Archive for Holidays
Santa putting on Tefillin for the first time!
Posted by: | CommentsNow if this is not better than selling ice to Eskimos than I don’t know what is!
Santa Putting on Teffilin for the First Time
Yakov Jacobson was doing pre-Chanukah mivzoim in Laguna Beach, CA, when he happened upon a familiar character who – he was surprised to find out – is a Jew! The man had never put on tefilin before, a ‘Karkafta,’ and Yakov helped him do the mitzvah for the first time in his life.
Breaking News: Jerusalem Post Purchases Israpreneur
Posted by: | CommentsI am very excited to announce that The Jerusalem Post has purchased our blog, Israpreneur. According to our agreement I will not be able to disclose the purchase amount, but it is in the seven figure mark. I will continue to write for the blog and posts will be integrated into the Jerusalem Post website.
It makes perfect sense for Jpost as they will get high quality writing from the view of an entrepreneur on the ground in Israel and it makes sense for me as it gives me wider circulation. It’s also great for the readers as we will be producing more quality content including a weekly video show. There are a lof exciting things coming down the pipe.
Happy Purim Everyone! 
Not enough sufganiot (donut) bakers in Israel is reading Israpreneur
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Last year I wrote a chanukah complaint about the lack of donuts that had some serious cream inside and although there are more and new flavors coming out every year, there is still a lack of what I call the 80/20 donut rule and that is that 80% of the donut should be filling and 20% should be dough.
You can read my thoughts on this from last year here: http://israpreneur.com/i-want-my-custard-doughnut-filled-with-cream/
Now it could be that I didn’t get a chance to check out all the bakeries this year and my dream donut may still be available. If it is, can you please let me know in the comments? Also let me know if you have found the “perfect donut” and where you can get it and why.
To all my readers I want to wish you a Happy Chanukah!
Video: Really great pre Yom Kippur inspirational video
Posted by: | CommentsTo all my dear readers,
I want to wish you all a meaningful fast and a year full of success and seeing your dreams comes true.
Enjoy the video!
http://www.aish.com/h/hh/yk/60649942.html
Shana Tova to all our Israpreneur readers
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Shana Tova to all our readers! This year, for the first time, and with the sincere pushing of my wife, I will be going to Uman for Rosh HaShana. So I will be off line for a few days, but on behalf of Israpreneur, I wanted to wish everyone a very happy New Year and from a business standpoint may this year e a year full of blessings and success for everyone!
Israel 61
Start-ups come in all shapes and sizes. Most are for profit companies trying to make a living while others are non-profit start-ups trying to make the world a better place.
Then there is something just a wee bit larger and probably more difficult and that is starting up an actual country or state. That is no easy task for anyone.
I just watched a powerful DVD put out by Rabbi Berel Wein’s Jewish Destiny organization as part of their Faith & Fate series. This one was called “The Miracle of Israel” focusing on the years 1945-1948.
It just under two hours this amazing presentation showed the Jewish People from right after the Holocaust to the founding of the State of Israel. They did a remarkable job of showing how much the odds were against the State to even get started and once they did get started to even survive their first year of existence. The world and the odds were against them from the beginning.
Imagine enduring the holocaust and then having no where else to go. No one wants you and the British will only let 1500 Jews a month get into “Palestine”. Then the world finally feels guilty enough to allow the Jews to have their own home land and for the first time in almost 2000 years the Jews finally come home. They are week and exhausted and the land was not exactly the metroplois that it is today to say the least. Yet the Start-up Founders of the State of Israel relaised that they had no place else to go and so had no choice but to succeed.
61 years later we can look back at this start-up with tremendous pride. There are books written and the amazing success in almost every area of Israeli life and this post is not about all the achievements that are well known and documneted elsewhere. But since this is a magazine about being an entrepreneur in Israel, we should look at the two biggest factors that made Israel such a success; and if you can apply these two things to your start-up then for sure you will succeed.
1. Backs against the wall – as mentioned above there was no where else to go and their lives were literraly on the line. Is that how you feel about your start-up?
2. A Promise from G-D and daily miracles – This is probably the best way to success, if you can get the Creator of the world to promise you that you will succeed and if G-D will perform the crazy amount of miracles that has been shown to Israel every day since it’s inception, then you too will succeed with your start-up.
Happy Birthday Israel, lets hope we can finally get out of beta.
Segula for Parnossa: This Shabbos is Shlissel Challah Shabbos! Get your keys ready!
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There is a well known segulah (charm) for parnosa (making a living) that takes place this Shabbos. The Shabbos following the last day of Pesach it has become a minhag to bake Challahs either in the shape of a key or to actually insert your key into the Challah before baking (make sure to wrap it in tinfoil first). It is called Shlissel Challah. Hey, in todays economy it certainly can’t hurt. I believe the object to be that we recognize that parnossa comes from Hashem and we rely on him for our well being. Since Pesach is the start of the Spring time, it is now the times that crops should be ready after the winter. We have been doing it almost every year since we are married and I look forward to my wifes fresh Shlissel Chalah on Shabbos.
Please pass over the opportunity to rip us off
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Now I know that Passover is one of the most expensive times of year. Believe me I know. There is a reason why they call Matzah Poor Mans Bread. Now I can understand why some things are more expensive during this time of year. There is an expense in creating products that are only useful for 7 days a year, but don’t jack up prices if there is no reason too just to make a bit more money off of those that need it most.
I’ll just give one example because it happened to my wife. Last week she took the car to the same car wash we always go to which is probably about 3 times a year including right before Passover. Now the normal cost for our Van is 80 NIS for cleaning both inside and out. It is the same amount of work any time of year and they don’t do anything extra because it is soon to be Pesach. So this time when my wife drops off the car she asks how much it is and this guy tell her 150 NIS. Almost double what is normal! Now it was not like there were hundreds of cars waiting to get in to be cleaned. So my wife complanied how come so much. He said “ok, 120 NIS”. Just like that he dropped it 30 NIS. My wife was still not happy with being robbed so she went in to speak to the manager and told her what happened. The manager answered “ok 100 NIS”. So just like that they dropped the price 50 NIS and not wanting to argue anymore we accepted to pay 20 NIS more as a PPP (pre-Pesch-Premium).
Now this bugs me because what if the next person in line didn’t say anything? It seems they look at Americans and assume we would be willing to pay more because we can??? (I guess they don’t read the Wall-Street Journal). There was no posted price list and it seemed they were just looking for suckers to take advantage of. Not what I call good business!
Thinking about Purim
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Growing up Purim was one of the most exciting and happiest days of the year. I will never forget the community Purim Seudah where the highlights were the costume contest and the C.H.I.P.S. cap gun fights we use to play.
Another of the highlights was the dining room table lined with MiShloach Manos (gift baskets) filled with Hamantashen, candy and other assorted junk.
Mishloach Manos changed a bit with the creation of the Shaloch Manos Express created by the Young Israel of Passaic-Clifton that now exists in virtually every frum community in the States and in Israel. Instead of preparing 75 different packages to give out, the Shaloch Manos Express allowed you to pay a couple of bucks per family and the Shul would give out a basket of goodies to each family in the congregation with a list of the names of the other families that contributed to that package.
As a kid this really stunk since that meant instead of getting 50 baskets of food you only got about 20 packages of food. As an adult and a father of 5 I can really a
ppreciate this system. And this year I signed up for two such programs in the community which covers about 80% of the people I wanted to give to. Everyone wins as this project also acts as a fundraiser for the Shul.
But there are still the other 20% or in my case about 25 families that I want to give to that are not on the lists and usually we try to make a nice gift to go out.
But this year is different. This year the economic situation is hurting everyone. This year giving more money to charity is a better option than making nice gift baskets. So while we will give our smaller gifts this year, we hope to give more to Tzeddaka this year. In fact that would probably be a good suggestion for everyone.
What do you plan on doing?
