in Israel, a democratic camp that is not connected to if you are secular or religious or right or left is now having the potential to build a bigger coalition also with the world Jewry coming up together. So that's even a bigger picture of potential from this crisis.
So, we have a potential bridge between Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews. We have a potential bridge inside America between Israeli born American Jews and American born American Jews. All kinds of alliances and bridges coming out here that might not have happened before, and we certainly wouldn't have had our eye on them. It's a fascinating and really important side dimension to the judicial part, but it's a very important part of the history of the Jewish people. And so, for helping us understand it better and shining a light on it. My thanks and wishes to you and your family for a Shana Tovah.
Shana Tovah. Thank you so much for having me.
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Not long ago, American Jewish communities were inviting Israelis in the US to join them. Now it's the Israeli Americans who are doing the inviting.