Young Jewish Professionals (YJP) of New York brought 21 guests from the United States, all of whom are CEO’s of their own companies, on a recent experiential fact-finding trip to Israel. During the trip, the organization brought the attendees to visit the headquarters of United Hatzalah, Israel’s national volunteer EMS organization.
YJP’s goal is to provide leadership training, mentoring sessions, and social opportunities for the next generation of Jewish business leaders.
Based upon the response from the group, organizers very clearly understood the impact of the visit. “The group very much enjoyed the visit and had even spoken about future assistance to the organization, said Odeliah Elimelech, owner of Almah Israel. Almah Israel is the company that provided all of the logistics for the YJP trip. “They were very impressed by what they saw during the visit to the headquarters. What specifically stood out for the participants was the inter-religious cooperation that takes place between volunteers from all parts of Israeli society, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Bedouin, and Druze. All of whom work together to help save lives of others in Israel.”
Elimelech went so far as to say that, “We too are happy to have learned about United Hatzalah and the work that they do. We hope to bring more of our groups in the future to visit this wonderful organization to learn about the important life-saving work that you do.”
YJP’s Director, Shaya Lesches, described the visit “We were looking at Israel’s most innovative companies and Hatzalah is doing just that — disrupting the status quo and innovating the way it deals with emergencies in order to save lives on a daily basis. The tour inspired us all to continue to push ourselves and our companies to develop the type of disruptive technologies United Hatzalah has created to provide top-notch medical services to anyone in need.” Joel Greenwald, a participant on the CEO delegation and a partner at the law firm Greenwald Doherty, added “The business leaders at YJP who traveled to Israel were intent on immersing themselves in Israeli businesses and culture during their brief stay. While in Israel, the CEOs were both moved and truly impressed by the life-saving efforts of United Hatzalah.” The group’s participants were so inspired that they started their own fundraising campaign to donate an ambucycle to the organization. The campaign gathered $38,400, surpassing the $36,000 needed for the donation in record time. United Hatzalah hosts groups from all over the world in an effort to spread the message of community involvement and responsibility in emergency response.
Young Jewish Professionals (YJP) is a not-for-profit organization that empowers the next generation of Jewish business leaders to forge a prosperous future for themselves, their businesses and the global community at large. YJP’s business, educational and mentoring events provide their members with unparalleled access to a world-class community of business leaders and innovators. The goal is to foster the development of bold ideas and innovations necessary to ignite the disruptive changes and creative solutions that will solve the world’s greatest challenges. In order to further this mission, YJP chartered its first ever CEO delegation to Israel March 18-25. The goal of this trip was to provide participants with the opportunity to interact, engage and connect with the most groundbreaking business leaders in the world. To that end, YJP visited companies at the forefront of innovative technology and entrepreneurial developments, including United Hatzalah.
