TORONTO — The organizers of a business-themed trip to Israel for Jewish and non-Jewish university students are thrilled that the 10-day tour was able to present a side of Israel that’s seldom seen on the news.
Students on the Israel Business trip.
Group shot of students on the Israel Business trip.
TORONTO — The organizers of a business-themed trip to Israel for
Jewish and non-Jewish university students are thrilled that the 10-day
tour was able to present a side of Israel that’s seldom seen on the
news.
Twenty students from McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management and 20 students from University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business travelled to Israel during reading week from Feb. 19 to March 1 to take part in programming that included a meeting with Dana Azrieli, head of the Azrieli Group of Companies, as well as a visit to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and tours of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea and the Golan Heights.
The Canada-Israel Committee, as well as student organizers from Desautels – Zack Belzberg, Samuel Langleben and Daniel Shiner – and from Ivey – Mara Bannack, Benjamin Harris, Josh Zagdansky and Michael Katchen – helped put together the tour.
“We had a goal of showing non-Jews the business side of Israel, and the eventual goal is to have them invest in Israel when they grow up and hopefully they’ll be influential people who will have a new take on Israel,” said Belzberg, 21.
The trip, sponsored by the Schwartz Reisman Foundation, served as the main component of an official full-credit management course at Desautels taught by Prof. Karl Moore, called Perspectives on National Competitiveness.
Although the trip was not part of an accredited course at Ivey, Deborah Compeau, an associate professor and the director of Ivey’s MBA program, presented her students with a strategic problem involving Super-Pharm, the Israeli branch of Canada’s Shoppers Drug Mart. The students who prepared a case study on the topic received partial course credit.
“We studied Israel as an increasingly important player in the world market, and [Desautels] students were required to write an exam and a 12-page reflection paper based on the trip and make presentations,” Belzberg said.
Although the focus of the trip was on Israel’s economy, organizers also wanted to give students historical, political and cultural perspectives on the country.
“We went to the separation barrier and met with someone from Fatah, and it was interesting to see the differences in the political awareness of the McGill students and the Ivey students,” Belzberg said.
The tour also visited Yad Vashem, and Belzberg said that after the visit, some students said that they had never realized before how inappropriate it is to make comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany or South Africa under apartheid.
“We went [to Israel] right after the election, right after the Gaza war, and the day we got back to school was the first day of [Israeli] Apartheid Week. We had non-Jewish students [from the trip] who were actually angry about the existence of apartheid week when they never would have cared before,” he said.
“They now understand that there are two perspectives, and they are not getting the full story.”
Of the 40 participants, only 13 were Jewish. Belzberg said the students’ backgrounds ranged from Saudi Arabian to French-Canadian.
“We had a very diverse group… and seeing them, the first night, dancing at the [Western] Wall – six very visibly non-Jewish people – one Indian kid, a couple of Muslim kids – wearing those paper kippahs, getting in a big circle with these Chassidim on a Friday night at the Wall – it was just the most amazing moment.”
Osama Siddiqui, an Ivey student and a participant on the tour, said he was touched by the hospitality and generosity of the people they visited.
“I also found Israeli society to be very innovative, and I was inspired by young Israelis who were working to harness the power of science and technology to change the world,” Siddiqui said.
Tejaswinee Jhunjhunwala, a participant from Desautels, said that before she travelled to Israel, all she knew about the Jewish state was what she saw on the news.
“Dealing with history, politics, economics and business all at one time and combining all of these to understand the national competitiveness of the country and relating it back not only to Canada, but also India, my home country, was dually beneficial in broadening my perspective,” Jhunjhunwala said.
“There was a takeaway from every moment of that trip that I feel will carry with me much longer than any theory I could learn in a classroom setting.”
Belzberg said that he and the organizers wanted to ensure that the participants didn’t feel like they were a part of the advocacy machine.
“We showed them both sides and let them decide… When they made their presentations when they came back, their focus was on Israeli high tech and Israel as a leader. The fact that they saw Israel as an important player in the economy and global trade was an inspiring thing for us,” he said.
“Most of the Israel talk on campus has been negative… The Jewish community should appreciate the fact that something is happening that is focused on tomorrow’s business leaders.”