Hillel Fuld: The PR War, Rising Antisemitism & Why Jews Should Move to Israel

None of this makes any sense. After October 7th, I realized this is so far from rational that it's clearly not a man-made situation. And the state of Israel needs someone who can access the tech world. So I shut down the business and kind of refocused everything I'm doing on Israel advocacy.

Very sad because you think after something so horrific that any rational nation would have carpet bombed Gaza on day one, you know?

All I'll say is that I think that October 7th removed the mask for many, many people who were closeted antisemites, and now they're very much out of the closet.

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Profit or Pivot podcast. My guest today, Hillel Fold, is a strategic advisor to dozens of Israeli startups. He is a writer and columnist for publications in the startup world such as TechCrunch and VentureBeat, and he is a social media superstar amassing hundreds of thousands of followers following the October 7th terrorist attack in Israel for his advocacy for Israel online. He's here to discuss why Israel punches above its weight as the startup nation, why Israel fails in the PR game online, the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and what Jews and other people should be doing to help Israel in its ongoing PR war. He's also going to talk about the mood in Israel today, the rise of antisemitism from across the political spectrum, and many, many other topics. Yoel, it's so good to see you. First, you know, tell me and the audience your story. How did you get involved in supporting Israeli startups and doing Israel advocacy online.

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Sure. Uh, born and raised in New York, in Queens, moved to Israel when I was 15, middle of high school, and, uh, always had a love for technology. Started what we call today blogging about 20 years ago. At the time, that wasn't a word and definitely wasn't a business. Uh, just had thoughts on technology and started to write them on the internet. And, uh, pretty quickly entrepreneurs would reach out. Uh, I'd meet them, try to help in any way I can. And really that just led to me working with companies as a, as an advisor. Pretty, you know, quickly scaling business. On October 7th, I realized that, you know, the State of Israel needs someone who can access the tech world. Not many people have the ear of the tech world. So I shut down the business and kind of refocused everything I'm doing on Israel advocacy. That's the story.

You were well known in the tech world before, but I think October 7th, you developed a much wider audience. You gained hundreds of thousands, if not more, followers on social media. What really changed after October 7th from your point of view, your perspective on Israel, the Arab Muslims in Judea and Samaria, and Gaza, the West, just how did you frame everything?

I mean, for me, you know, I used to get very frustrated by all the hatred and all the, you know, the lies. But after October 7th, I realized this is so far from rational that it's clearly not a man-made situation. So I stopped getting frustrated because I know that God's running the show. I don't know why he does the things that he does. You know, after October 7th, the world should have been on our side. They should have loved us more, not hated us more. So none of this makes any sense. All I'll say is that I think that October 7th removed the mask for many, many people who were closeted antisemites, and now they're very much out of the closet.

Right. And, you know, that's something I noticed as well. Like, I think the West broadly gave us about a week to mourn. But then after that, it was back to status quo. You know, let's just demonize Israel and everything they do. It was kind of very sad because you think after something so horrific that any rational nation would have carpet bombed Gaza. Day one, you know?

Yep. Yep.

And yeah, it's pretty, pretty sad. Do you have anything to share about kind of Israel's security failures that day? What do we know? Like from your perspective as someone who's like basically a journalist also, like what happened? Like how did this come to be?

So, I mean, I don't think anybody has the answers quite yet. First of all, there was definitely a cultural element of Israeli mentality of, as we say in Hebrew, yabised, which means, eh, it'll be okay. It's just kind of how Israel runs itself, and it works in most areas. You know, in entrepreneurship, when someone says you can't do something, and Israelis are like, yeah, I could do it. It would be okay. I'll build it. You know, but when it comes to security, not the best strategy. So that's first of all, there was definitely an element of, yeah, Hamas is scared. They're not going to do anything. It will be okay. There's that. There's definitely more than meets the eye, though. I mean, there's definitely, you know, there's conspiracies. I don't know anything more than you know, but I think it's pretty widely accepted that there was someone on the inside who helped them. I definitely have my theories. I'm not going to say them publicly because people are going to think I'm crazy, but I definitely have my theories about people that were very, very vocally against Bibi and proved time and time again that they would do anything to bring him down. And some of these people are very well-decorated soldiers. Let's just leave it at that. And if anyone had the ability to shut down the IDF's systems all at once so that Hamas will do what they were going to do, I I don't believe that these people thought it would be that bad, but I do believe there was some help from the inside. And, um, I think that a lot is going to clear up over the next couple years when we really do an in-depth investigation into what happened that day.

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people, especially, uh, not especially, but also people in the diaspora, people like me who are Israeli— I was born in Israel but I lived in Canada my whole life— and, you know, obviously we feel the pain of what's going on. It's just like, how the hell did this happen? You know, some accountability on that. Doesn't seem like there's been any accountability yet, and it's just like, when is that going to happen, you know?

Well, I mean, that's a, that's a, that's a heated, heated topic. Um, when you say accountability, I assume you mean Bibi.

I mean accountability to whoever's responsible. It doesn't have to be Bibi. I have no idea, right? Just like you.

I mean, listen, I, I, you know, I'm not, as they call in Israel, a Bibiist, right? I'm not like Mr. Rah-Rah Bibi. Um, but my son gave me a pretty accurate analogy. He said if like a CEO of a company hires like the best security team there is and the security team basically fails one day and they get a massive break-in and, you know, things are stolen, whatever, I mean, yeah, the CEO should, you know, speak about it. He should take some accountability, but at the end of the day, it's the security team that failed that day. And so again, yes, as Prime Minister, the buck stops with him and he should definitely take some sort of accountability, but the thought that Bibi should he should step down, even though there's no one that could replace him or even close to his abilities, I think is a ridiculous sentiment. And I think that the hypocrisy there is that the same people who are claiming that he's the head and therefore he should take accountability, somehow when it comes to all the incredible accomplishments and achievements of Israel over the last 2 years, all of a sudden he's not the head. All of a sudden he doesn't get credit for the good things. He should only take accountability for the bad things. So the hypocrisy is what bothers me. But yeah, there's definitely a lot of questions to be answered.

Right. And I have— I don't just say this because it's on a podcast or whatever. I'm very vocal about my opinions when I have them. I have very little opinion on Bibi and his responsibility for, for this. My father happens to like him very much. My father is a decorated soldier himself in the IDF, and he calls him King Bibi. You know, he loves him. So he thinks he's great. My only opinion—

I mean, I think he's objectively one of the best diplomats of our generation, I think.

Yeah, he's obviously done quite— like, if you look at Israel's strategic position now versus before October 7th, it's, it's hard to imagine that, let's say on October 8th, that things would have happened the way they've happened. And in a positive way for Israel, at least in a raw military sense and strategic sense. Except on the PR front, it seems like it's gotten much, much worse. And that's, that's also something I want to talk to you about because you're spending a lot of time on social media. And it seems like the front lines on social media, Israel's losing. What's your perspective on that? Do you think there's— why is Israel losing the PR front if they are? What's your perspective on that?

So, you know, when, when building a company of any kind, the first thing you need to ask yourself is who's your target audience, right? Who's your target audience for this product you're building? So that's the first question we need to ask ourselves. So who are we trying to quote unquote convince, right? So I think the way I see it, there are three, three groups on the internet, right? There's our group, which, you know, we don't need convincing, but we need reinforcing. We need more information. We need more knowledge. Then there's the opposite group, the people who are just lost. Like there's no talking to them. The Heil Hitler folks, right? The, the crazies, the Candace Owens of the world, Tucker Carlsons, the Andrew Tates, the crazies. You could show them, you know, till you're blue in the face that the sky is blue and they're going to keep saying the sky is brown. There's no, like, the sky is a conspiracy of Israel and the Jews.

That's what they'll say.

Right. So there are those people. Then there's the middle group. The middle group, I believe, based on my anecdotal evidence, uh, is the biggest group by far. And that is people who are not necessarily pro-Israel, but they're people who have integrity. They're people who are willing to listen, learn, and admit that they don't know everything. And those are the people that I'm targeting. And you'd be surprised. I know that, you know, in the media, whether it's traditional legacy media or social media, we look like we're being obliterated. And I'm not saying we're not, but I think that it's important to identify who, who we're targeting. In other words, if you're looking at the crazies, then yeah, we're being obliterated. Like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, you know, Piers Morgan, they have millions and millions. Yeah, we're losing that. But are we even like talking to those people? Like, do we have any chance of talking to those people? I don't think we do. But if you look at the middle group, I believe Again, I don't think we're winning this by any means, and I'll tell you why in a second. But I don't think it's as bad as it seems on media because again, media, we know media works. Media needs to— it depends on extremism. It depends on poison and hatred and division. All the algorithms depend on that. So it makes it seem like we're— and by the way, just like we're seeing, you know, the other side, the other side is seeing our side, right? That's what the algorithms do. They're there to get a rise out of you so that you stick around, right? So that's important to mention. But I do believe that we I think first and foremost, Israelis in general are not good at telling stories. I mean, that's basically how I built my career. Like, Israelis are just not good at that. I'll sit with an engineer and he'll tell me, you know, I ask him what he does and he'll tell me about his algorithm. And I'm like, dude, what do you do? Like, you know, so that's first and foremost, Israelis are not good at telling stories. That being said, our enemies have a very clear narrative and it's a very easy to consume narrative. Now, is it true? No, but it doesn't matter because you can be 3 years old or you could be 98 years old and you're able to understand You are oppressing us. Free Palestine. That's easy. Anybody can get that, right? We're indigenous to this land. The world hates us. The world— this is a lot more complicated of a narrative, and it's not an easy narrative to tell. So first of all, we're not good at telling stories. Second of all, we haven't defined the story. And this is something that, you know, I am working tirelessly at to define our narrative, because I do believe we have a great story. We're just, you know, every— if you look at Israel advocates, you look at the people fighting, everyone's yelling something else. And all of those things are very important. Oh, the New York Times hates us, media bias, antisemitism. They're all important, but our enemies have media kits. They have PDFs, they have Zoom calls. They are very well coordinated and orchestrated. Anybody who thinks that All Eyes on Rafah just came to be is kidding themselves, right? They're very well coordinated. And if I was hiring a marketing agency for my startup, I'd hire my enemies in a second. So we have to get it together. We have to sit, get some of the brightest minds in the world into a room to define our narrative and then figure out how we're gonna tell it, because right now We're not just losing, we're being obliterated. Like they're coming at us with pictures of decapitated babies that you and I know are AI generated, but they're coming at us with those images and our response is, yeah, but we invented cherry tomatoes. Like we're not even playing the same sport. We need to get on the same playing field first and foremost. So it's a mixture of a lot of things. Uh, but again, it's important to emphasize we're not, we're not gonna get to the crazies. Like let's not even waste our time trying to. The middle group is who we need to talk to.

Right. So I was doing Israel advocacy on campus when I was in university, something like 15 years ago. I was president of Hillel at the most antisemitic university in Canada, York University, with 5,000 Jewish students. And something I learned during my time there was that the people, like you said, there's a group of people that just don't care. And most people just don't care and they're very passive. But the people that hate Israel, they're lying usually and they don't care about the truth. They're there to push a very specific agenda. And the truth is like not even on the list of things they care about. Really blackpilled me, to say the least. It's like, what are we even doing here with Hasbara? Like this Israel advocacy. And I changed my entire focus to— for the Jewish people. It's like showing about how Israel is great actually is directed towards the Jewish people that are confused, and maybe even using that as a platform to bring them closer to the Jewish community and to Torah and all those things. That's kind of how I use Hasbara, which was very effective, I think.

I just had a call, literally just got off a phone call with an entrepreneur who's building a cool platform, whatever, doesn't matter what it is, but it basically provides facts and how the blood libels aren't true and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, you're solving, like, you're not, this isn't the, the problem isn't that antisemites don't know the facts. The problem is they don't care about facts. Like, you can prove to them till you're blue in the face that we're indigenous to this land, that the state of Palestine never existed, an Arab state never, you could show them anything you want. They're not interested in facts. Like, you know, he's like, oh, you could show them that Candace Owens is an anti-Semite so they don't follow her. I'm like, dude, like, you think that anyone's going to say, oh, oh, wow, I didn't know that. Okay, I'll stop following her now. That's not the problem, right? And it's a real problem that just facts don't matter. We're living in a post-truth world. Facts don't get algorithms. Facts don't get clicks. And so people just don't care about facts anymore. And it's just tragic. And I'll tell you something even more. And I'll preface this by saying maybe this is a bit Not, not maybe, this is a bit slightly controversial. And if you know, this offends anyone, I apologize in advance. But you know, when you talk about issues like trans, right? And pronouns. Now, when someone wants to be called a pronoun, call them a pronoun. Like, what do you care? It doesn't cost you anything. Like he wants, he wants to be called she, call him she. He wants to be called a cat, call him a cat. What do you care? Like, why, why offend someone if they want to be called that? Call that. There's no price. The answer is there's a very steep price. And the price is teaching a generation not to use critical thinking. And when you are looking at a man and calling it a woman, what you're in essence doing is telling your brain, don't believe what you see, don't believe facts, don't use critical thinking. And so when it comes to pronouns, big deal. But when you teach a generation not to use critical thinking, then all of a sudden they cannot differentiate between a group of rapists and pedophiles, a.k.a. Hamas, and a nation that just wants to live in peace because you told them yesterday not to use their brains. And now Now they're not using their brains, and now they cannot differentiate between good and evil, even though it's, you know, it's in their face. But you taught them not to think. And so that's the real problem here. People are not using critical thinking.

And I saw on another podcast you said that antisemitism is built into the fabric of the universe, a sentiment I happen to agree with. It's a Torah perspective, obviously, and you quoted the Torah. So, you know, you're in good company there. But given that, what is even the point of Israel advocacy then? Because the people are going to hate us are going to hate us. And the ones that don't are not because they're closer to you know, whatever, you know, the Torah truth is, Christians, non-Christians, whoever, the more closer they are to something real and true, the less likely they're going to be antisemitic, right? So what's even the point of Hasbara at that point?

That's a great question. I ask myself every day. But I think we are a people of truth and the truth needs to be spoken. And if we don't speak, then all that will be left are lies. And so I don't necessarily so much care about who is buying my truth, quote unquote. I just care that the truth is out there. And when someone does want to know the truth, it's available to them, right? So for example, people say to me all the time, you know, I'm not on TikTok because it's just a swamp there, there's no point. I'm like, dude, it's a swamp there because everyone says what you're saying. And if I want to know about the, the pal— you know, the Israel, the Middle East conflict, and I go to TikTok, there's only one voice there, the anti-Israel voice. That's exactly why we need to be there, right? So there is a value in speaking truth, whether or not people believe it. Truth in, in and of itself is the end. That's not a means to an end. The end is speaking the truth. There is a value in speaking the truth, and our enemies lie like they breathe. And if we don't speak truth, then like I said, all that's left are lies. So it's a very important thing that we speak the truth. And of course, again, those that are willing to listen. And again, I'm going to say this again because it's important. There are millions and millions of people out there who have changed their mind. And I know this because I get thousands of messages from people saying, you know, on October 7th, you know, as sad and as tragic as it was, you can't really blame them because you were occupying Gaza. And I say to that person, do you know what the disengagement was? And they say, no. I say, you know, you're a tech guy. You're driven by data. Don't you think you should know a little bit about what you're talking about before you express an opinion? How about go Google it, go learn about the disengagement. Let's have a conversation a week from now. And I've gotten thousands of people come back and say, dude, I did not know any of that. Like, wow. You just like, at the very least, I opened their mind to another perspective, but I've had thousands of people tell me I've changed their mind. So, you know, there are people out there who have integrity as much as the algorithms won't show you that because it's not in their best interest to show you that. There are millions of people out there who have integrity and who are listening. That I can tell you for sure.

Yeah, yeah, that's actually a great point. And I like the fact that you're taking it— you're taking the— your position out of the consequences of what you're doing because you're saying, well, you're right, the truth does in and of itself matter. And, uh, it's somewhat of a hill of Hashem, you know, it's a desecration of God's name that the Jewish people are smeared so much without anything to counteract it. Just on that point alone, it's very important.

So yeah, because, because here's the thing, like You know this and I know this, but just in case one of your viewers doesn't know this, like, the Jewish people historically, but not only historically, in modern day, have been nothing but good to this world, right? Whether it's, you know, cutting-edge cancer research, whether it's technology, whether it's transportation, whether it's first on scene when there's a natural disaster, whatever it is, however you want to look at it, whether it's Nobel Prizes, the Jewish people have been nothing but a source of light in this world, right? And so You know, we, we need to own that light. We need to stop apologizing for being a light, cuz we are a light. It's a, it's an objective fact. Again, no matter how you wanna look at it, right? You know, these BDS people who wanna boycott Israel, we've all seen these memes on the internet, but like, good luck boycotting Israel. You can't unlock your iPhone without Face ID. Face ID was developed by a company called PrimeSense, an Israeli startup that, by the way, Apple acquired and this week acquired the second company of that same founder this past week, right?

Wow.

So, you know, you can't unlock your iPhone, you can't take a picture with your phone because dual lens technology was invented by a Jew. You can't drive to work without Waze or Google Maps, cuz Google is obviously all over Israel and Google made its biggest acquisition in its history of an Israeli company. You can't use Microsoft, you can't use Amazon, you can't use Google, you can't use Apple, you can't, you can't—

Can't use AI. NVIDIA is in Israel.

NVIDIA. NVIDIA's not just in Israel. NVIDIA tripled their, their presence in Israel over the past year. I just spoke to the general manager like an hour ago of NVIDIA. They're doubling and tripling down on Israel. So if you want to boycott Israel, you can't use Intel, so throw away your laptop. You can't use Apple, throw away your iPhone. You can't use Google, throw away your Android phone. You can't boycott Israel. You can't spend one hour in the modern world without using an Israeli product. So it's, it's just a bunch of BS, you know, that the Jewish people are the source of all the world's problems. Really? We're 0.25% of the population. We're the source of all the world's problems? Not the radical Muslims who at, you know, if I'm being conservative, you know, 150 million people dedicated to the destruction of the West, they're not the problem. The Jewish people who want to live in peace and who are making the world a better place, we're the problem? So, you know, it's absurd. And so it's our job and responsibility to speak up against those lies.

Mm-hmm. Well, one of the most disheartening things over the last couple of years is that anti-Israel sentiment, especially in the US, is now cross-political, across the political spectrum, right? Like, uh, the turn of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and all these clowns that were nominally on the right are now just— seem like it's kind of crazy what's happened to them. I, for me, I don't understand what's going on. What do you, what do you think's happened?

But you referenced it before, but it's worth repeating. There is one, one thing in all of Jewish scripture, one thing that, that Jewish scripture says that this is a known thing. There's only one thing like that. It's antisemitism. We say in Hebrew, I'll translate, halacha biyadua. It's a known thing. Esav, the nations, soneh leYakov. Hate Jacob. Hate the Jews. It's a known thing. It's the only thing that has always existed and has never changed. Transcends generations. It changes faces in every generation, but they hate us no matter what. They hated us when we were not white enough in the Holocaust because we were polluting their race. And now they hate us because we're too white. We're white colonialists. They hated us when we were poor. They hated us when we were rich. They hated us when we were stateless. And they said, get out of Europe, go to Palestine. Now they hate us because we have a state and get out of Palestine, go to Europe. Like, it doesn't— it's— they're going to hate us no matter what. So, you know, there is, there is that element of it. Um, but also like there's a psychological thing here. People like to have, you know, a villain. People like to vilify someone and the easy— the Jews are the easy scapegoat. The sad part, the tragic part here is that Jews, millions of Jews Um, just like we did in the Holocaust and just like we did in Egypt and Spain and in Russia and in every empire since the inception of the world, we're convincing ourselves that it's gonna be okay, that they don't really hate us. Eh, well, let's assimilate. Let's make ourselves more like them and then they'll love us. They, we don't learn from history. If history has taught us anything, it's that we don't learn from history. Open a history book. You wanna know what's about to happen in Canada and in Australia? I mean, I had 3 calls today. With Australian Jews who, you know, okay, they're discussing Aliyah, but they think they're fine there. I'm like, if Bondi Beach wasn't enough to show you that you are no longer welcome there, then what is? What has to happen? Because it seems to me that everything's happened. In fact, I think— and people don't like when I say this, but I challenge you to find a single thing that happened before the Holocaust. So I'm not talking about the concentration camps before that led up to that. Right? I'm not talking about the state institutionalizing antisemitism. I'm talking about everything that led up to that. You cannot find a single thing that happened in Europe in 1935 to 1940 that has not happened today. Like, we talk about Kristallnacht, about, you know, windows being shattered. Really? Every other day in the West, right? This is right, academia, every day, right? Jews not being allowed to walk around freely in campuses and on the streets with the Star of David. They're being harassed and assaulted and murdered, right? We have We have antisemitic politicians rising to power, aka Momdani, and half of the Democrat— not half, the Democratic Party as a whole, basically, and many Republicans. We have, you know, every single thing, you name it. Like, nothing that has happened before the Holocaust has not happened today. And yet I grew up my whole life asking, how do the Jews not leave? And I never had an answer to that question until now, because I speak to my friends and they're just totally oblivious and they're totally sticking their head in the sand. They're like, yeah, we'll be okay. It's going to get better. Really? Show me any, any time that antisemitism got better. Never happened. It's gonna get worse. How do I know? Because look at history books. But these people, again, as we always are, are delusional. They just are disconnected from reality because they don't want to admit that the country that was so good to them and that was so hospitable to them and it was their home for so long has spoken and they're no longer welcome. That's the reality. And it's sad and it's tragic, and I wish that wasn't the reality, but that is the reality.

So, so let me clarify. Are you saying that we're on the path towards a second Holocaust in the West?

So, you know, I don't want to use that word because every, you know, every generation, the massacre or the expulsion changes nature, right? So we're not going to have, you know, concentration camps in America. That's not what I'm saying. But I am saying that things are about to get very, very bad, very, very fast. I mean, when you have, you know, someone like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens with millions and millions and millions of followers who listen to their every word. Who are just spewing, like they might as well be saying that Jews have horns. Like their blood libels are like straight up, like, you know, Jews use Christian blood to bake matzahs. Like this is what we're talking about today. And there are millions of people out there who take their word as a fact. And so if we think that that's not going to lead directly to more violence against Jews, then we're totally kidding ourselves. And so things are about to get really, really, really bad. And, you know, again, I don't know what it will look like. I don't think there'll be concentration camps, but I don't think that we've seen the worst of it. I don't think we've even seen close to the worst of it. And Bondi Beach and, you know, everything that's happening basically around the world every day in New York, I mean, in Brooklyn, 770, these are terrifying events, but I don't think we've even scratched the surface. And it's terrible. I wish I was wrong, but I don't think I am.

So should— is your answer to that Jews make Aliyah, you know, move to Israel, or is it stay and kind of try to improve things where you are until it gets so bad? That there's no way to go back.

Well, I'll be a good Jew and I'll answer your question with a question. If you're talking to my grandmother right now, I'm a grandmother, 1935, Esther Varga, and you're talking to me in retrospect, knowing what you know about what happened. And I say to you, listen, I'm German. I'm going to stay here. My grandmother wasn't German. She was Hungarian, but to give you an example, I'm German. I'm going to stay here. We're a democracy. We're enlightened. Come on. I'm not going to run away. If I run away, they win. I'm going to stay here and fight. What would you say to me?

So you're crazy and you should leave.

Get, get the hell out. So, you know, I would love to say to my friends, stay, stay back and fight. But that's just, you know, you could be proud or you could be alive, right? Because it's, it's, it's never happened that Jews fought back and won. So, you know, again, are we gonna be expelled? Expelled? Are we gonna be butchered? I don't know, but it's gonna get a lot worse and fast.

Yeah.

I was gonna say, by the way, to answer your question, just to answer your question. Yeah, all Jews should get on a plane and come to Israel. Uh, I think really, no matter how you want to look at it, if you're a religious Jew, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to be diplomatic here, but it's, I'm finding it very difficult. If you're a religious Jew and you're staying out of Israel when God gave you this amazing country on a silver platter, and after thousands of years of praying for the ingathering of the exiles, God gave us what we asked for, and you're staying there. You're spitting in God's face. Let's just say it as it is. God's like, here, I made Israel a paradise. I gave you Elal.com. I gave you Nefesh B'Nefesh. I made Israel unbelievable, leading the world in technology. You still didn't get on a plane. So I sent you Momdani. I sent you, you know, Candace Owens. I say, you still didn't get on a plane. What do you want from me? Right? And so a religious Jew doesn't get on a plane today, in my humble opinion. And I want to be very clear, I'm talking as a collective. I'm not talking about individuals because people have circumstances. This guy's elderly parents. I get it. I'm not saying to every single person, that's not getting on a plane that you're spitting in God's face. As a collective, the Jewish people need to come home. That's from a religious perspective. But however you want to look at it, the future of the Jewish people is being built here. And anybody who doesn't know that and thinks that there's a future for the Jewish people in the diaspora, again, trying to be diplomatic here, but whatever it is they're smoking, they need to stop. Like, it's— there's no future there. And, you know, the people that come and say to me, oh, but it hasn't affected me, like, do you hear yourself? You're walking in the street and there's a pit 5 feet in front of you, a 10-foot pit. And what you're saying is, I haven't fallen yet, so I'm just gonna keep walking. Dude, look 2 steps ahead of yourself. Look what's about to happen. You're about to fall into the pit. Avoid the pit. Get out of there. You know, like you're, you're the kid in high school who doesn't understand that the party's over. Like the, the parents are home. Like the party's over. Go leave. We're like, nah, I'm gonna stay. I'm not gonna re— I'm gonna stay here. And the, and the host is like, dude. Leave. You're not welcome here. The party's over. Leave. Like, nah, I think I'll stay here. Like, read the room, dude. You're not welcome. You know, so from every perspective, however you want to look at it, Jews should be coming home. And again, if a person has specific circumstances that is preventing them from getting on a plane, I understand that. But at the very least, make a plan. Have an exit strategy. To say, oh, I'm going to stay here. Like, I've spoken to people in 2026 who have said to me, Aliyah is not even on their radar. Like they're not even thinking, it's not even an option. And I'm like, if you had a gun to your head, would you get on a plane? Like if someone said, you know, if you don't get on a plane in 1 hour from now, I'm, I'm pulling the trigger, you'd get on a plane. So then what has to happen to constitute a gun? If what's going on today in the West doesn't constitute a gun, then what does? And that's a real question I ask people. Like, what is there? Maybe there's no event. People have said to me, no matter what happens, not leaving. Okay. I feel very sorry for those people. But if there is an event, any event that if that event takes place, you're out of there. I wanna know what that event is because the, It seems to me that it's all happening.

Yeah, it's, uh, you know, I think my father would very much like you a lot because he, uh, he obviously moved the whole family to Canada. And I think he's— he said explicitly he's made a mistake and he's trying to get everyone to go back to Israel. And, uh, it's obviously not easy, but I've joked— it's not so much of a joke anymore— I said Saudi Arabia is going to be safer for Jews in 20 years than Canada, right? That's 20 years, 10 years, whatever. Canada is degenerating very quickly.

I, I do want to say— I do want to address one thing. Because I know there are going to be people who are watching and listening and saying, oh, he's making it seem like it's so easy to come to Israel. No, it's not so easy to come to Israel. It's not so easy to move from any country to any country. That's first of all. Second of all, Israel has challenges. Yeah, October 7th happened. Yeah, we are surrounded by enemies who want our destruction. I'm not sugarcoating that. I'm not denying that. I'm not delusional. But if you're a Jew watching this and saying, I'll stay here because you have problems, you're the equivalent of driving on the road and watching your brother on the side of the road bleed out. And say, I'll just leave them there. We have problems here, so come help us fix them. Come help us overcome the challenges. Don't sit there and say, eh, they have challenges, I'll stay here. What kind of family member does that? So yeah, we do have challenges, and you know, October 7th did happen. But first of all, there's still an army here that's dedicated to my safety, an army that failed on October 7th. It has a mission. A mission failed on October 7th, but it's still a mission. Who's protecting Jews outside of Israel? No one. We've seen that time and time again. So, you know, I just— it frustrates me a lot when people say, you know, I'm not coming because this, you know, I have to lower my salary. No, you don't. I have to lower my quality of life. No, you don't. I have to know Hebrew. No, you don't. None of the reasons— and the list was long— that once upon a time existed, the list that existed that justified a Jew not coming home, none of those items are valid anymore. None of them. There is no reason for a Jew not to come back to Israel today. And again, on a collective level, not on an individual level. I'm not saying, you know, you have elderly parents or a special needs kid who, you know, has certain things that he needs wherever you are. No, abandon your family. That's not what I'm saying, of course. But I'm talking on a broader, on a more macro level. Jews need to come home.

The situation in Israel can turn at any moment. Like, Trump is very pro-Israel and, you know, mostly he's been great. But just as easily you have a Democrat and the situation will change. But before we go, I didn't want to get into necessarily that aspect. But I'm just curious what your thoughts are on Trump in relation to Israel. And how the United States has conducted itself vis-à-vis that relationship.

So first and foremost, when we depend on foreign governments, we know how that ends. Okay, so let's just be honest here. We should not be depending on any government, including Trump. That's number one. Number two, I'm deeply grateful for his friendship. I think most of Israel is, mostly Jewish people are. I don't think anybody would deny that he's been the best friend we've had in the White House maybe ever, but he's also Trump. And, you know, with all due respect, and I mean that not sarcastically, I think, you know, he's been incredible, but he's Trump. And all it takes is one time for Bibi to cross him and Bibi to say to him, no, game's over. So, you know, I don't think we could depend on that. Furthermore, furthermore, on a, on a broader level, um, I think that we're in an abusive relationship, right? When someone's in an abusive relationship, sometimes the abuser is nice. Sometimes he's not nice, but you need to get out. And so we're in an abusive relationship right now. America's being very nice to us, but Biden wasn't. And if Kamala would've won, she wouldn't have been. And who's gonna be the next, you know, who's gonna be the next president? Who knows? History seems to dictate it'll be a Democrat. So the thought of, you know, one day, not in such the distant future, but one day AOC being president of America. I know that sounds crazy, but. But is it? I don't know. Right now it may be crazy. Shalom from Mercy. You know, but I'm saying like, we're in an abusive relationship. We need to get out of that abusive relationship. Not to say that we need to, you know, throw Trump under the bus. No. But we also cannot depend on Trump or anybody to ensure our safety and security. And we're well on our way to achieving that independence, you know, financially. And so I think that that should be one of Israel's top priorities is to break up with America and anybody else, really just not to be dependent on anyone but ourselves.

What do you think is a valid— what do you think is the difference between a valid criticism in Israel and just being anti-Semitic?

You can criticize Israel all you want, but if you enter the land of Israel that doesn't have a right to exist, then it's anti-Semitic. Like, if you're— I mean, let's just say it as it is. What is Zionism? Like, what— you know, Zionism has become a dirty word, but anybody who has a brain knows what Zionism is. There's a definition. Zionism is the movement to bring the Jews back to their homeland after thousands of years of exile and endless persecution. If your opinion is that Israel does not have a right to exist and that Zionism is racism, a.k.a. you think Jews should not have a right to their homeland, you're an anti-Semite. If you're saying that Jews after the Holocaust should not have a safe haven, you're an anti-Semite, you're a Jew hater. And so you could say that you don't like, you know, this policy or that policy. You don't like this MK or that MK. You think Israel was too harsh in Gaza. We could debate that. Right. But once you start entering, Israel doesn't have a right to exist, Israel is an ethnostate, an apartheid state, you know, any of that ridiculous, you know, those ridiculous lies that can be, you know, disproved in a second, that's already entering antisemitic land. So, you know, I think it's a pretty clear distinction. Criticism, by all means. Not having a right to exist? One Jewish country doesn't have a right to exist amongst 57 or whatever the number is Muslim countries and endless Christian countries? One Jewish country is too much for you? Don't look now, but you have an anti-Semite walking around in your shoes.

And it's Anton Chomsky. I think he was the one who popularized this kind of the 3 Ds: delegitimization, demonization, and the third day I forget off the top of my head. But basically those 3 Ds of anti-Semitism.

Yeah, yeah. This isn't, this isn't a new thing. That's the thing we need to understand. This is, again, it always existed and it will always exist. And the sooner we realize that, the better, right?

Um, recently you were denied entry, an entry visa into Australia, uh, for for reasons that I don't think anyone understands. Could you explain what happened? Sure.

So I was supposed to fly to Australia to be a keynote speaker at a gala for Magen David Adom, which is basically the Israeli Red Cross. So it's a life-saving organization. It's not political in any way. There are many, many Jews and Arabs working together in harmony. And I was supposed to fly out on Tuesday morning. I think like Wednesday, the week before, someone sent me a tweet of some really small Twitter account saying, Hello, folks coming to Australia, let's, you know, let's issue complaints and get them blocked. But it was a tiny little Twitter account, so I didn't really pay much attention to it. Friday morning, I get an email from the Australian government and my visa has been revoked. And I like had to like take a, like take two. I was like, what? So I, you know, the email included a PDF and their claim is that my tweets have been Islamophobic. And the PDF included some of my tweets, which were, you know, allegedly Islamophobic. Ridiculous. Like, none of, none of the tweets that they quoted were in any way Islamophobic. One of them, for example, said that radical Islam is a global plague, and I talked about 10 to 15% of radical— of global Muslims being radicalized, which is the information, the data that we have from the Pentagon. Um, you know, that includes— that, that involves hundreds of millions of people dedicated to my death and your death. That's not Islamophobia. That's a fact, right? And furthermore, What is that even mean? What is Islamophobia? Phobia has a definition. Phobia is the irrational fear of something. Now you tell me, if you see a Christian saying, "Praise the Lord," you smile. You see a Jew saying, "Baruch Hashem," you smile. You hear a Muslim saying, "Allahu Akbar," what do you do? You run for your life. So a religion that has hundreds of millions of people dedicated to my death, and billions of others who are remaining silent, fearing that religion is irrational. It's the most rational fear in the world. So the very term of Islamophobia is a, is a, it's a logical fabrication. It's just, it doesn't make any sense. So anyway, she quoted several, you know, whatever. So I, you know, I went, first thing I did is I appealed, right? That's obviously the first thing I did. Then I went to the diplomatic people, the diplomatic ladder, and I spoke to Mike Huckabee, who's a friend, a US ambassador. I spoke to Israel's foreign minister. I spoke to several ministers in Israel, and Mike Huckabee wrote a very nice letter on my behalf to the Australian government. And so there were those two channels. The third channel, media, I said, let's just wait with that. Like, let's work these channels. Hopefully it will get resolved. And I signed off on Friday, and I gave a heads up to some journalists, and I said, but don't report this. I'm just letting you know what's going on. I'll let you know next week if I want you to report it or not. I came back from Shabbat where I'm offline for 25 hours to a media blitz, the likes of which I've never seen before. Someone leaked it, I don't know, and it went absolutely crazy. I mean, it was quoted everywhere. Literally every mainstream publication wrote about it. So I thought between those 3 channels, you know, they're definitely going to reverse the decision. They didn't reverse the decision and I am now banned for 3 years from Australia.

Okay, wow.

That's pretty wild.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's a very bad sign. I mean, that's First of all, just freedom of speech. On those grounds alone, it shouldn't be an issue. But I don't think there's anything tremendously wrong with putting— I mean, it's a fact. People went and did these surveys. The people went and did— there's a definition of radical Islam, and people said, yes, I believe in those things, which include instituting Sharia law by force in Western countries, and, you know, certain actions against people like us and Fidels. And it's like, yeah, about 10% of the Muslim population worldwide has that belief.

Where's the 90% though?

They're not saying anything, unfortunately.

Is your Twitter feed full of Muslims denouncing those radicals?

I have not seen anything.

My Twitter feed is not. I never, I don't, I could probably count on half a hand the amount of Muslims that are like vocally coming out and against radical Islam. So it's not just that 10%. It's a real problem because the rest of them are silent, which is, you know, again, we're talking about billions of people, billions. So, you know, I think it's a crazy thing, but it wasn't just Australia. I was banned from Brooklyn Law, the campus. I was supposed to speak there. You know, freedom of speech is not so much a thing anymore if you're pro-Israel.

Right. I want to shift focus to the Startup Nation. You know, Israel punches above its weight by far. You know, it's probably number 2 per capita most startup investments outside of Singapore, I think. I think Singapore was number 1. Oh, it's number 1 now? Okay, great.

Let's just be clear. Amount of entrepreneurs per capita, it's number one.

Okay, VC per capita, meaning VC investments in startups, I think it's number two. US, I think, is number three. Um, but any case, you know, if I compare it to Canada where I live, per capita Israel does about 10 times more. I mean, $16 billion in 2025 compared to roughly $5 to $7 billion in Canada. Canada has 40x the— sorry, 4x the population, all the natural resources in the world, not all the crazy geopolitical stuff, no wars. and still Canada is not doing nearly as well as Israel. Even when you look at compared to the US on a per capita basis, Israel does 2x per capita than the US in terms of VC investments. So why does Israel punch above its weight when it comes to startups and innovation?

So there's a lot of literature on this. Obviously the book Startup Nation answers this question. I don't know that there's one thing, there's one answer. There's many components. First of all, there's definitely what I referenced before, which is Israeli culture, meaning if you come over to like an average entrepreneur, basically anywhere else in the world, and you say, listen, what you wanna build is not possible. It's just not possible. Like physics, you can't do it. It's not possible. Most entrepreneurs would say, okay, so then we'll go back to the drawing board. We'll pivot. You tell an Israeli entrepreneur it's not possible, he says, hold my beer. And then he goes and he builds it, right? And the perfect example of that is the Iron Dome. Like Dr. Danny Gold, who I interviewed, pitched this idea to everyone. I mean, everyone, the State Department, the US military, Israeli military, world-leading military strategists, everyone told him it's impossible. Everyone. So, you know, that's first and foremost, it's the kind of mentality of Israelis that there's no such thing as, I can't, it's just, I don't want to, right? That's something that I think is taught in the army. Then there's the army, right? The army is a very innovative entity and, you know, the army has to use innovation to you know, save lives. And so many, many Israeli entrepreneurs come from like Israel, Israel intelligence, Israeli intelligence. So there's that aspect. There's the aspect of the government in Israel being very supportive of entrepreneurship. So there's like the Innovation Authority that gives out grants, equity-free grants to startups. So there's that. Uh, there's also just the, I think the Jewish spirit of, you know, survivor mode or whatever you wanna call it, that like you walk, you like get into a cab in Tel Aviv and you start making small talk with the cab driver and you're like, oh, you know, how long you been cab driver. And he's like, cab driver? This is just my side gig. I have a startup, right? Everyone in this country has startups. So it's like a, you know, it's a, it's a very Jewish thing. Like, you know, throughout our history we had to, we had to fight to survive. Now we're home. Now we have the IDF. Now we're surviving. So we kind of have this excess energy that we can use to change the world. And that's, I think those are some of the components amongst many others.

Mhm. You've been an advisor to many successful Israeli startups. What are some lessons you learned from, you know, advising them that, that can help entrepreneurs elsewhere?

I mean, I think that you're asking in general. I mean, I think there's, I think there's, there's, there's many things and we can talk about this for an hour. There are many things that entrepreneurs in general, I think, you know, make mistakes along the way. I'll just give you the first thing that I find to be very, very common is, you know, a lot of times it's not Israeli. A lot of times entrepreneurs have an idea and they're very passionate about it as they should be, and they run with it, right? And I get it, they're passionate, they run with it. But, you know, we already know that whatever, 95% of startups fail. But if you go that route and you don't even like stop to do market research and competitive analysis and you just run with it, I think the chances of your failure are about 99%. Um, and so this is something that I find very often, you know, quite frankly, very often with Israeli entrepreneurs, but not exclusively, um, that, You know, stop, breathe. Like, you know, figuring out who your competition is, is not something that should deter you. It's the opposite. Because if many have tried to solve this problem, as you know, as an investor, that means there's a problem. That means there's demand for a solution. Um, furthermore, if many have tried to solve this problem and failed, you need to know why they failed. Or if they succeeded, why did they succeed and how am I different than them? But without this information, you're just You're shooting in the dark. Um, but if you'd ask me about specifically Israeli entrepreneurs, I'm gonna repeat what I said before, and that is that there's no such thing as I can't, like, you know, in most places around the world, if you fail, you're looked down upon. I think in most ecosystems, you know, coming to an investor and say, I had 3 failed startups is a red flag. In Israel, it's like a notch on my belt. I go, really? Oh, you have 3 failed startups? Take my money. You know? And that's the way it should be, by the way, because if you fail 3 times, that means you learned, you know, endless valuable lessons from each one of those failures. So that's very much an Israeli mentality of like, failure is your best friend.

Mm-hmm. Why should investors consider investing in Israeli companies?

I mean, the data doesn't lie. Um, you know, there's, there's basically not a sector of technology in which Israel doesn't excel, meaning you know, some of them were number 1 in the world, some of them were number 2, but maybe correct me if I'm wrong, I can't think of a single sector where Israel's not in the top 10, right? Even consumer tech, right? Consumer tech.

I was thinking about consumer. I was thinking about consumer tech.

Right. Consumer tech, traditionally, Israel obviously is 10 million people. We're a tiny little business, a tiny little market here. So it's hard to build a consumer tech company. So traditionally that was our weakest link. Today, I mean, there are some consumer companies in this country that are some of the most successful companies in the world. I mean, you know, whether you're looking at iPhone apps, you open the App Store, you know, Fiverr, Lemonade, Lighttricks, Facetune, there's so many that are Israeli and there are so many, obviously we know Waze. And so there are many, many, many, I, I don't know, I don't know if I'd say hundreds, but a lot, uh, of consumer tech companies in Israel that are, you know, market-leading companies. So, you know, obviously in healthcare we lead the way, obviously in trans— like when we talk about transportation, just to I'll give one example, right? We know that in, in no time our cars are not gonna have steering wheels. This is, I mean, we all know this. Not many people stop to ask themselves how, how are cars going to drive themselves? And without getting too technical, there are basically 3 ways, right? There's cameras, there's radar, and there's LiDAR, right? Cameras are cameras. Cameras are obviously very limited, whether it's because of fog or it's nighttime, doesn't, whatever it may be, it's limited. It's not, it's not good enough. When you're think— we're talking about life and death. Cameras are not good enough. Radar is great, but it has a limited, uh, range, so it's not good enough. LiDAR is the future. And when you see an autonomous car with that big ugly thing on the roof, that's LiDAR. So what's the problem? Problem is that no one's driving around a car with that ridiculous looking thing on his roof. So the holy grail is taking LiDAR and shrinking it down to a point that it's basically transparent to the user. I don't even know it's there, but it works. And the answer is, who's doing that? Israeli companies. Innoviz is leading the LiDAR world. Mobileye leading, you know, so basically Tesla aside, any leading company that's going to be facilitating autonomous driving is Israeli pretty much across the board. So that's just one example. You know, it's, it's across all sectors and, and, you know, I'm an observant Jew, so I see God in everything, but however you wanna look at it, The Israeli tech ecosystem makes no sense. I mean, look at money invested, look at the quality of the investors. I mean, you can't find a single top-tier investor basically in the world, but definitely in Silicon Valley that has not deployed money in Israel. Some of them have set up shop here with offices. Some of them have someone on the ground, but everyone's invested in Israel. Even Andreessen Horowitz, which, you know, their rule is a one-office rule. They only have one office. They have a guy on the ground here. They've deployed capital in Israel. So, you know, The quantity of capital, the quality of capital, the multinationals. I mean, you can't find, there's more than 500 multinationals that have set up shop in Israel. Name any tech corporation you could think of. Again, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, they're all Intel, IBM, Nvidia. I mean, look at the top 5 most valuable companies in the world. Nvidia, Apple. Oh, I think it's Nvidia, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta. What do those 5 have in common? They're all in on Israel. And we see, again, as a religious Jew, this is a biblical prophecy. Those that bless the Jewish people will be blessed. You think it's a coincidence that the top 5 most valuable companies in the world are super duper pro-Israel? I don't think that's a coincidence. But either way, however you wanna look at this ecosystem, whatever, whatever data or metric you wanna, you wanna use, Israel, like you said before, punches above its weight by a huge margin. And it, it really is. It really is extraordinary to see. So anybody who knows anything about innovation knows that Israel is a very, very smart investment.

And this will be my last question here. Now that the war's over, or at least this round of the war's over, the last sausage has been brought back home, what's the mood like on the ground in Israel? What should people take away from your work, people, especially the diaspora people, people like me, about what's going on in Israel and the future?

So Israel is a very complicated country. You know, one might say there are two Israels. There's the liberal Tel Aviv Israel and the, let's call it, more traditional religious Israel. Right. And they're very different profiles of people. And it's a challenge. It presents many challenges. And that manifests in things like public transportation on Shabbat, you know, Haredim ultra-Orthodox going to the army and many, many, many other issues. And it's complicated. The truth, like most things, is nuanced, right? And, you know, if we take— we're not going to get too much into it, but if we take the Haredi issue of ultra-Orthodox not going to the army, you know, to say they should all go, in my opinion, is also wrong. Why? Because what did Ben-Gurion show at the UN to justify the modern state of Israel? The answer is the Torah, right? Without the Torah, we don't really have a right to this land. And so to say we're going to have a Jewish land, a Jewish country, a Jewish state without the Torah, to me is ridiculous. So does that mean everyone who calls themselves ultra-Orthodox should not go to the army? No, but it's nuanced. People that are dedicating their lives to learning Torah, in my opinion, the Jewish state should fund that. People that aren't should put on a uniform, right? It's nuanced. But the reality is there are many, many social and political challenges in Israel. I know that, you know, the Bibi topic is incredibly controversial. You know, it's very polarizing. You either love him or you hate him. But again, nuanced, meaning he's a great politician who's made mistakes. And he's a human being, he makes mistakes. It's nuanced. Social media doesn't facilitate, doesn't allow nuance. Nuance doesn't get clicks. So everything seems very, very polarized. And you watch from the outside, it's like Israel's falling apart. Israel's far from falling apart. Israel is stronger and more united than it's ever been. Israel, from every perspective, whether you look at the economy, the Tel Aviv stock exchange, whatever you want to look at, the shekel, we're stronger than we've ever been and we're only getting stronger. So I'm very bullish on the future of the Jewish people in Israel. Very not bullish, very bearish on the Jewish people out side of Israel.

Hello, that's a very great message to leave off on. Oh, except for the fact that we don't have a future here, but seems like anyways, come home, people, come home. So it's the first time in 2,000 years that more than half the Jewish people now are in the Eretz Israel, in the land of Israel, and that triggers a lot of things in the Torah and Jewish philosophy and all that stuff in halachas, Jewish law. It's a very interesting time to be alive, obviously, and hello, you're doing great work. Work. I really appreciate your time on the podcast. I've learned a lot, and keep up the— keep fighting the good fight.

Thank you, my friend. Appreciate it, and, uh, looking forward to meeting you in Israel. Bye.

Thank you.