Israel
There are loads of different ways to invest in Israeli companies these days
By BERNIE BELLAN
With everything that’s been happening in the world this year, one would think that this might not be the best of times to think about investment opportunities in Israel.
Yet, as I’m sure you’re aware, for years now Israeli high-tech start-ups have continued to dazzle with their performance – and have attracted large-scale investments from some of the world’s foremost investors, including Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.
Is now a good time to invest in Israel you might ask yourself?
The answer is there’s probably never been a better time.
Until the Coronavirus pandemic took hold around the world Israeli companies were on pace to attract more investment capital this year than any other year – and 2019 had been a record year for investment in Israel. Over $8 billion had been invested in 522 different Israeli high-tech companies last year, which was almost $2 billion more than had been invested the previous year. It had been the best year for investment in Israel since 2013. (To give an idea how much investment in Israeli high-tech has grown in the past ten years, total investment in that sector was just a little over $2 billion in 2010.)
As Jews, we can be rightfully proud of how well Israeli companies have done in recent years. Here are just some facts of which you might not be aware:
• In an area roughly the same size as the state of New Jersey, Israel’s population is now over 9 million.
• Total GDP in 2019 was $410 billion.
• GDP per capita was $44,474
• Israel has the third most companies listed on the NASDAQ: 250 (after only the United States and China)
• Tel Aviv is the world’s most important tech sector after Silicon Valley
• Israeli institutions of higher learning are among the world leaders in producing start-up talent.
• Israelis have won 12 Nobel Prizes
• In the last 10 years salaries for Israeli professionals working in the high-tech sector have gone up 300%. As a result, the “brain drain” that had been seeing so many Israelis leaving for greener pastures, especially Silicon Valley in the U.S., has been substantially reduced.
Unfortunately, as in almost every other area of the world, economic growth in Israel has been dealt an enormous blow by the Coronavirus.
The International Monetary Fund predicts that Israel’s growth rate will shrink by 6.3% in 2020. This will be the first year in 25 years that Israel will have experienced a negative growth rate.
With all that being said, however, I’ve often wondered how an individual investor who might not have any specialized background in investing in Israel might be able to invest in Israeli companies. From time to time I’ve been approached to write about various Israeli companies. Just recently, for instance, I wrote about a company called “Waterways”, which was seeking to expand in Canada.
And, as you might well imagine, being in the media, of late I’ve been receiving loads of requests from Israeli companies to publicize products that are related to combating the Coronavirus pandemic. I’ve been reluctant to do that though, as it would be difficult to decide how to feature certain companies and not others.
A couple of weeks back though, I was invited to watch a webinar focusing on Israeli technology companies. It was extremely interesting – and it didn’t involve the promotion of any particular companies, so it wasn’t as if anyone watching that particular webinar was being directed to invest in certain companies. As a matter of fact, the facts about Israel that are cited at the beginning of this article all came from information provided during that webinar.
At one point toward the end of the webinar, however, I was somewhat startled to learn that, as much as non-Israeli investors regard Israel as home to some fabulous investment opportunities, that isn’t the case for many Israelis themselves.
One of the individuals participating in the webinar was someone by the name of Tomer Nitzan, who is the presiding officer for the U.S. – Israel desk of BDO, one of the world’s leading accounting and consulting firms.
Nitzan noted that Canadians have long had a tradition of making major investments in Israeli companies, including the late David Azraeli of Montreal, who opened the first ever shopping centre in Israel (and whom I also had the pleasure of meeting around the time that the Malha Mall, also known as the Jerusalem Mall, was being built), along with many other shopping centres in Israel; the Koffler family, which owns the Superpharm chain in Israel; and the Bronfman family, which had owned Koor Industries until 2016 and now owns large stakes in several Israeli technology firms.
However, Nitzan noted that, while foreign investors are often quite willing to risk capital in Israeli companies, the same can’t be said for large scale Israeli investment firms themselves.
Here’s how Nitzan explained what he described as an “anomaly”: “Israeli employees fund every month huge amounts of money into their pension funds, which are run by insurance companies in Israel, so there’s tons of institutional money in Israel.
“There’s always a fight with the government, which wants to make them invest in Israeli tech – because it should be natural for them. It is happening – but to a very small extent. It hasn’t happened on a large scale, and there’s really no reason.
“The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has been very good the past five years for raising money for American real estate.
“It’s a shame that our (Israelis’) pension money is actually going into mega U.S. real estate deals”- but hardly at all into Israeli companies themselves.
Go figure.
Another one of the participants in the webinar was Ronnie Jaegermann, (about whom I wrote somewhat in my article about Waterways back in January). Jaegermann has been especially interested in tapping into the Canadian investment market when it comes to finding capital for Israeli companies. During the webinar he noted that over $30 million was raised in Canada last year for investment in Israeli companies.
Jaegermann also pointed out that most of the funding for companies that have started up in Israel and require further capital comes from private sources, not from IPOs (Initial Public Offerings).
But, I got to thinking: Where could an individual investor who wanted to put some money into Israeli companies go if they weren’t a mega investor, but were just looking for some good investment opportunities while, at the same time, doing something good for Israel?
During the webinar to which I referred the name “OurCrowd” came up a couple of times – with reference to exactly the kind of investment vehicle about which I was interested in writing.
I Googled “CrowdFund” and here’s what I came up with: “OurCrowd was started in 2013, driven by the idea that the business of building startups grows bigger and better when the global ‘crowd’ gains access to VC (Venture Capital)-level investment opportunities.
“Today, OurCrowd is a leading equity crowdfunding platform for investing in global startups, led by serial entrepreneur Jon Medved and run by a team of seasoned investment professionals. Offering unprecedented access to startup investing, individual investors through OurCrowd are fueling innovations that change the way people work, travel, shop, heal, and conduct business. OurCrowd investors participate in these opportunities alongside VCs and institutional co-investors, at the same terms.”
Now, while OurCrowd doesn’t restrict itself to Israeli investment opportunities alone, it does invest heavily in Israeli companies.
I spoke with David Shore, Vice President, Investor Relations, for the Toronto based Canadian division of OurCrowd, to ask how many Israeli companies have there been to date in which OurCrowd has invested?
Shore told me the answer was “over 200”. He added that the ratio of investment in Israeli companies to Global companies by OurCrowd was roughly 50/50
It turns our that OurCrowd is a great vehicle for investing in Israeli start-ups. The minimum investment required to invest in one particular company is only $10,000 US and, if you want to invest in an OurCrowd fund, which invests in an array of Israeli companies, the minimum investment is $50,000US.
There are certain other conditions an investor in Canada would need to meet, however, since OurCrowd in Canada falls under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Securities Commission, which does require that any investor in a fund such as this needs to meet at least one of several criteria, including: a minimum individual income of $200,000 a year or joint income with a spouse of at least $300,000; or a net worth (outside of property owned) of at least $1 million.
If you meet those criteria, you can invest in Israeli start-ups through OurCrowd on a “deal by deal basis” or in a “venture fund” which invests in different sectors of the Israeli economy.
Shore noted that recently one of the venture funds begun by OurCrowd is a $100m “pandemic innovation fund”. One of the companies that’s in that fund is “the Israeli front runner for the corona vaccine – MigVax,” he said.
It’s relatively easy to get started with OurCrowd. It can all be done directly through their website: www.ourcrowd.com, or on the OurCrowd app. I would suggest that if you are interested in OurCrowd, however, you speak with David Shore, who can be reached either at david.shore@ourcrowd.com or at 1-647-777-1430.
Finally, in searching for vehicles through which one might invest in Israeli companies, I did come across two Exchange Traded Funds which invest in a wide range of Israeli technology companies. In both cases though, these funds invest in mature Israeli technology companies that have all achieved a level of success, not start-ups or mid-growth level companies.
The first ETF is known as IZRL ARK Israel Innovative Technology ETF. It was started in December 2017 and has enjoyed 22.5% growth since then.
The other ETF is known as ITEQ BlueStar Israel Technology ETF. It was created in November 2015 and has enjoyed 89.7% growth since then.
Both ETFs can be purchased in Canada through brokerages, including the self-directed branches of the major Canadian banks.
So – even though times may be tough for many of us, there are always individuals who are looking for good investment opportunities. For years now Israeli companies have enjoyed spectacular success, especially in the high tech sector (but also in other sectors, such as natural gas). Whether or not investing in Israeli companies is something that might be of interest to you, ever since the release of “Start-Up Nation” in 2009, the Israeli investment scene has caught the attention of millions of investors throughout the world. Now, with a range of investment opportunities in Israel that are available to even small investors, it would be possible to benefit from that small country’s prodigious intellectual capital.
Israel
Hamas murdered their friend. Now, they help Israeli soldiers to keep his memory alive
By VIRGINIA ALLEN (The Daily Signal) David Newman sent a text to a friend the morning of Saturday, Oct. 7. Something terrible had happened. Word quickly spread among Newman’s group of friends, who had known each other since high school.
Newman, 25, had traveled the night before to the music festival in southern Israel, close to the border with the Gaza Strip. It was supposed to be a fun weekend with his girlfriend “celebrating life,” something Newman, who served with the Israel Defense Forces, was good at and loved to do, friend Gidon Hazony recalls.
When Hazony learned that Newman, his longtime friend, was in danger, he and another friend decided they were “going to go down and try and save him.” Trained as a medic and armed with a handgun and bulletproof vest, Hazony started driving south from Jerusalem.
Hazony and his friend ended up joining with other medical personnel and “treated probably around 50 soldiers and civilians in total that day,” Hazony recalls, but they kept trying to make it south to rescue Newman.
But the two “never made it down to the party, and that’s probably for the best,” Hazony says, “because that area was completely taken over by terrorists. And if we had gone down there, I think we would’ve been killed.”
Hazony later learned that Hamas terrorists had murdered Newman on Oct. 7, but not before Newman had saved nearly 300 lives, including the life of his girlfriend.
When the terrorists began their attack on the music festival, many attendees began running to their cars. But Newman and his girlfriend encountered a police officer who warned them to run the opposite direction because the terrorists were near the vehicles, says David Gani, another friend of Newman’s.
Newman “ran in the opposite direction with his girlfriend and whoever else he could kind of corral with him,” Gani explains during an interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
“They saw two industrial garbage cans, big containers, and so David told everyone, ‘Hide, hide in those containers,’” Gani says. “And so what he did over the course of the next few hours is, he would take people and … he was this big guy, and he would just chuck them in that container. And then he would go in, wait, wait till the coast is clear, and then he’d go back out, find more people, put them in there.”
Newman’s actions that day, and the atrocities Hazony and so many others in Israel witnessed Oct. 7, led Hazony, Gani, and several friends to quit their jobs and set up a nonprofit called Soldiers Save Lives. The organization is working to collect tactical and humanitarian aid for the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF.
According to the group’s website, Soldiers Save Lives has supplied over 20 IDF units and civilian response teams “with protective and self-defense gear.”
Gani, board chairman, chief financial officer, and chief technology officer of Soldiers Save Lives, and Hazony, president of the organization, recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to raise support and awareness for their mission to provide IDF troops with needed supplies.
If you would like to find out more about Soldiers Save Lives or donate to them, go to https://www.soldierssavelives.org/
Reprinted with permission.
Israel
Our New Jewish Reality
By HENRY SREBRNIK Since Oct. 7, we Jews have been witnessing an ongoing political and psychological pogrom. True, there have been no deaths (so far), but we’ve seen the very real threat of mobs advocating violence and extensive property damage of Jewish-owned businesses, and all this with little forceful reaction from the authorities.
The very day after the carnage, Canadians awoke to the news that the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust had inspired sustained celebrations in its major cities. And they have continued ever since. I’d go so far as to say the Trudeau government has, objectively, been more interested in preventing harm to Gazans than caring about the atrocities against Israelis and their state.
For diaspora Jews, the attacks of Oct. 7 were not distant overseas events and in this country since then they have inspired anti-Semitism, pure and simple, which any Jew can recognize. Even though it happened in Israel, it brought back the centuries-old memories of defenseless Jews being slaughtered in a vicious pogrom by wild anti-Semites.
I think this has shocked, deeply, most Jews, even those completely “secular” and not all that interested in Judaism, Israel or “Zionism.” Jewish parents, especially, now fear for their children in schools and universities. The statements universities are making to Jewish students across the country could not be clearer: We will not protect you, they all but scream. You’re on your own.
But all this has happened before, as we know from Jewish history. Long before Alfred Dreyfus and Theodor Herzl, the 1881 pogroms in tsarist Russia led to an awakening of proto-Zionist activity there, with an emphasis on the land of Israel. There were soon new Jewish settlements in Palestine.
The average Jew in Canada now knows that his or her friend at a university, his co-worker in an office, and the people he or she socializes with, may in fact approve, or at least not disapprove, of what happened that day in Israel. Acquaintances or even close friends may care far more about Israel killing Palestinians in Gaza. Such people may even believe what we may call “Hamas pogrom denial,” already being spread. Many people have now gone so far in accepting the demonization of Israel and Jews that they see no penalty attached to public expressions of Jew-hatred. Indeed, many academics scream their hatred of Israel and Jews as loud as possible.
One example: On Nov. 10, Toronto officers responded to a call at an Indigo bookstore located in the downtown. It had been defaced with red paint splashed on its windows and the sidewalk, and posters plastered to its windows.
The eleven suspects later arrested claimed that Indigo founder Heather Reisman (who is Jewish) was “funding genocide” because of her financial support of the HESEG Foundation for Lone Soldiers, which provides scholarships to foreign nationals who study in Israel after serving in the Israeli armed forces. By this logic, then, most Jewish properties and organizations could be targeted, since the vast majority of Jews are solidly on Israel’s side.
Were these vandals right-wing thugs or people recently arrived from the Middle East? No, those charged were mostly white middle-class professionals. Among them are figures from academia, the legal community, and the public education sector. Four are academics connected to York University (one of them a former chair of the Sociology Department) and a fifth at the University of Toronto; two are elementary school teachers; another a paralegal at a law firm.
Were their students and colleagues dismayed by this behaviour? On the contrary. Some faculty members, staff and students at the university staged a rally in their support. These revelations have triggered discussions about the role and responsibilities of educators, given their influential positions in society.
You’ve heard the term “quiet quitting.” I think many Jews will withdraw from various clubs and organizations and we will begin to see, in a sense like in the 1930s, a reversal of assimilation, at least in the social sphere. (Of course none of this applies to Orthodox Jews, who already live this way.)
Women in various feminist organizations may form their own groups or join already existing Jewish women’s groups. There may be an increase in attendance in K-12 Jewish schools. In universities, “progressive” Jewish students will have to opt out of organizations whose members, including people they considered friends, have been marching to the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and similar eliminationist rhetoric, while waving Palestinian flags.
This will mostly affect Jews on the left, who may be supporters of organizations which have become carriers of anti-Semitism, though ostensibly dealing with “human rights,” “social justice,” and even “climate change.”
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg took part in a demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm on Oct. 22 in which she chanted “crush Zionism” along with hundreds of other anti-Israel protesters. Israel is now unthinkingly condemned as a genocidal apartheid settler-colonialist state, indeed, the single most malevolent country in the world and the root of all evil.
New York Times Columnist Bret Stephens expressed it well in his Nov. 7 article. “Knowing who our friends aren’t isn’t pleasant, particularly after so many Jews have sought to be personal friends and political allies to people and movements that, as we grieved, turned their backs on us. But it’s also clarifying.”
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.
Israel
Former Winnipegger Vivian Silver, at first thought to have been taken hostage, has now been confirmed dead
Former Winnipegger and well-known Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver has now been confirmed as having been killed during the massacre of Israelis and foreign nationals perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7. Vivian, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri was originally thought to be among the more than 1200 individuals who were taken hostage by Hamas.
To read the full story on the CBC website, go to https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/israel-gaza-vivian-silver-1.7027333
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