Victor Cohen

“Honoring Our Past Building Our Future” was the theme of the Hillel Yeshiva’s 75^th anniversary gala celebration dinner. The black tie event was held on June 23^rd at the outdoor tent erected for the evening at the home of Carol and Morris, a”h, Franco.

Hillel Yeshiva has been a central part of our community’s education in Deal, New Jersey. For generations, most children from the Deal area have attended Hillel, whether for elementary school, middle school, high school, or some combination of the three.  The evening was dedicated to celebrate and to show hakarat hatov to those who have worked tirelessly for Hillel’s growth and advancement, and to fundraise to insure its future. The event was open to parents of current students, community members, and alumni of Hillel, as well as those who helped make the institution into what it is today.

I would like to give special thanks to Sammy Saka, who chaired the event, for his help and guidance with this article.

A Brief History

Hillel Yeshiva opened its doors in 1951 in Asbury Park, led by Rabbi Morris A. Schmidman, a”h. The yeshiva was founded with the commitment to provide its students with outstanding Judaic and general studies. Hillel was, of course, much smaller than it is today and it was tailored to the local Jewish population in Deal.

In the early 1970s, things began to change ass more of our community members began to move to Deal.  Hillel Yeshiva outgrew its space and moved to Logan Road. Hillel’s president at the time, Morris I. Franco, was the lead fundraiser and helped Hillel to reach an enrollment of over 300 students. Mr. Franco believed that every student who desired a Jewish education should be accommodated. Through his work and his vision, he set the tone for the decades to come.

Two brothers, Saul E. Ashkenazi, a”h, and Ely Ashkenazi, a”h, were visionaries. They recognized that even the Logan Road space would not be adequate for what Hillel needed. Accordingly, they donated a large, 56-acre parcel of land that would become the future complex of Hillel, and one the school would move to just a few years later.

Mr. Morris I. Franco, Mr. Saul E. Ashkenazi, and Mr. Ely Ashkenazi are honored in Hillel’s Founders Hall for their tireless work and dedication to the community. Presidents who followed and helped Hillel grow are Mr. Jack D. Franco, Mr. Joel Rishty, a”h, Dr. Charles Abady, Mr. Sammy Saka, and Mr. Joseph I. Mizrahi, the current President of Hillel. Mr. Jack D. Franco serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Mr. Saka serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Today, Hillel’s enrollment totals nearly 1,500 students, and the number grows substantially every year. Nearly every incoming grade is larger than the last. Future expansion is now in the planning.

An Unforgettable Evening

The event took place in the Franco’s backyard under a giant white tent. Current students welcomed the hundreds of guests in and directed them towards their assigned seats.

Many rabbis and community leaders were present. Hillel’s Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Saul Kassin, spoke about the school’s growth. He also presented awards. Many other rabbis were in attendance, including Assistant Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Joseph Dana, and almost all of the rabbis who currently teach at Hillel. Community rabbis included Rabbi Shlomo Diamond and Rabbi Eli Mansour.

To open the night, children from Hillel Yeshiva’s kindergarten sang Hatikva and Gd Bless America and led the Pledge of Allegiance.

Keynote Speech

Sammy Saka delivered the keynote speech. “Tonight is a moment 75 years in the making,” he said. He noted that the theme of the night, “Honoring Our Past, Building Our Future,” was evident by looking around the room, at the hundreds of alumni in attendance. Sammy noted, “You are seeing Hillel’s legacy come to life.” Sammy thanked and recognized those who worked so hard in the early days and those who help Hillel today.

“I would like to thank our administrators, rabbis, and faculty members for their commitment and love to our children. Every day, you show up not just as educators, but as mentors and role models. You are the heartbeat of this institution,” Sammy added.

Sammy then addressed the board. “Board of Trustees Chairman, Mr. Jack D. Franco, Board of Trustees Mr. Ezra S. Ashkenazi, Mr. Neil Tobias, and Mr. Morris S. Ashear, current President Mr. Joe Mizrahi, past President Mr. Joel Rishty of blessed memory, past President Dr. Charles Abady and all of our officers, advisory board, board members, past board members, and PTA – thank you for your lasting impact on Hillel and its students.”

Sammy offered special recognition to Richie Benedikt and the entire Ray Buildersteam for their incredible work on the construction of our new buildings and to Aliza Sokol of SusanStrauss Design for her team’s beautiful design work.

“I would like to also thank everyone involved with the planning of tonight’s festivities, especially Norma Cohen. Norma designed this event from the ground up, thought through every detail, and spent a whole year preparing everything for tonight.”

Sammy also thanked One Hospitality, Co-chair Dr. Gayle Krost, Margo Jemal, Jackie Gindi, Elizabeth Beckerman, Harry J. Franco, Richie Setton, Joseph Ades, Michael Dweck, and Joseph Shamah. “The creativity, hard work, and attention to detail from the entire group made this evening truly exceptional.”

Hillel’s Growth

Sammy then spoke about the exceptional growth of Hillel over the past few years. “This coming September,” he said, “Hillel will welcome a record 1,500 students – up ten percent year over year.”

“To provide some added perspective,” he continued, “in the High School we average 65 students per grade; In the Middle School 90 students per grade; in the Elementary school 110 students per grade, and in kindergarten, an incredible 135 students. At this pace, in just a few short years, we will exceed 2,000 students.”

“Our future is very bright.”

Sammy walked through the plans for the school’s expansion. With more students, Hillel needs to grow once again. “There’s four phases,” Sammy said. “Phase one is the new preschool. Phase two is the new high school. Phase three is the new middle school, and phase four is the new, multi-level parking lot.”

The new Jack & Marilyn Chehebar Preschool is due to be completed in September 2026, and will raise the overall capacity to 1,600 students. The new high school raises the capacity to 2,100 students, and the new middle school will raise it to 2,600 students. The parking lot will help support this growth.

Funding

The next phases of the plan will cost $36 million dollars. “To help raise these funds,” Sammy said, “we created Legends Park in the front of the school. It will be a meaningful, vibrant hub for outdoor programs. Students, parents, and faculty can come together in Legends Park throughout the year to celebrate special moments.”

After the speeches, the fundraising for the night began. Community leader Mr. Harry Adjmi took the microphone, and the excitement increased. Numbers started flying in from across the room. Very quickly, Hillel Yeshiva found itself with significant financial support. Many of its alumni stepped up to the plate to give back to their alma mater.

Famous comedian Elon Gold closed out the night. He joked that Sammy made him an offer to teach in Hillel, on condition that he move to Deal. His routine had the entire tent roaring with laughter, and he moved between poking fun at the donation numbers, current affairs, self-deprecating jokes about speaking Hebrew, and much more. He truly brought up the night.

The Future

Hillel, and the community overall, have a bright future ahead. Our community in Deal continues to grow. Even with the opening of additional schools in Deal over the past 20 years, Hillel Yeshiva continues to see enrollment exceeding capacity and sees a need to plan for the future. The community’s support in these endeavors is also strong, ensuring that the education of our children, the leaders of the future, is given the highest priority.

“Whoever saves a single life, it is as if he has saved an entire world.”

(Sanhedrin 37a)

Jordana Baruchov Greenfield

Twenty years ago, Mendy Reiner saw a heartbreaking reality that most people simply accepted as inevitable. Too many members of the Jewish community were suffering and dying while waiting for kidney transplants, even though healthy people were walking around every day with the ability to save them.

Living kidney donation was almost unheard of. Families often faced years of dialysis, uncertainty and heartbreak, with little hope of finding a living donor. Rather than accepting the status quo, Mendy envisioned an organization that would educate the community, guide families through the transplant process, and inspire ordinary people to perform an extraordinary act of hesed. What began in 2006 as a small organization operating out of a shared office with only a handful of dedicated employees, several working part-time, has grown into a movement that has transformed the landscape of living kidney donation throughout the Jewish world.

Those early years were filled with challenges. Every transplant required months of education, advocacy, fundraising, medical coordination, and emotional support. Every potential donor needed to understand not only the medical process, but also the emotional and spiritual significance of donating a kidney to another person. There were countless meetings with physicians, rabbis, community leaders and families. There were misconceptions to overcome and fears to address. In those days, if Renewal could facilitate ten kidney transplants in a year, it would have been considered an extraordinary accomplishment. Fifteen seemed ambitious. Twenty felt almost unimaginable.

Hashem had much bigger plans.

A Story of Exponential Growth

Last month, Renewal celebrated a milestone that once seemed impossible. The organization facilitated its 1,500th living donor kidney transplant, a remarkable achievement that reflects two decades of unwavering dedication to saving lives. From just two transplants during its first year to a projected record-breaking year in 2026, Renewal has become the leading force behind living kidney donation in the Jewish community. The pace of growth has been astonishing. The first year brought two transplants. The second year brought seven. Last year alone, Renewal facilitated 170 living donor kidney transplants, and this year is on track to surpass even that remarkable number.

Behind every statistic is a human story. Renewal’s youngest kidney recipient was only two years old. The oldest recipient was 86. The youngest donor was 21, while the oldest donor was 77. Each transplant represents far more than a successful surgery. It represents children who get their parent back, grandparents who live to celebrate another simhah, husbands and wives who receive years they feared had been lost, and families whose futures are forever changed.

Renewal’s impact extends far beyond the operating room. Approximately 60 percent of all altruistic kidney donors in New York have come through Renewal, as have one-third of those in New Jersey. Every year the organization processes more than 3,500 cheek swabs from potential donors. Each swab begins a careful process of education, testing, advocacy, and guidance that often spans months. Every donation costs an average of nearly $19,000 to coordinate, yet for Renewal every dollar represents an investment in something priceless – the opportunity to save a life.

Ironically, Renewal’s greatest accomplishment has created its greatest challenge. More people know about the organization than ever before, and more families are turning to Renewal for help. Today, Renewal is assisting more than 640 men, women and children waiting for kidney transplants, representing an increase of more than 200 percent in less than two years. The organization now receives calls from communities across North America that had never even heard of Renewal only a few years ago. Although the overwhelming majority of recipients are Jewish, Renewal has always remained committed to helping anyone in need. Illness does not recognize communal boundaries, and neither does compassion.

The Question That’s Changed Thousands of Lives

Every transplant begins with one simple question.

“Could I be the one?”

That question has changed thousands of lives.

It is also the question that Renewal has spent 20 years encouraging communities to ask themselves.

One of those communities was the Syrian Sephardic community.

Like in every close-knit community, trust could never be expected overnight. It had to be earned. Renewal understood that education would have to come before participation and that relationships would have to come before results. Years ago, when Mendy Reiner and Duvid Shisha first met with respected leaders of the Syrian community to introduce Renewal’s mission, educate about living kidney donation, and seek their partnership, the response was sincere and memorable.

“Our community will help you financially,” they explained. “But you’re not going to get our kidneys.”

It was never meant as a rejection. On the contrary, the Syrian Sephardic community quickly became one of Renewal’s most generous supporters. They believed deeply in the organization’s mission and consistently stepped forward with extraordinary financial support. At that time, however, living kidney donation was still unfamiliar territory for many within the community.

Renewal understood that changing perceptions would take patience.

One of the most significant steps came when AJ Gindi joined the organization. As a respected member of the Syrian community, AJ became far more than a staff member. He became a bridge. Week after week, month after month, he visited synagogues, met with rabbis, answered questions, spoke at community gatherings, and patiently educated families about living kidney donation.

Then AJ did something that transformed every conversation that followed:

He donated one of his own kidneys.

Suddenly, kidney donation was no longer an abstract concept. It had the face of someone the community knew, respected, and trusted. His example inspired conversation around Shabbat tables, in business offices, and in synagogue hallways. More importantly, it inspired action.

Over the years, 47 of AJ’s own friends and family members followed his example and became living kidney donors themselves.

One person’s decision had become a movement.

Without many people realizing it, a quiet transformation had begun.

Families within the Syrian community began witnessing kidney transplantation firsthand. Donors were no longer strangers from other neighborhoods. Recipients were no longer distant stories. They were relatives, neighbors, classmates, business associates, and lifelong friends. Renewal had become more than an organization serving the community. It had become part of the community itself.

Exceeding Every Expectation

That journey reached an extraordinary milestone on July 19, 2026.

Renewal organized a community-wide swab drive on behalf of six members of the Syrian Sephardic community who are desperately waiting for kidney transplants. Each of the six has a different story. Some chose to publicly share their identities while others preferred to remain anonymous. Some had spent years on dialysis. Others are rapidly approaching kidney failure. Every one of them represents a family praying that somewhere a stranger will choose to help.

To make participation as convenient as possible, six swabbing locations were established throughout Deal, Long Branch, and Oakhurst, including The Deal Synagogue, Park Avenue Synagogue, Sarah’s Tent, Ouri’s Market, the DSN Community Center, and the DSN Beach Club. Volunteers staffed each location from morning until evening – uncertain how many people would respond, but confident that every single swab represented another opportunity to save a life.

What happened exceeded every expectation.

The event took place during shavua shehal bo (the week of Tishah B’Av), in the heart of the Nine Days, when the Jewish people mourn the destruction of the Bet Hamikdash. Our sages teach that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat hinam, baseless hatred. Every year we reflect upon that painful lesson and ask ourselves how we can help rebuild what was lost.

On that Sunday, the Syrian Sephardic community answered not with speeches, but with action.

Despite the intense summer heat and one of the busiest weeks of the Jersey Shore season, hundreds of people rearranged their schedules to perform a simple act of hesed. Parents came between family commitments. Business owners stopped during the workday. Young adults arrived with friends. Entire families encouraged one another to participate. Some had planned to attend all week. Others simply saw the signs and decided on the spot that they wanted to help.

Every few minutes, another registration form was completed.

Another cheek was swabbed.

Another person quietly said, “If Hashem created me to save another Jew, I want to find out.”

To an outsider, a cheek swab may seem insignificant. It takes less than a minute. There are no needles, no surgery, and no commitment to donate. Yet Renewal has witnessed enough miracles to understand what can begin with something so simple. Hidden within that tiny cotton swab may be the compatibility that allows a mother to watch her children grow up, a father to dance at his daughter’s wedding, or a grandfather to meet another grandchild.

As the hours passed, the numbers continued climbing.

Fifty.

One hundred.

One hundred fifty.

Two hundred.

By the conclusion of the event, an astonishing 261 members of the community had joined Renewal’s donor registry.

Those 261 swabs represented far more than a successful community event. They represented hope for six families waiting today and for countless others who will need Renewal’s help tomorrow. They represented 20 years of patient education, relationship building, and trust. They represented a community that had embraced Renewal’s mission as its own.

Perhaps the most meaningful number from that day was not 261.

It was one.

One people.

Because when someone is waiting for a kidney, labels disappear. Ashkenazi. Sephardic. Syrian. Chassidic. Modern Orthodox. American. Israeli.

There is only Am Yisrael.

Our Sages teach us, “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh –All Jews are responsible for one another.”

On July 19, those words came alive.

Hundreds of people volunteered to discover whether Hashem had created them to save someone they might never meet. No promises were made. No commitments to surgery were required. Only a willingness to take the very first step.

Ordinary People Doing the Extraordinary

As volunteers packed away tables and supplies that evening, there was a feeling that everyone present shared. They had witnessed something much greater than a successful swab drive.

They had witnessed another chapter in Renewal’s remarkable story.

Only weeks after celebrating transplant number 1,500, Renewal watched 261 more people step forward, helping to ensure that transplant numbers 1,501, 1,502, and countless more are already waiting somewhere in the future.

That is how Renewal has always grown.

One conversation.

One family.

One donor.

One recipient.

One life at a time.

During the very days when the Jewish people mourn the destruction of the Bet Hamikdash because of sinat hinam, hundreds of Jews answered with ahavat hinam – “baseless love.” They demonstrated that the greatest response to division is unconditional love, that the greatest expression of faith is caring for another Jew, and that the strongest communities are built when people are willing to carry one another’s burdens.

The Syrian Sephardic community did far more than participate in a swab drive. It demonstrated what is possible when education, trust, leadership and compassion come together in pursuit of a sacred mission.

Renewal has now facilitated more than 1,500 kidney transplants, but the work is far from finished. Hundreds of families are still waiting. Hundreds of more miracles are still needed.

If July 19 taught us anything, it is that those miracles begin with ordinary people making extraordinary decisions.

And it has shown us, once again, that “Mi ke’amcha Yisrael – “Who is like Your people, Israel!”

Frieda Schweky

Like so many others, I have wonderful memories of leaving  Brooklyn to come to Deal for the summertime. My childhood memories revolve around those few golden months, moving into my grandparents’ two-story house on Surry Lane, and bunking up with cousins on the weekends when they came in from Brooklyn every Friday. We had an indoor pool, a huge deck where we’d host massive BBQs with friends and extended family, and a large side lawn. That house has been sold and knocked down, but the memories will never fade. My entire  extended family gets nostalgic whenever “Surry Lane” comes up. We all remember the time my uncle Jack jumped off the extremely bouncy diving board (they don’t make them like that anymore, and for good reason) and broke his nose at the bottom of the pool, the whole episode caught on video. We remember climbing the trees in the front of the house and flying down the slip-and-slide. Surry Lane was so secluded from the rest of the community that it felt like our own private island.

I attended Camp Ora with my siblings, and I know hundreds of community members carry their own fond memories of that camp – the soda machines, screaming Birkat Hamazon at the conclusion of lunchtime to earn free canteen or soda, and the mystery trip that was almost always to Hershey Park.

I know most community members also have special summer memories, because migrating to the suburbs of Jersey and bunking up with family members for the summer is an age-old tradition here. So, let’s hear some stories from the good old days. First up is my husband’s grandmother, Renee Esses.

Renee Esses

Renee rented in Deal for two summers before  moving permanently there in 1980. The early years were lonely at times, since her kids were not yet with her. One moved down a few years later, the other not for another thirty years. Renee had spent winters in Midwood Manor in Brooklyn, but her husband could not justify keeping two houses, and since so many of her friends had already made the move to Jersey that it made sense to follow. Back then it was not crowded at all. Renee remembers renting on Poplar Avenue near Norwood and hearing that the house down the block sold for $125,000 and thinking, that’s ridiculous! Eventually, Renee settled on Shadow Lawn, which was a new development, with a mix of Syrian and Ashkenaz families. Renee’s daughter (my mother-in-law) used to move in every summer with all her kids, and although it was chaotic, Renee loved it. The house was always busy, always full. There was room for everyone!  The finished basement was so massive that the kids used to roller skate through it when it rained and they couldn’t play outdoors. They had company constantly. One of Renee’s best friends lived right around the corner. It was a real home away from home. Renee recalled those years fondly, lamenting that they were some of the best years.

Miriam Sabzehroo

Miriam was still a teenager when her family started coming down for the summer. There was so much open land back then, and so many trees – nothing like the density of houses today. Once Miriam had kids, they headed to Six Flags Great Adventure every year. She would even get a season pass for her housekeeper so she could come along and help with the kids. There were also many trips to Seaside Water Park.

Miriam fondly remembers the times her mother took the grandkids (Miriam’s children) down to Allenhurst Lake to feed the ducks while she tanned in the backyard with baby oil, iodine, and a silver reflector.

Miriam’s father never let her buy a house of her own – he wanted the family close, under his roof. She still laughs remembering the summer her brother set off fireworks on the Fourth of July and accidentally lit a tree on fire. The family threw massive BBQs twice every summer. Not long ago Miriam’s daughter found the old VHS tapes allowing them to relive those times all over again. They gathered around the computer at a family gathering to watch the show, with everyone spotting themselves and old friends, reminiscing about the good old days.

Eve Shweky

Eve says Deal is simply not what it used to be. Camp Ora was the best of the best, where such beautiful memories were made. These days, Eve says, there are too many people for it to feel quite the same. The town has grown right alongside the community – every couple back then had four or five kids, and those kids became adults with families of their own, expanding things further still. It’s a reminder of how much this community has multiplied over the generations, from a small cluster of summer regulars into the sprawling, vibrant crowd we know today.

Sophia Cohen

For Sophia, the shift from Brooklyn to Deal each June felt like stepping into another life entirely. Her mother would pick the kids up on the last day of school, and the second they got on the highway, something in her would light up. It was the most exhilarating feeling of the year. The whole rhythm of life changed the moment they crossed into Jersey. There was nothing like biking around Deal as a kid, back when it was so much smaller – the Deal Pharmacy, the 7-Eleven, shuffling around sandy beaches barefoot. Sophia still remembers the haunted house in Long Branch from years back, and the fire at the pier. There was nothing like coming to Deal and feeling so free every summer.

Renee H.

No retelling of Deal summers would be complete without mentioning the Deal Pharmacy and its slush puppies on Norwood – right around where the Wishing Well Apartments stand today. And of course, Camp Ora holds its own permanent place in memory: Billy Madison playing on the coach bus wherever the overnight trip took everyone that year, and those smiley-face “camper of the week” shirts everyone fought to earn.

Shirley Zebede

Before DSN, there were the JCC days. Shirley says nothing compares to those times when your parents dropped you off in the morning and didn’t see you again until dinner. You could spend the entire day at the JCC, whether at the pool, the basketball court, or the J Cafe on the second floor. After that, kids headed upstairs to the teen lounge and dance studio on the third floor, with its couch, a couple of old-school racing games, and a foosball table. Shirley would give anything to go back.

Having always lived in Deal year-round, Shirley remembers the striking contrast between the summer and the rest of the year. Deal was almost a ghost town for ten months of the year, and then, almost overnight, it would fill with a swarm of people. You couldn’t drive because of the bicycles everywhere, rows and rows of them lined up on Norwood Avenue outside J2 Pizza. And then, just as suddenly, the day after Labor Day, you could drive down Norwood and not see a single car – it was suddenly deserted.

Looking Ahead

These collective memories  make one thing clear: this community has always known how to make a summer feel like magic. Honestly, we’re luckier for it now than ever. We have a host of beautiful community organizations behind us today, and many incredible new restaurants.  We’re growing, too – spreading into new townships as more families find their place here. The Deal of the 60s, 70s, and 80s may be a different Deal than the one we know now, but the spirit has not changed. We have good vibes, good times, and are blessed to be a community that keeps finding new ways to come together, summer after summer.

Frieda Schweky is a community photographer, videographer, and writer. For photography & video inquiries or article topic suggestions, email her at friedaschweky@gmail.com or follow her on Instagram @friedaschwekyphoto.

Jack Gindi

My brother owns a beautiful summer home in New Jersey. He worked in interior design and had an incredible eye for detail. The house is stunning, but what I loved most was in the backyard. A swimming pool, carefully designed gardens, and koi ponds just off the deck. Everything intentional. Everything exactly where it belonged.

A Lesson from Bamboo

Behind the koi ponds, he planted bamboo.

At first, it didn’t seem like much. Year after year he watered it, fed it nutrients, cared for it. Yet, whenever I visited, almost nothing had changed. You might have wondered why he kept investing in something doing so little.

Then one summer, everything changed.

The bamboo shot upward. What had once seemed insignificant suddenly towered above the ponds. Within a remarkably short time, it had grown well over fifteen feet high. To someone seeing it for the first time, it would have looked like an overnight success.

Of course, it wasn’t.

The visible growth had been years in the making. While everyone looked for signs above the surface, the bamboo was doing its most important work underground. Its roots were spreading deeper, becoming stronger, creating the foundation necessary to support what would eventually follow.

Lasting Lesson

That image has stayed with me because the older I get, the more I realize how much of life works exactly the same way.

We live in a culture that loves visible results. We celebrate promotions, achievements, successful businesses, healthy relationships. What we rarely see are the years of preparation that came before. The disappointments. The setbacks. The quiet decisions made day after day when nobody was paying attention.

As parents and grandparents, this lesson can be especially difficult to remember. We spend years teaching values, having conversations, setting boundaries, modeling character. Yet, there are moments when it feels like none of it is getting through. Advice ignored. Lessons forgotten. Teenagers rolling their eyes.

In those moments, it’s easy to wonder whether anything is taking root.

But perhaps we’re looking for bamboo shoots when roots are still being built.

The Invisible Work that Shapes Our Lives

The truth is that much of what shapes a person’s life happens long before it becomes visible. A shared family dinner may not seem important on any given night. Neither does a ride to practice, a conversation before bed, or a moment of patience when frustration would have been easier. Yet these ordinary moments accumulate. They become roots. Years later, they show up as confidence, resilience, and character.

I’ve seen this in business, too. Early in my real estate career, deals fell apart after months of work. At the time, those felt like failures. Looking back, they were teaching me patience, persistence, and how to stay steady when circumstances changed. The growth was happening, but it wasn’t visible.

I’ve also learned this lesson through grief.

Since losing my son Shaun, there have been many days when healing felt impossible to measure. Some days felt exactly the same as the day before. Others felt harder. Yet over time, subtle changes began to appear. Memories that once brought only pain slowly began bringing gratitude. I found myself smiling at stories about Shaun before the tears arrived.

During his shiva, I heard the same observation from friend after friend. They told me how Shaun made people feel seen. He didn’t simply ask, “How are you?” He would ask, “What’s going on in your world?” It seemed like a small thing, but it was not. One conversation at a time, he was building roots in people’s lives. I didn’t fully understand how deep those roots ran until after he was gone.

That may be the greatest lesson bamboo has to teach us.

The most important growth in life is often invisible while it is happening.

Nature reminds us that before there is fruit, there are roots. Before there is strength, there is preparation. Before there is visible growth, there is invisible growth.

So, if you are working on your health, rebuilding a relationship, learning a new skill, or recovering from a loss, don’t become discouraged if the results are not immediately apparent.

Keep watering. Keep showing up. Keep doing the small things that matter.

Because some of the most important growth in life happens underground. And one day, often when you least expect it, you’ll discover that the roots you’ve been building were preparing you for something greater all along.

How Israel’s Wartime Know-How is Quietly Shaping the Next Decade of Global Tech

Dave Gordon

War has long been Israel’s harshest teacher, forcing engineers, doctors, and scientists to improvise under pressure and turn urgent problems into practical solutions.

Today, however, the country’s most important innovations are moving beyond helmets and drones onto cancer wards, university labs, and lunar missions.

A grandmother in Tel Aviv whose multiple myeloma responds to a new homegrown therapy, a finance worker in New York whose inbox quietly filters out a sophisticated phishing scam, and an engineer watching an early test of a laser interceptor are all touched by the same mindset.

From artificial intelligence that quietly guards your email to homegrown therapies that re‑engineer immune cells, Israeli ingenuity is now shaping how the world will communicate, heal, and explore in the next decade.

Globalization of New Interdisciplinary Tools from Israel

This is the story beyond the battlefield: how Israel’s ecosystem of universities, startups, and global tech partners is taking wartime know‑how and transforming it into civilian tools for medicine, business, and space – and how those ideas can be adopted globally despite political challenges.

Professor Zeev Zalevsky is an Israeli physicist and engineer. He is Vice President for Academia–Industry Relations and Innovation at Bar‑Ilan University and is an internationally recognized expert in nanophotonics and biomedical optics. Nanophotonics or nano-optics is the study of the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, and of the interaction of nanometer-scale objects with light. It is a branch of optics, optical engineering, and nanotechnology.

Zalevsky sees Israel’s distinctive power in the way it turns theory into practice. “One of Israel’s greatest strengths is its ability to transform scientific excellence into real‑world impact,” he told Community Magazine.

“What makes our innovation ecosystem unique is the close partnership between universities, research institutions, entrepreneurs, industry, investors, and government, allowing new ideas to move from the laboratory to society with remarkable speed.”

Zalevsky believes the next phase will hinge on tightening those links.

Close Collaboration
“I believe the next few years will be defined by our ability to further shorten the path from scientific discovery to real‑world impact through even closer collaboration between academia, industry, entrepreneurs, investors and government – particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, energy‑efficient computing and next‑generation semiconductor technologies,” he notes.

“Especially in challenging times, Israeli researchers remain relentlessly focused on solving meaningful problems, and that commitment to innovation gives me every confidence that Israel will continue to shape the next generation of global technologies.”

On the biotech side, Tel Aviv-based Mati Gill, CEO of AION Labs, and Dr. Yuval Cabily, Founding Board Member of AION Labs and Managing Partner at Israel Biotech Fund, described a similar pattern for Community.

Four Pillars of Israeli Biotech

Gill points to four pillars that, in his view, explain why Israel produces so much biotech and life‑science innovation despite its modest size.

First, Israel’s scientific base is unusually strong. Institutions like the Weizmann Institute, Technion, Tel Aviv University, and Hebrew University generate “world‑class and relevant” research for future pharma and biotech industries, and they turn out an “exceptional volume and quality of principal investigators and PhDs.”

Second, Israel’s leadership in technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other computational disciplines gives biotech a deep digital backbone as the industry becomes increasingly data‑driven.

Third, Gill highlights the culture of entrepreneurship that connects these two worlds – life sciences on one side, math and computing on the other – and turns them into real companies.

Israel is one of the only places in the world that has genuine strength in both scientific disciplines and the ability to fuse them into products.

Fourth, Gill points to strong institutional and governmental backing, from Israel’s National Authority for Innovation to ministries that have formally prioritized biotech and tech as industries of strategic importance.

Political Climate and the Long Term

When asked how the current political climate affects global adoption, Cabily acknowledged that getting innovation accepted worldwide is always an uphill battle, and Israel faces its own distinctive hurdles.  

But he insisted these are challenges the ecosystem has repeatedly overcome with clear roadmaps and long‑term execution.

Looking ten years ahead, he expects Israeli innovation to zero in on “deep technologies” with genuine differentiation – quantum computing, advanced AI, new energy infrastructure, and biotech – alongside continued leadership in defense technologies as global demand for security grows.

Innovation Beyond the Battlefield

With that frame in mind, the question becomes: What does Israeli innovation look like when it is no longer defined primarily by the battlefield?

It is easiest to see the answer first in cyberspace. For most people, Israeli innovation is invisible. Yet, every time a suspicious email lands in your spam folder instead of in your inbox, there is a good chance an Israeli engineer helped make that decision.

Outlook runs on Microsoft 365, on cloud patterns devised in Herzliya and Haifa. Gmail accounts are defended by machine‑learning models tuned in Tel Aviv. Even Proton Mail, the Swiss privacy‑first service, has relied on Israeli defenses. For years it depended on Radware, an Israeli cybersecurity and application‑delivery company, to scrub away massive waves of online attacks.

The basic problem is simple. Every major email service is under nonstop attack from hackers and spammers trying to steal passwords, plant viruses, or trick users into sending money.

Filters have to scan billions of messages, check for patterns that look dangerous, and decide whether to let them through, quarantine them, or block them altogether.

Israeli companies and R&D teams have become world leaders in building these “immune systems” for the internet – software that quietly sorts good signals from bad in fractions of a second.

Industry Giants Tied to Israel

Microsoft doesn’t just have an office in Israel. It treats Israel as a strategic development hub. The Microsoft Israel Development Center spans Herzliya, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Nazareth, with thousands of employees working on cybersecurity, AI, big data, and cloud services.

Outlook and Exchange Online do not show an Israeli flag on the login page, but the secure cloud they run on – and the identity‑management and threat‑detection systems that protect them – are heavily shaped by this engineering footprint.

Google’s story is similar. Since 2005, it has built major R&D centers in Tel Aviv and Haifa, staffed by teams that design algorithms used to label spam, spot phishing attempts, and block malicious attachments.

Project Nimbus is a $1.2 billion cloud computing and AI contract awarded to Google and Amazon Web Services by the Israeli government in 2021. It provides the entire Israeli public sector (including civilian ministries and the defense establishment) with advanced cloud infrastructure, date storage, and machine learning capabilities. This deal with the Israeli government is driving new local data‑center builds and security tools. The hard lessons from meeting Israel’s regulatory and security demands feed back into how Google protects its cloud globally.

Even services that advertise themselves as sovereign alternatives to big tech, like Proton Mail, have found that when intense attacks hit, they need Israeli‑grade defenses.

Look to the Future

In the coming years, as work tools rely more heavily on artificial intelligence and as attackers themselves use AI to generate more convincing scams, Israeli cyber innovation is likely to move even deeper into the background.

Startups such as Torq, Cyera, Dream Security, and Cyberdomo are already using AI agents to automate the work of human analysts – spotting odd behavior across a company’s devices, checking where sensitive data is stored and triggering pre‑planned responses within seconds.

To the average user, the experience will remain simple: fewer dangerous emails get through, fewer accounts are hijacked, and more attacks are stopped before they reach the screen.

On the battlefield, the same mindset becomes visible. Israel’s more prominent innovations still sit squarely in the security realm.

Iron Dome and Iron Beam

Iron Dome, the missile defense system that intercepts rockets aimed at Israeli cities, has become a global symbol of high‑tech protection. Now, a new tool has joined it: Iron Beam, a ground‑based laser that can shoot down incoming threats using focused energy instead of explosives.

After more than three decades of development, Iron Beam was declared operational in late 2025 and moved into full‑rate production for the Israel Defense Forces. Integrated with Iron Dome’s management system, the laser neutralizes rockets, mortars, and drones within seconds at ranges of around six miles. 

Each pulse costs only a few dollars, compared with roughly $50,000 for a single Tamir interceptor missile. That gap hints at a future where defending cities against swarms of cheap drones or rockets becomes financially sustainable.

In June 2026, Israel completed tests on an upgraded Iron Dome that fully integrated Iron Beam, allowing commanders to choose in real time whether to fire a missile or a laser, based on the type of threat, system status, and cost.

Officials hope to extend laser coverage to more powerful ballistic missiles as technology improves.

Hybrid Approach

More than any single hardware system, this hybrid defense approach captures Israel’s innovation mindset.

Instead of stacking ever more complex missiles, engineers fuse different methods – kinetic interceptors and directed energy – under one intelligent brain. The same thinking is now migrating into civilian contexts: mixing traditional tools with AI and automation, and shifting from manual reaction to machine‑speed prevention.

If defense tech shows how Israel protects itself today, medical innovation offers a glimpse of how it wants to protect people tomorrow.

A striking recent example comes from Rabin Medical Center in Petach Tikvah, where doctors have begun treating blood cancer patients with Israel’s first fully homegrown CAR‑T therapy for multiple myeloma.

For the first three patients, that has meant watching their own immune cells leave the body, be retrained in the lab, and return as a targeted army against the cancer.

CAR‑T therapy is, at heart, a way of retraining the body’s immune system. Doctors take some of a patient’s own T‑cells – white blood cells that normally help fight infections – and modify them so they can recognize and attack cancer cells that have learned to hide. Those upgraded cells are then returned to the patient, where they hunt down and destroy malignant cells that resist standard treatments.

Until now, many countries have relied on imported protocols and manufacturing to deliver such therapies, which can be expensive and slow. By developing and producing CAR‑T locally at the Samueli Integrative Cancer Pioneering Institute within the Davidoff Cancer Center, Israeli researchers hope to cut costs, shorten turnaround times and tailor treatments to local patient populations.

The first three patients received the therapy without unusual complications and were discharged as planned, with early results showing highly positive responses according to the oncologists.

Health-tech Push

This single case sits inside a broader health‑tech push. At conferences such as MIXiii‑Biomed, Israeli startups showcase tools that bring this mindset into clinics and homes.

One company, for instance, blends hospital imaging records with genetic data to suggest personalized treatment options, helping doctors to spot subtle issues earlier and to tailor care to each patient.

For non‑specialists, the pattern is straightforward. Israel is trying to do for medicine what it did for cybersecurity: build systems that watch continuously, learn from new data, and offer specific, timely interventions rather than generic ones.

Instead of waiting for a problem to become obvious, these tools raise early warning flags – a suspicious shadow in an image, an unusual heartbeat pattern, a drug response that does not follow expected paths.

Business Tools

Beyond healthcare, the same approach is reshaping everyday business tools. At Microsoft’s Ignite conference in November 2025, Israeli R&D groups were credited with leading several flagship AI security and “agentic” products – systems that can act on their own rather than simply answer questions.

One example is the Security Dashboard for AI, which gives companies a single view of all the AI elements they are using: chatbots, decision‑making tools, and automation scripts. Think of it as a control room where a security team can see which digital helpers are running in the background, what data they touch, and whether any of them pose risks.

Israeli engineers helped build the eyes and nerves of that control room – the parts that watch activity, spot anomalies, and channel alerts to human staff.

Outer Space

Perhaps the most dramatic vision of Israel’s future innovation lies off‑planet. In January 2026, Israel launched a national space research and development lab designed as an innovation hub for startups and deep‑space partnerships.

The lab offers shared infrastructure where companies can test new materials, sensors, and autonomous systems destined for orbital and lunar missions.

For small startups that could never afford specialized test facilities, access to simulation environments and flight opportunities with global launch partners dramatically lowers the barrier to entry.

One standout player is Helios, an Israeli startup developing an electrochemical reactor that can extract oxygen and metals from lunar soil.

The idea is simple. Instead of hauling fuel and life‑support oxygen from Earth, future missions could “live off the land,” producing these essentials directly on the Moon.

Oxygen could be used both for breathing and as a component of rocket fuel. Metals could support construction and maintenance. This approach could make longer‑term lunar stays far cheaper and more practical.

Success in Innovation

All of this innovation unfolds against a complex political backdrop. International debates over Israel’s policies, calls for boycotts, and concerns about surveillance and military technology create headwinds for global adoption.

Gill and Cabily do not downplay these realities, but they emphasize that success in innovation is always an uphill battle everywhere. Most startups fail for reasons unrelated to politics, said Gill. Think of technology that does not scale (meaning technology cannot handle a massive increase in users, data, or workload without breaking down, becoming prohibitively expensive, or requiring a full overhaul), markets that do not materialize, or simple timing.
In Israel’s case, political controversies add another layer of challenge, but they are viewed inside the ecosystem as obstacles to be managed rather than insurmountable walls.

The key, according to voices like Zalevsky and the AION Labs team, is long‑term discipline.

The Future

Israel’s innovation community has mapped out where it wants to be in ten years – in biotech, deep technologies, AI, energy, and defense – and is working systematically toward those goals.

Partnerships with global pharma, cloud giants, and space agencies create channels through which Israeli ideas can reach the world even when headlines are hostile.

Taken together, defense lasers, cancer therapies, enterprise agents, and lunar reactors show an ecosystem intent on shaping the infrastructure of global life, not just its battlefields.

Ellen Geller Kamaras

Do you listen, really listen, when people talk?

Sadly, listening is becoming a lost art.

In today’s high-tech world, there are many digital distractions.  Listening skills have deteriorated with the impulse to multitask and due to people’s tendency to rush in with a response without processing and understanding what the other person said. Poor listening means it’s difficult to have a true empathetic conversation with another.

Here’s good news – listening is a learnable skill.

The ability to listen, pause before you reply, validate what the other person is saying, and not rush in with advice or your own personal experience, is a skill that takes a lot of intention and practice.  

True listening makes us genuine and caring individuals. Many respected leaders including rabbis, business and nonprofit CEOs, and elected officials view listening as a key skill for their success.  The benefits are building trust, improving problem-solving, and creating strong relationships and communication.

Listening empathically is a skill. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It’s about putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. 

When you  disclose something important to a friend and you are interrupted or your friend pivots the conversation towards him or herself, you can politely stop them and ask, “Did you hear what I just said?” It is best not to judge, and to appreciate the other positive attributes.  Perhaps there is something else going on in their life that prevents them from focusing.

Coaching professors teach the mnemonic “WAIT,” Why Am I Talking?    A coach is expected to listen to his or her clients and to ask powerful open-ended questions that encourage insights and reflection. 

True Listening

Authentic listening is one of the most valuable gifts we can present to another.  Listening versus advice or solutions. Rabbis, therapists, and leaders agree that the first step to healing, trust, and cooperation is frequently that step of feeling heard. 

Feeling heard means having your thoughts, emotions, and experiences acknowledged and validated.  It goes beyond the physical act of listening. It is the subjective experience of feeling understood and taken seriously, even if the other person doesn’t necessarily agree with your perspective. 

True listening enables connecting to another person and demonstrates love.  When you actively listen to your spouse, a child, or friend, you are creating a safe space for them to talk freely and feel valued.

Ask More, Tell Less

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski, z”l, a respected rabbi and psychiatrist, taught that listening is one of the greatest gifts you can give.  Often, people do not need advice. They need someone to hear them without interruption. 

Counseling professionals encourage family members to ask questions instead of rushing to offer solutions.  Solutions can create resistance whereas questions invite dialogue, for example, what worries you the most?

Therapists strive to listen without judgment and to listen with their eyes and ears, and practice active listening. They use their eyes to notice nuances, a client’s body language, tone, breathing, pauses, and shifts in energy.  Listening is a tool used to build the client’s trust, understand emotions, and to help them heal.  Trust and empathy are the pillars of therapeutic listening and allow the client to express themselves freely.

Life coaches are trained to listen actively.  Active listening is defined as focusing completely on what the client says and leaves unsaid.

Active listening is more than just hearing words or repeating them back. It is about deep curiosity. Like a mirror, a coach reflects the client’s words back to them, allowing the client to look at their own thoughts from a new angle.

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work and is a Professor of Practice in Management at the University of Texas. She is best known for her work on vulnerability, empathy, and leadership.  She highlights the importance of listening without judgment.  She teaches that people feel connected when they experience empathy, and empathy begins with listening.  Listen to understand others in the exact same way we want to be understood. Brown cautions against listening just to reply or waiting for your turn to speak. Effective listening requires empathy, holding a safe space, and staying non-judgmental.

An Essential Leadership Skill

Experts share that the most effective leaders listen differently than their peers. They listen for understanding and not just for information. They listen with their full concentration and listen to learn what they don’t know yet.

The most expensive leadership mistake isn’t a bad strategic decision – it’s failing to listen effectively. Harvard Business School reports that when employees feel genuinely heard at work, they experience greater internal motivation, increased creativity, and stronger engagement.

Community leaders use listening to build trust, clearly understand needs before offering solutions, foster engagement and understanding, reduce division, strengthen relationships across differences, and create buy-in for decisions.

President Abraham Lincoln was known for hearing out people with whom he disagreed. He surrounded himself with advisers who held different opinions and listened to them before making decisions.

How Do We Reclaim the Art of Listening?

Be totally present.  Shut your phone. Turn your whole body toward the speaker.

Always allow the person to finish speaking and pause before you reply.  Show you value what the speaker is saying.  Suppress the urge to interrupt or formulate an argument.  This takes patience and practice.

Restate what the speaker is saying in your own words to ensure you understood correctly.  Ask open-ended questions that start with how, what, or why.  They encourage meaningful responses versus yes or no answers. For example, ask, “How did that make you feel?”

I leave you with my favorite tool, the THINK model.  Before you speak, THINK: Is it true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, kind?

T Is it true?

H Is it helpful?

I   Is it inspiring?

N Is it necessary?

K Is it kind?

Ellen Geller Kamaras, CPA/MBA, is an International Coach Federation (ICF) Associate Certified Coach. Her coaching specialties include life, career, and dating coaching. Ellen can be contacted at ellen.kamaras@gmail.com (www.lifecoachellen.com).