Hosted by IZZY co-founder Josh Hoffman, This Week From Israel is a podcast that publishes new episodes every Tuesday!

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Episode Rundown

Topic of the Week: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

While many people today are over-volunteering their opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian turmoil taking place before the world’s eyes, I instead want to offer an excerpt from my book Reimagining Israel — which talks about the first time I encountered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict face-to-face, back in 2014, during what became known as “Operation Protective Edge.”

While the circumstances and implications of this most recent turmoil are somewhat different than those of Operation Protective Edge, I believe much of what I wrote in this chapter still looms true to this day. Here it goes…

Chapter 4: Operation Protective Edge

“The State of Israel will prove itself not by material wealth, not by military might or technical achievement, but by its moral character and human values.” — David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister

On June 12, 2014, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped at a bus stop in the West Bank after they were trying to hitchhike, which is still socially acceptable in Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated a search for the three teenagers, only to eventually find them dead. Then, after Israel arrested hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank in search of the perpetrators, Gaza Strip-based Hamas militants fired dozens of rockets into Israel, which started a seven-week conflict between Israel and Hamas, a relatively common occurrence since Hamas took political control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2006.

Certainly, this was a surreal experience for a newcomer like me. Every day for more than a month, dozens of rockets were being fired at Israeli civilians, myself included, and a siren sounds throughout targeted areas, signaling the urgent need to find a bomb shelter. On the other hand, you can walk into anyone’s home or store at a moment’s notice, to share their bomb shelter with them — no questions asked — and Israel has a revolutionary missile defense system called Iron Dome, which detects incoming missiles and their intended target, and then fires its own missiles to blow up the incoming ones in midair.

It was a true tug-of-war between head and heart; I felt totally safe despite the ongoing rocket fire, and was amazed by Israeli society’s cool, calm, and collected spirit during such events, yet I was also terribly distraught by our Gazan neighbors, whose government’s charter called for the destruction of the State of Israel. What really struck me, though, was how the outside world perceived Israel during this conflict.

For weeks, I found myself defending Israel on social media and to my family and friends back in the United States, which was weird because I barely knew anything about Israel. I was just 18 months into discovering my newfound home and still in the early stages of learning about its history, about the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians — both present-day and past — and about the IDF’s approach to handling such an “escalation” (hahs-lah-mah) as they say in Hebrew.

That’s when I realized something: This isn’t a war between two opposing peoples. This isn’t about Hamas somehow trying to weaken Israel’s might and emerge victorious in battle. Even before Hamas fired those first rockets, their leaders never once thought that they could possibly outlast the IDF in a physical struggle.

This is about the delegitimization of Israel on the world stage, through the manipulation of what we now call “fake news.” This was an attempt to portray a big, bad Israel that must be tamed — and eventually abolished — not in the courts of the United Nations, but in a court with far worse ramifications, the court of public opinion.

Get the book, Reimagining Israel >

Updates From IZZY

As we lay the foundation for producing original programming for IZZY, we are looking at doing one of our first original docu-series with a gentleman named Avi Melamed.

I met Avi through his partner, Maia Hoffman, who was one of IZZY’s first supporters back in early 2020. And we ended up meeting a few months later in Tel Aviv, the three of us. Immediately upon meeting Avi, even before looking at his website or Googling him, I understood that he is someone who would make for great TV, like so many Israelis I meet on a day-to-day basis.

An Israeli Jew, fluent in Arabic, English, and Hebrew, with a unique understanding of Arab society and culture, Avi is a strategic intelligence analyst and an expert on the current affairs in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and their impact on the Middle East, based on his experience as a former Israeli intelligence official and senior official on Arab Affairs.

In his public service, he has held high-risk government, senior advisory, intelligence, and counter-terrorist intelligence positions in Arab cities and communities throughout the region, on behalf of Israeli government agencies.

Today, Avi is an author of multiple books, educator, and strategic intelligence analyst who provides intelligence analysis, briefings, and geopolitical tours to diplomats, Israeli and foreign policymakers, global media outlets, and a wide variety of international businesses, organizations, and private clients on a range of Israel and Middle East affairs.

Someone Special

Back in 2013, on my Taglit-Birthright trip, my first time in Israel, they took us to a place called Save a Child’s Heart — where we spent half a day at their headquarters in the city of Holon, volunteering and learning more about this wonderful organization.

Save a Child’s Heart is a humanitarian organization that saves the lives of critically ill children suffering from heart disease in countries where access to pediatric heart care is limited or nonexistent, by bringing children to Israel for medical care, performing missions abroad, and training medical personnel.

Save a Child’s Heart exists today because of the vision, passion and boundless energy of the late Dr. Amram “Ami” Cohen, who immigrated to Israel from the United States in 1992. He joined the staff of the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon and served as the Deputy Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery and Head of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, under the direction and mentorship of Professor Arieh Schachner, then-head of the cardiothoracic department.

Save a Child’s Heart came into being in 1995 when an Ethiopian doctor contacted Dr. Cohen after being referred to him by a mutual friend at the University of Massachusetts. He asked for Dr. Cohen’s help with two children in desperate need of heart surgery. Dr. Cohen received the approval and support of Professor Schachner to commence with this project. 

At the age of just 47, Ami died in a tragic accident while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in 2001. Since his death, the organization has continued its efforts to benefit children with life-threatening cardiac problems and to teach medical personnel in developing nations the surgical techniques needed to treat these young patients.

To date, Save a Child’s Heart has saved more than 5,000 hearts of children from 59 developing nations in Israeli hospitals, such as children from Nigeria, Tanzania, Congo, Moldova, Russia, Ghana, Vietnam, Ecuador, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority. In 2013, amidst the Syrian Civil War, Save a Child’s Heart conducted an open-heart surgery on a 5-year old Syrian girl. The pre-schooler, living as a refugee in an undisclosed country, traveled to the Wolfson Medical Hospital in Holon to receive the treatment. She was the first Syrian child to receive the free medical care and surgery.

Save a Child’s Heart is embarking on its biggest project yet, to build an International Pediatric Cardiac Center at the Wolfson Medical Center, which will serve as a children’s hospital.

One Good Thing

Walmart Acquires Israeli Virtual Fitting Room Startup Zeekit — from our friends at nocamels.com

U.S. retail giant Walmart is acquiring Israeli fashion startup, Zeekit, a female-founded, Israeli-based company that combines fashion and technology through its dynamic virtual fitting room platform to create a significantly enhanced customer and social experience.

Founded in 2013, Zeekit offers an interactive online shopping experience for the world of fashion. Its virtual fitting room allows customers to see themselves dressed in any item of clothing, while Zeekit’s patented technology integrates an entire catalog of products to allow customers to virtually try on clothes using realistic augmented reality and artificial intelligence.

Tune in every Tuesday for a new This Week From Israel episode!