By Simon Luxemburg
Before the opening conference in Shefayim, we were all given the task of reading the book Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor & Saul Singer. The book effectively prepared us for the first theme of the semester – innovation. One of the first activities that we did in Shefayim was discuss this text and examine the way in which we could apply it both to our Israel experience this semester, and our goal to think innovatively about Jewish communities in North America over the long-term. Just like most of our activities during the opening week, the book club discussion was fellow-led and planned before we all arrived at the Kibbutz. The discussion about Start-Up Nation represented the first major Nachshon program of the semester geared towards conversation with coupled deep analysis. We started the discussion with a well-developed buzzfeed quiz meant to show us whether or not we had the drive, personality, and characteristics of working in a start-up. Then, after this beginning activity, we dove much deeper into the content of Senor and Singer’s book.
Members of our Cohort, all of whom come from a wide-range of Jewish and Israel-engaged backgrounds, had various opinions of the text. While some of us passionately disagreed about the function of the book and its overall message and goal, we nearly all agreed that it provided us with a thorough introduction to Israeli society. Through a careful analysis of the start-up industry of the country, we were able to understand the effect of the army and military culture on the economy, along with gaining valuable insight into the chutzpa that widely characterizes Israeli society. In our book club groups, we had valuable discussions pertaining to the function of the text, its intended audience, and why we believe Nachshon chose for us to read it. Geared with the insights that we learned from both the text and conversation, we were adequately prepared for our meetings with Waze, Google, and a variety of start-ups succeeding in the ever-growing high tech scene of Tel Aviv.
