The Israelis (part 2)
As I wrote about last week, big thanks to University of Michigan Hillel executive director Michael Brooks for providing each of the TAMID Fellows with a copy of Donna Rosenthal’s book The Israelis. He recommended that we all read the chapter called “Swords into Stock Shares,” which profiles Israeli business culture.
The chapter’s driving point is that, in Israel, business is a great unifier. Despite Israel’s pressure cooker environment of ethnic, religious, and political special interest groups–in business, numbers do the talking.
A
lpha Omega Biomedical Engineering is open every day. On Christmas, on Id al-Adha (the Islamic Feast of the Sacrifice), on Yom Kippur. Someone is always around explains Imad, because the staff celebrate different holidays–different Sabbaths, different Christmases and Easters, different New Years. On this day, some forty Muslims and Christan Arabs and Jews on staff are in voting booths. The kaleidoscopic choice of thirty national parties reflects a fragmented society. “Politics and religion, we don’t talk about that,” Imad says with a sigh, reflecting weariness and wariness. “We have conflicts here, but not about that. Our fights are between our marketing and R&D departments. Right now we’re battling against time–getting orders out.”
We’re getting a wide exposure to Israeli diversity here. From soccer with Sudanese immigrants to a Shabbat with an Orthodox community in Jerusalem to the left wing bubble of Northern Tel Aviv–we’re seeing a wide variety of perspectives and personalities.
