“The day after, there will be peace agreements, and the economy will boom. There will be massive immigration to Israel. If you need to invest in Israel, this is the time to invest in Israel.”
That’s what Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi told a group of impact investors from the US and South America visiting Israel earlier this month in a delegation organized by Israel Tech Mission and J-Ventures. According to the founder of Israel Tech Mission, $10 million has been invested in Israel as a direct result of the trip.
“I think we are looking at a great era for the Jewish people,” Avivi told the group. “But in order to reach this point, we need to stay united and fight, fight and win decisively.”
In the conference room overlooking the beaches of Tel Aviv, the delegation listened attentively to Avivi. Their visit to Israel was no mere pleasure trip, but rather an attempt to understand the post-October 7 reality in Israel and seek their next venture in the Jewish state’s massive startup sphere.
J-Ventures, the largest Jewish investment fund in the world, styles itself as a “capitalist kibbutz.” The network of nearly 500 leaders from dozens of Jewish communities makes decisions together about how to invest funds amounting to $75 million. The group’s Israel Emergency Philanthropic Fund provides support to over 20 organizations across Israel, including the Hostages Family Forum and kibbutzim that were invaded on October 7, 2023.
Founded in the wake of October 7
For the trip, the group partnered with Israel Tech Mission, an organization founded in the wake of the October 7 attacks to strengthen Israel’s economy and bring American investors to Israel. The trip’s participants traveled to sites of the October 7 attacks in southern Israel, met with Israeli soldiers, and spoke with leading innovators in Israeli tech and enterprise.
David Nakar, Israel Tech Mission’s executive director, told The Media Line that his group has brought nearly 200 executives to Israel across five missions—an especially impressive feat considering how few airlines were flying to Israel.
“Really, the biggest thing I’ve learned is that people want to show their support for Israel,” Nakar said.
He described Israel Tech Mission’s ideal participant as “somebody who isn’t Jewish or somebody who hasn’t been to Israel in forever, and the idea is to connect them to Israel.”
“The trip is to show people that not only is Israel a place where your investment is safe, but that it’s a place that’s worth investing in,” Nakar said. “And when you bring them here and they experience what there is to experience, and you take them down south and you take them immediately after to see the innovation in Tel Aviv, despite the war, it makes them all the more willing to invest.”
Oded Hermoni, one of the founders of J-Ventures, emphasized the importance of investment in Israel’s private sector as a way of supporting the Jewish state. “Without the startup nation, all these Iron Domes, all this wealth of Israel, all this strength of Israel, will go back to the desert,” Hermoni told The Media Line. “So investing in Israeli companies, investing in Israeli funds, investing in the Israeli future and the present. is not less important than investing in more tanks or investing in more airplanes.”
Hermoni was born and raised in Israel, where he served as an officer in the Israeli military and later worked as a journalist at Haaretz. He is now based in Silicon Valley.
J-Ventures, Hermoni said, “was created because we anticipated that one day the Diaspora Jews will face antisemitism, Israel will face isolation. And we thought how we connect American Jews and diaspora Jews and Israelis. We did it through shared investments.”
“We’re investing in the best companies in Israel or in Silicon Valley,” Hermoni said. “But this creates engagement—people are not just investing; they are part of the kibbutz.”
One of J-Ventures’ investors, Guy Miasnik, led the mission alongside Hermoni. A serial entrepreneur, Miasnik started his first company in Israel, where he grew up. After that company was acquired, he moved to the US, where he started two more successful businesses and became very involved in the Jewish community.
Miasnik spoke to The Media Line after traveling with the delegation to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the Israeli communities on the border with the Gaza Strip. During the October 7 Hamas attacks, 62 Kfar Aza residents were killed and 19 were taken hostage.
“I’m looking at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, but I’m looking, really, at all of what I’m seeing in the south and in general in Israel,” Miasnik said. “And I’m actually seeing a huge business opportunity.”
All the drastic rebuilding needed in Israel will bring positive changes, he said, noting that “this is the time to invest.” Key areas for investment in Israel include enterprise systems, cyber, defense, and food tech, he said.
“Typically, Israel viewed the US and the American Jewry as, ‘You give us money and then sit down and stay there.’ And it’s time to change. It’s time to change because if there’s anything that we are realizing, this is all part of one big fight, one big war,” Miasnik said.
Among the delegation, tech investor Ilana Golan—born in the US and raised in Israel—offered a personal perspective on the challenges facing communities struck by conflict. Reflecting on her long career in Silicon Valley, she remarked, “Now I’m in Silicon Valley for a couple of decades, but I used to bring Israeli companies into the US market.”
Yet, the war’s aftermath is acutely felt on the ground. “We heard here in Kfar Azza that the government still has not come through with money to help rebuild,” she noted, referring to ongoing efforts in reestablishing kibbutzim. “We all need to come together and try to brainstorm. How do we make this better, faster?”
When asked whether she would address October 7 on her popular podcast, Golan confessed, “It’s a really good question. The truth is I lost my words on October 7, and I paused my podcast for six months. I could just not get myself to do it.”
Among the participants in the trip was Stephanie Glenn, executive vice president at Salesforce.
“Being here and hearing it directly from Israelis, everyone from my taxi driver on the way from the airport to the tour guide to people in the kibbutz, hearing it firsthand, that’s really why I decided to come,” Glenn told The Media Line. “It changes the narrative immediately because once you sort of bear witness and get to hear what the daily life is, you can be very sympathetic.”
Alongside the desire to bear witness to the realities of the October 7 attacks, another motivating factor behind Glenn’s participation was the desire to connect her work in high tech with what’s going on in Israel. Glenn said she was hoping to find “what we can do as high-tech executives to continue to invest in what is an incredible, incredible economy that has a bright future, and that hopefully we can be part of that future.”
“There is this sense of desire to rebuild,” Glenn said.