What made you decide to do that? And what was it like for you and for your family?

I mean, it was an easy decision.

It was a decision that I made when I was 20, and I decided that though I was in college in the United States, I knew that my future was going to be living in this country, and I wanted to feel like I had paid my dues and earned my spot.

And so when I joined the Army, briefly because I was in the middle of college, I did it with a thought that if ever the call should come, I would be trained and prepared to answer.

I did not expect that that day would actually come.

And in fact, when we moved back to Israel the second time, I reached out to my commanding officer and I said, I'm back.

Put me on the roster.

How did you get to the point where you decided that you want to share your thoughts? How did you find the time and energy? And what impact did you see from it?

Of which year?

2024.

Okay.

After that first round was what our students were doing.

which is totally off my radar scheme because our programs are essentially teach students about Israel through the prism of business and then give them the opportunity to work with Israelis either remotely through projects with the startups from campus or our sort of best and brightest come to Israel for the summer and do an internship at Tel Aviv.

I've written about this, but there's a very common phrase in Israel to get under the stretcher.

And it comes from basic training in the army.

Are these predominantly Jewish students? What's the population? Mostly

But saying, "I would rather die than serve in the army," seems like a, you know, level much further.

Well, it's a very complicated, uh, subject obviously.

Look, the, the exemption to serve, um, for the Haredi population dates back to the beginning of the state of Israel, uh, when the Haredi community was much, much smaller.

Um, and I think a large part of it was this, um, was this concept, this spiritual concept that the, the land of Israel is defended not only by, uh, by guns and armor, but by spiritual strength.

And so there, there was this idea that these would be the sort of the, the elite spiritual, uh, leaders.

These would be the, the Haredi population that while their, um, fellow 18, 19, 20 year olds would go off to war, they would go to houses of study, they would go to yeshivas, and that would strengthen Israel spiritually.

And as a religious Jew, as a, as a modern Orthodox Jew, I completely identify with that idea.

But, you know, and then I'll, uh, you know, stop belaboring the point there.

Mm.

I went to business school, and, um, and not long after I graduate, I find myself interviewing for a job with sophomores and juniors in college, and, um, and they explain they also...

They, they came to college, they wanted people to think a certain way about Israel, and they immediately realized nobody cares.

People didn't come to college to form opinions about Israel, and if they want them to be connected to Israel, they need to figure out what they're interested in and make Israel a part of that.

And I was like, "Yeah, but you figured it out at 19, and I'm just figuring that out now." And so what they did is they created a program which started as a club, and it's all about reaching out to students who want to be successful in their careers, and saying to them, "You wanna be successful? You should learn from the smartest people in the world, the most innovative people in the wor- world, the most entrepreneurial people in the world.

These are Israelis." And so all of Tamid's programs are, are p- are focused on that idea.

So I'll, I'll explain.

Mm-hmm.