Tisha B’av

Whatsup TAMIDniks,

Another fun week at TAMID and REAL Housing. At REAL Housing, I’m working hard to finish up some of the materials that I’ve been preparing for banks, investors, and clients. It’s been an amazing experience, and I still have another week and a half to work and learn.

On the TAMID side of things, our friend and founder of GreenRoad Hod Fleishman hooked us up with TechAviv, a club of founders of high-tech startups in Israel that meets monthly. We went to one of their meetings and presented TAMID to over 200 Israeli entrepreneurs–and wow were we received well. It’s hard for Israeli businesspeople to resist TAMID’s vision–connecting students on campus in America with businesses in Israel. After the presentation, these amazingly talented individuals were all clamoring to get a word in with us.  It’s so nice to see TAMID’s message resonate with Israeli businesspeople.

pitching TAMID at TechAviv

A special shoutout to Hod for making the connection, Founder of CrowdSpot and organizer of TechAviv Yaron Samid for graciously hosting us, and Yosi Taguri for being a champion. Mr. Taguri presented his company FiddMe, a mobile application that lets people share photos and reviews of food. His pitch was so funny, and he is so clearly passionate about his work. Plus, he is quickly becoming a great friend of TAMID and we’ll be having dinner with him next week in Tel Aviv.

Sandwiched by CrowdSpot/TechAviv founder Yaron Samid and GreenRoad Founder Hod Fleishman

The five fellows were featured in the Jerusalem Post last week!   http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=181980

Jon and I also had a chance to spend quality time with some students from Harvard here on a summer of study abroad at Hebrew University. Among them was Zander Sebenius, who will be one of the leaders of TAMID@Harvard next year. But a more pleasant surprise, just this summer Zander recruited more buddies from his study abroad program to work on TAMID’s Harvard launch. They were all very excited and more important–raised a lot of great questions and had a lot of great ideas. We’re fast approaching the point where TAMID is nationwide.

Last week we also observed Tisha B’av together. Tisha b’av in Jerusalem is an amazing experience; it’s a day when the Jewish people come together to lament the loss of Temple-era Judaism, and we were in the place where that loss occurred. We went to a panel discussion organized by the Jerusalem Challenge, featuring local leaders. The topic was making Jerusalem a better place, and the whole atmosphere was very forward thinking. Each speaker looked to improve Jerusalem for the next generation.

Then we went to the Western Wall, the actual site of the destroyed Temple. There, the throngs of people mourning with kinot prayers brought us a very different kind of experience–a gut-wrenching connection to the past. These two experiences combined put things in perspective. To paraphrase Aharon Horowitz, one of the panelists who is co-director of PresenTense and a good friend of TAMID: in order for the Jewish people to make progress, we must first engage our national narrative. In other words, embracing a common history will lead us to a happier common future. TAMID is an organization that is all about improving the Jewish future, and a day like Tisha B’av was so important for us to reflect on what exactly that means.

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