Scott Feltman, Executive Director of One Israel Fund - Full Interview

so scott thank you so much for joining us and uh welcome to the show thank you so much it's a it's an honor to be here so tell us a little bit about what one israel fund is and what does it do okay so if you go back to around 1993 you'll remember the oslo signing which was the famous signing on the white house lawn where israel and what was really the palestinian authority which was formerly the plo entered into an agreement um whereby the palestinian arabs would have some amount of limited governmentship um and uh the founder of our organization who is uh dr yakil leiter who at the time was working in what was called the yasha council yeshua is a hebrew acronym for yehuda shamron and aza or judea samaria and gaza the west bank communities was uh was quite intelligent in in seeing the future and where things were going to head um and and saw that over time it was going to the conversation was going to change to liberty government governorship to uh to giving away territory and uh and creating a separate uh what we believe would be a terrorist state in the middle of the heartland of israel so he he created one israel fund to be a de facto fundraising entity in uh in north america in order to provide humanitarian resources for the fledgling communities that were there so if you go back 27 years ago there were about 115 000 jewish citizens living in these areas and we like to call that area the biblical heartland because as we know almost our entire jewish civilization began in these areas from places like hebron to uh to ilo moret to mavodotan um and and every place in between right um it's really our history um so we felt that these areas were you know worth investing in and we set out to basically provide playgrounds educational resources medical facilities and of course security equipment preventive security equipment and you guys are based in america correct and your supporters are american um we have support from all around the world um we are a um a recognized irs charitable organization in america but our support comes from us i i marvel sometimes at the donations that come in from singapore to um to indonesia believe it or not we actually have a donor to japan to europe australia and all around the globe wow so so this is really where i i'm driving towards which is you know today's yo mats modes yup so the question you know it's independence day it's israel's independence day and the question that you know comes up in the diaspora is it's israel's independence day like that's wonderful for israel it's not rosh hashanah right it's not a a larger jewish holiday so why do diaspora jews feel the need regardless of what you do on that day i'm not commenting on any religious observance i'm talking about marking the day so as an individual who has been spending his life really gathering diaspora of money and gathering diaspora support for israel why is today so important for the diaspora community so i'll tell you an interesting story my father we just celebrated with him his 95th birthday last week and my father was a u.s veteran of world war ii he was actually a tail gunner on a b-29 bomber in the south pacific wow um he did not grow up in a very religious family um had very very little connection to judaism and on a whole but the one thing that he um he had and i don't i don't even fully understand where it came from um because we're talking about you know before 1948 he was a zionist he was part of a zionist chapter growing up and before 1948 my father was approached by some individuals over in palestine to come over this was after the war and train the would-be pilots of what would eventually become the israeli air force wow wow he didn't take that opportunity at the time he had other other um conflicts that he couldn't leave but it was always something that was very passionate for him um and i grew up in that home and for my father who he lived through he was born during the great depression he was born in 1926 so right there after he lived through that period of time he fought in the war and then he was able to see 1948 come to be and and i know that that was something that i always grew up with how important that was even as an american seeing the importance and then once you know from 1948 to go to 1967 and and jews all around the world were literally pumping out their chests proud that this is our country and this is what the idf did and this is what you know this is what god has given us and if you if you understand it in that context it really is a modern day miracle yeah that for our people to wander for 2 000 years uh without our own homeland to see the the devastation that has taken place and i know you just had a show devoted to you know the showa last like last week i guess um and and and how vulnerable we as a people are and now even especially today with everything we've seen around the globe with the rise in anti-semitism and how how significant it's become to know that we have that place i think it's just as important to those of us living outside of israel as it is to those who are living inside of israel today yeah it's still our homeland and and it's funny because when i talk about it i live in new york um but it's my homeland and and i believe that and i'm a proud american trust me i'm a proud american i pay my taxes um sometimes more than i wish i had to but i pay my taxes and i'm proud to be an american and i'm proud that everything that this country has given to not only our people but all people but at the end of the day i know that that's my homeland and if god forbid you know i ever need to run somewhere overnight that's where i'm gonna head um i'll tell you one other story that i think will will really crystallize this um we received some money down in uh in south america from some of the countries down there and there are some very very significant jewish populations there and um i once asked someone you know they donate mostly in cash um and i said you know we're not really a tax-exempt organization here they said uh we don't we don't need the tax exemption we we know you know you look at our homes right now we have we have a maid and a butler and we have chauffeurs and we live very very you know proudly down here and we live very affluently here but we also know how quickly it can be taken from us and we've seen it happen in other countries in the area and we know that our the the the ultimate end goal here is that we want to make sure israel is strong so that we ever need to run there in a moment's notice it's there for us and and just you know when you hear that from people who live all around you know what i would tell you is is serious anti-semitism um and they understand it you know for whatever reason their business dealings whatever they might be that they're that they're there they know that ultimately israel is there is their savior and it's there for all jews all around the globe and that's why we have to feel proud about you know matsumura sure and i i mean one of the things that i i think you know totally i think i think one of the things that that makes me the most proud i'd love to get your thoughts on this is in many ways you know i feel that israel is the um the proof if you will of a lot of our beliefs we we have a torah that was written thousands of years ago that speaks to prophecy that for so many years people looked at him like there's no way and it's such a it's such a such an exciting part whether you live there or not to watch god's prophecy to come to life through the state and to see what he says when he's going to return us and to see a land that waited for us and basically lied fallow until we got back and just to see the accomplishments against all odds um and i'm sure because of your efforts right and that's really what i love so much about your organization which is you're able to be a part of the development of the country and all of that is really god's hand in in history regardless of where we live right regardless of whether or not you are your street has a hebrew title on it or not we're all watching whether you get a front row seat or you watch from from across the pond as they say we're watching god do his stuff in our land and it's an amazing thing when you think about it 73 years it's it's a pittance yeah 73 years and think about where we are today israel is a superpower in so many ways from biotech to to you know to other high-tech and um agriculture and drip irrigation and when you see israel's now teaching africa how to how to get more out of their crops to fight world hunger and i mean it's a it's a leader in so many different areas and in such a short amount of time and i don't have to tell you it's not these you know it's not the easiest of neighborhoods to grow up so you know with with a tremendous amount of its own budget going to security um and yet all of the human capital that has come out of this country it's it is nothing short of miraculous and to see god's blessings and especially for us the agriculture aspect of this you know we go there and we see all the archaeological finds and you realize that you know today everything that was taking place three two three thousand years ago with the wine industry and the pomegranates growing and all the all of this species you know that are indigenous to israel and the olive oil that's coming out of the country which is the most superior olive oil around the world but i i always harken back um the winemaker of the sheila winery amihailuri who is an amazing individual and i don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of meeting him but he put out an interesting series of wines a few years ago and on the box that he created um he put all kinds of different aspects of torah verses and and you know connecting what he does to the land but he also brought down the famous um the famous comments by mark twain when he visited about 160 170 years ago and how barren the area was and he didn't see a human being for the almost the entire trip he went there and it was just basically a garbage dump um which is how it basically was laying fallow waiting for us to come back and as soon as we come back the flowers are blooming all of the all of the produce is is incredible and you just have to be able to make that connection to what we see when we read in the torah to today and to not to to not be able to connect that to god's blessings is to be blind yeah and there's one other aspect i want to touch base with you because i think you're absolutely right and i'm sure you see this in your work you know we run a trip to israel through momentum and we take adult men to israel and i always in every trip invariably and i hope it always continues we get a number of these comments someone will come up to me or whoever and say can i ask you a question i'll say sure they'll say why do i feel like i've been here i'm like what are you talking about they're like i've never been to israel before i'm 52 years old i grew up in the middle of america i grew up in cleveland or los angeles or detroit or florida i i've never been to israel this is my first trip and i'm here why does it feel like i've been here before and i'm like i don't know because you have like i don't have no idea like because it's your homeland too and i wonder if you had this similar experience where the people that you're interacting with that are donating that are participating that are that are part of this development even if they have never been there or they've been there once or twice they have this metaphysical this spiritual relationship to a land even though their tax paying address is in the diaspora country do you have that experience i personally had it when i went the first time when i was 17 years old um and i've seen it so many times i mean we we bring people uh 20 30 times a year to visit the communities that we deal with and inevitably there's always somebody there who's there for the first time but you know there's there's a certain there's a certain nuance to being there the first time but then there's also just connecting to your entire history and making and it all comes alive you know when you're walking on on the same road that abraham isaac and jacob walked you feel the connection that you'll never be able to explain it but but there there is a connection for every jew when you're in israel every every rock has a story there and you do feel it and i i love you know every playground that we build when you see the kids come running out and they're playing and and you know there's a the the the famous um sentence in tanakh where you know you'll have you'll hear the children playing in the fields and and and that was a prophecy that was made two thousand years ago and it's happening today and when our donors come and they see that and they see i built that playground um it's not just a playground i mean look i have a playground where i live it's not just a playground but it's a playground for for for for the nation of israel that is re-blooming in our in our homeland and there's definitely that connection to feel like you've been there forever i love it i love it scott how do people find out more about your organization um well the the best way to find out about it is to join us on one of our trips there but um if you're doing it from your own comfort of your home so uh our website is uh one israelfund.org which is written out o n e israel dot or uh one israel.org um we also constantly post on instagram and facebook so you can find us there and all the other social media platforms but um you can also just pick up the phone and call me i love speaking to people it's the best part of my day um and even when i couldn't you know the hardest thing this past year was not being able to meet with people personally but um you know at the very least to be able to speak to people i i think we we all need that interaction again um but again whenever any of your listeners are in israel if they want to experience some of these amazing stories um from seeing some of the unbelievable security work that we do to building a hospital which we're in the middle of now or even just connecting to the kids in some of the schools and playgrounds we'd love to bring them around and show them the the really the the fruit that's that's that's growing and blossoming in our land amazing well scott thank you so much for what you do and thank you for who you are and thanks for shining your light on this world charlie you're the best and you do this better than everybody and better than anybody so it's such an honor to be here with you and i'm so happy to be able to share with your audience thank you have a great hug i mean