When Daniel Taylor and three friends – all students at the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey Business School – approached the school’s program office to inquire about the Israel reading week trip that had run in years past, they were told it wasn’t happening this year.
Nobody wanted to do the work of organizing and fundraising for the trip, geared to exposing non-Jewish students to Israel’s rich business environment.
“We just figured, this is something we could do,” said Taylor, 21, explaining they felt passionate about showing non-Jews a lively and innovative aspect of Israel they wouldn’t otherwise experience.
He, along with fellow fourth-year students Daniel Khazzam, 23, and Josh Greenbaum, 21, and third-year student Mike Zagdanski, also 21, spent last summer fundraising – no small undertaking, since the few private donors who had carried the trip’s cost during its four prior years (it didn’t run last year) had largely moved on to other projects.
“It’s become more of a grassroots effort than ever before,” Taylor said. “It’s gone from three or four donors in the past to, this year, 40-plus private donors.”
The eight-day trip, which will take place during reading week next month, costs about $100,000 total. To make it affordable for the 24 participants registered, each of whom will pay $1,900, Taylor and his friends had to raise around $42,000.
With the exception of the organizers and two additional Jewish students, none of the attendees are Jewish, something Taylor stresses is “the whole point.”
By familiarizing people of varying backgrounds, many of whom have no prior knowledge of Israel, with Israeli companies and the country’s extensive startup scene, Taylor said, “we’ll show them Israel isn’t just what they see in the papers, that there’s another side of it that is, obviously, wonderful.”
“The big goal,” he added, “is for these students to eventually go on to lead companies and look back upon Israel positively – maybe even integrate it into their businesses.”
The itinerary, which Taylor said borrows from previous years but also incorporates new elements based on the organizers’ interests and connections, is dense and far-reaching. Students will travel around the country and meet with a variety of businesses, from large firms to small-scale entrepreneurs and, Taylor said, “small venture capitalist guys you’ve never heard of.”
They will, for example, travel to the Golan to visit the Israeli-built, international irrigation company Netafim, as well as Google and Facebook offices in Tel Aviv, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the Israeli branch of U.S. financial services firm Morgan Stanley.
Participants will also hear a range of speakers, including the chair of the political science department at Hebrew University, a former government official from Israel’s Labor party and the founder of a Palestinian human rights group.
Students will be accompanied by Ivey professor Amos Nadler and will receive university credit for the week, assuming they complete written assignments throughout and a final paper upon their return.
For those going on the trip, the 2009 book Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, is required reading.
Taylor emphasized the week is “no vacation,” and that given the high demand, he and fellow organizers were able to be “very selective” when it came to choosing “high-calibre, high-achieving participants for the trip… most of whom have fantastic jobs lined up for when they’re done school.”
He added, “We want those who attend to be involved in future decision-making [in the business world] and to, down the road, look upon Israel with favourable eyes.”
