#77: Behind the Bima - Bob Diener

[Music] from boca raton florida rabbis ephraim goldberg philip moskowitz and josh brody are taking you behind the bema the brs rabbis schmooze about contemporary issues and talk to special guests who give a behind-the-scenes look at how they got to where they are and what keeps them going welcome to behind the bema good evening wednesday night at 9 00 pm i'm gonna buy from god we're joined by my dear colleagues and friends right phil moskowitz and rabbi joshua brody we're here to take you behind the we are here to take you behind the bma as always we get an attitude of gratitude to our sponsor our dear friend david mueller the mueller family thank you so much for your generosity this evening david is sponsoring the family sponsored commemoration of the upcoming 50-year site of david's father henry mueller shimon bennett pinchas fled the nazis 1939 ended up in niagara falls which became a vibrant jewish community niagara falls do you know that have you been to niagara falls yes did you ever go did you go over the falls i don't think you live if you go over the falls the maid of the mist these are our people yeah they go under the falls is that right aren't there people who go over the falls yeah they just pulled someone out and they didn't make it someone just died like well in my case don't try it dude i didn't mean do not try that at home he became the president of the show for two decades cover kadisha loved he was a great man we knew him and he produced a great family so david thank you very much it happens to be that our guest tonight bob diener we're super excited for this conversation founder president of hotels.com getaroom.com and uh great philanthropist jewish leader happens to be that our sponsor david mueller looks a lot like our guest bob deaner very interesting so much so so much though that david told me fun fact at least once a month a stranger comes up to mitchell and mistakes him for bob deaner so what about a split screen showing them opposite each other and we could have if there was a if there was a perfect night for that sponsor with that guest it is tonight anyway our listeners live listeners join the comments tell us if you've been to niagara falls am i wrong that you can't go over the falls are you not supposed to try that i never did i remember when we toured as a family and as a kid we went on that boat you know they sell you the poncho and the mist is everywhere and you see it it's magnificent is it still a popular spot do people go to niagara falls today i don't know is it on either of your radar when you and your families are thinking of yeshiva week is niagara falls in the top 10. well it's cold there now what are you talking about is it frozen over now every summer we talk about it we're in boston we're like oh it's only six hours and then we pause and we say six hours our our technology expert just texted me and reminded me that for several reasons we turned off the comments for the last couple of days so if we want people to weigh in on niagara falls and whether they think that we have a future in the world to come then maybe we'll turn the comments back on so uh yeah what yeshiva week are you guys planning are you thinking yes shiva we going anywhere we had plans and it looks like they're not happening what we're planning this was back in in may we got these great flights to israel they were 550 each so it felt like a real look veer for the first time let's go the whole family's going to israel turns out we just got a refund on all of those tickets wow and we're not going to be able to go again so it's back up israel's back no but because my son had corona and then it was the same week we're scheduling to get the two younger kids the vaccinations and they have to take two vaccines and you still have to have it two weeks before you fly so we miss it by about a week so gotcha not happening okay hanging out here coming down we have family coming down and then we'll see maybe we'll do a couple day trips maybe one or two days uh nice up north we'll see but we're always enjoying family coming down that's fantastic all right it's always a great goldberg we're also more local in florida just a local trip get out get away a little bit so basically basically three three of us are going somewhere no it's basically oh comets are back on so ladies and gentlemen everyone listening niagara falls tell us about your niagara falls experience and uh whether it's on your radar today and can you go over the falls or that is a misconception and nobody should try that um yeah no we're planning i think we would all agree that what we're planning are family trips not vacations fundamental difference not complaining family trip is amazing count down to it it's critically important it creates memories it's amazing on vacation but it's not a vacation so sometimes you need a little vacation sometimes you need a family trip sometimes they overlap rarely so but anyway exciting exciting what's going on gentlemen now you sent a video right before this which really got me going a trip down memory lane you sent us the first ever episode of behind the bema it was not cool it was called coffee talk it was humiliating how bad it is the lighting was off we had no idea how to work the technology we were on zoom it was really embarrassing it wasn't it was pretty bad yeah but you know what you know that's great but if if we're still doing this in a year from now if then you know that we'll look back at this and be like what were we thinking of course that's how things evolve but i i was shocked by how far the show has come the show has come for although listen i got an email just today from a friend somebody in the industry who knows and he told me that our opening is off we've got to uh we've got to improve that and he actually even contributed uh a song for that opening and uh maybe we'll incorporate that going forward here it is a queue a queue shows supposed to start with a queue a 15 to 10 to 15 second of music to mark the start of a show he attached a queue in case we want to use it so we'll take a look at that with our our queue being off so there's still a lot of work to be done with three hours working to improve we've got other full-time jobs we're just having fun on wednesday nights at 9pm if you've got some great music you want to send in just we can use it we're happy to try we got we got so great event last night at the boca raton synagogue near nearly a thousand people standing up for israel jews and non-jews working to get back the bodies of hadar golden and and uh and um hopefully everybody was emailing and calling members of congress today to make make aid rebuilding gaza conditional on those bodies being returned and you know a lot of attention it got and not everybody was happy with it but if a thousand people call congress and it makes a difference if the golden family feel that the people in boca raton didn't forget their son you know you could be critical that we had we did it with latino coalition you could be critical because you think that we leaned in one direction you could be critical and there's criticism i have criticism of our own event the first thing we do people don't know this we go a little behind the bema every week we have a staff meeting on monday and the very first thing that we do is we review the week behind the week before very first thing we do is we sit down we look at shabbos we look at the events we look at the programs and we said what did we get what was good what was right what do we want to repeat and where we go wrong what could we have done better what can we learn from it and then we plan the week ahead we've always got a lot going on so you know as i tell people you'll be hard-pressed to find the bigger critic of ephraim goldberg than from goldberg i know i know so last night's event things we could have done differently things we could have done better but you know it also can be frustrating because you kind of want to turn to those people and say how was your pro-israel event how many people came to that how much diversity did you get represented in that how many calls to action how many people did you get in that oh no i haven't done anything i don't host anything i don't create anything i haven't organized anything i just want to sit with my keyboard and internet connection and tell you what you're doing wrong so anyway it was a lot of you feel good there were a lot of people for those who weren't there it was an amazing event that was packed there was a great vibe in the room as you said there wasn't just great energy but there was an action item everyone left with marching orders we had a cousin who got the place bouncing the house david free ambassador friedman was winded by all the dancing it was it was really amazing it was special and it had everything you know there were parts when he was singing zel's ahav where he got choked up and it was a little bit emotional that you laughed a lot you had a great couple of jokes there at the end rabbi yeah anthony to sing the national anthem and after i took but it's like i'm not gonna know i don't know the other one we had everything that's my point but you know what it really i want you to know and i'm saying this obviously i'm biased i'm a staff member of the show it was a really proud staff member it was a really proud it was a really proud member for our community and the proof is the emails i know you were flooded with today i was flooded with today of our members saying how proud they were of our shoal to stand up make our voices heard take a stand and a thousand people in an orthodox show on a tuesday night celebrating israel in a call to action is something that everyone should be proud of and as you said if you can replicate it better god bless go do it we'll be the first ones to attend your event and support it but we did this in the way that we thought was best and again we'll learn from the the ways we could do it differently but i for one was enormously proud of our community last night i appreciate that and you know we're not patting ourselves in the back right now that's not the point of reflecting on last night's event first of all we are proud of it um and and we also hope to inspire other people and i couldn't agree with you more if you think you could do it differently better than more power to you and we'll applaud you and we'll promote it we need people doing things for israel i just wrote seconds before we went on i was responding to an email you know if somebody there were people who wrote publicly that side and there's others who reach out privately who want to understand i appreciate the people who want to understand privately before they go and attack publicly especially if you have a relationship with them i think it's a good policy but anyway the um so the person you know said if you looked at the lineup of last night it certainly leaned in one direction and it did and again we're critical of ourselves we tried and um we wanted to incorporate and it happens to be that our elected leaders statewide our governor two of our senators are republican happens to be that two of the guests last night ambassador freeman and ben shapiro are boca local residents um but when we spoke about congressman deutsch our beloved congressman and said he's the best congressman in israel for israel in congress and he passes legislation a thousand people gave a sustained long applause we talked about republicans and democrats and bipartisanship and i just you know i wonder the people who felt that we leaned in one direction last night are they going to go online and applaud when congressman richie torres comes to brs in february and this is what i wrote back to the person what i wrote back to the person was i said i want you to know historically as long as i've been here which is not 23 years we have republicans and democrats right and left when we think they get it on israel and every time every single time the people on the other side reach out to criticize how could we have so and so every time so every time congressman deutsch has spoken at brs which is countless times i get criticism i'm told i'm a flaming liberal left-wing israel hater and every time we have someone on the right i'm told you're a trump-loving right-wing fanatic you know you're a member of the taliban and and you know what you just have to hear the noise and sustain the blows and keep your eye on the ball and say if you love israel and you're reasonable then we're going to continue to work with you and so some events we can do it together we've had some wonderful bipartisan events right we had congressman deutsch and congressman mast at the same time we've some done some wonderful events other times there's going to be an emphasis or a focus on the other we had ileana ross leighton and and congressman deutsch at our dinner one year that was yeah yeah exactly so so last night leaned in in one direction and you're right we we know the criticism we could have made an effort somehow to figure out more diversity last night leaned in one direction and then believe me believe me when congressman taurus who's been on behind the bema who is a uh african-american latino progressive uh liberal tremendous supporter of israel when he speaks in the shul shabbos morning at the end of davening when dominic is over it's not during the davening it's not during a service because we are going to applaud and support and encourage his further support of israel against horrific harassment and abuse we will take it on the chin for that and i wonder if the people giving it to me on the chin today will be out there applauding and defending and supporting when we have him then so it's easy to shoot arrows it was a big lesson but none of that none of that was the most for me the most inspiring part of the night most inspiring part of the night at the beginning robert goldberg in your introductory remarks as you were thanking everyone you thanked the palm beach sheriff's office and our security uh volunteer security team who were there to protect us and there was a thunderous standing ovation a sustained thunderous standing ovation the palm beach sheriff who was in the front of the room was visibly moved by the experience he couldn't believe that a thousand people were on their face on their feet cheering him and it was a moment of great pride i think for all of us that it was a big kid is hashem that the palm beach sheriff's office knows that when they put themselves in the front line we appreciate it what only surpassed that was that at the end of the program someone told me that one of our members who i'm going to keep anonymous for now because i don't have permission to share it but one of our members the event started at might have an accident i might have an accident the event started at six which means the palm beach chef over there was already there at five o'clock the program went until 9 30 9 45 which means it's a long time one of our members ordered pizza to be delivered for the palm beach sheriff's officers so that they would have dinner that night they wouldn't have to go hungry he did it without fanfare he didn't need any recognition i only found out you know you know in a backward channel but to me that was amazing that one of our members thought in a selfless way out of his own pocket to support the palm beach sheriffs i thought that was amazing to him and then another great he couldn't bring a pie up to the front no i thought i found out when i saw the empty boxes in the lobby i was rummaging through them starving at 11 o'clock at night i walked out of the shul with one of the sheriffs and we were walking to you know he's walking through a squad car i was walking in my car and i said thank god that you know we're all safe tonight and i said actually you know thank you thank you thank you and god for keeping it amazing it was amazing we want to wrap up and bring out an incredible guest bob diener but i will just say and i echo that sentiment it was a great point of pride the reception that the audience gave to local law enforcement uh to thank them they stand up they stand in they run towards the problems and they cooperated enormously with us on this event we're not going to get into we're not going to give any oxygen to the truly wicked people um that that caused not only the police but the fbi to have worked and are still working let's just say on certain threats that came in for this event um and palm beach sheriff's office our local captain captain moss are our security volunteer head david berger um our our paid security there was enormous security cooperation i i don't remember ever at an event we've hosted presidential candidates at brs and yet this was the first event ever that we needed to rent and bring in um metal detectors people had to walk through in order to be able to come security was the most heightened it's ever been for very good reason for very credible reasons because that's how wicked and evil there are people out there it's really hard to imagine and believe no matter what you think or agree or disagree that would get to that level people who got my children's cell phone numbers and harassed and abused i've got my rebbe's contact number harassed abused and and and faked and who threatened incredible ways enough that the fbi and police were involved and that's all we'll say is just a huge huge thank you alan poland of the of the federation so grateful for that coordination the federation provides and how important it is we're just talking the ceo of federation before we came on and we were saying that you know if you wait for an event like this this is a message to our colleagues everywhere if you wait for a threat or an event that you really need security or there's something heightened going on and you have to start making calls and introduce yourself and develop a relationship you're way too late it's way too hard that's why it was so amazing that you know federation has a head of security for our whole community alan and and we've got captain moss's cell phone number and we've got david berg these are all relationships that exist and that are in place so that when we needed it to coordinate was was as simple and smooth as you could imagine so and expensive metal detectors are not inexpensive but of course protecting your life is well worth it i will just say it's the first experience i've ever had of standing up at the beginning of an event in a packed room looking out at the audience and trying to scan a room to wonder who might be who is it yeah yeah when i was introduced to the right before the event i was told i was told he knew the star smuggling matter also but i was told that he knew the hateful we were choosing what songs to sing and then i said do you know kale molly in case you need that for now come on it was a little sober moment but anyway let's just uh we'll bring our guest a moment but this just in discover niagara falls canada great place the weather's warm drive to toronto lots of kosher restaurants and fun things to do thank you alan rita also tells us that there's an american side and a canadian interesting which side is better false nobody is weighing in to tell us can you go over here because no one lived no one survived tell us no one survived to tell us the answer to that question um bob diner why is he a guest tonight how long we've known bob a long time uh philanthropist in south florida leader in our community supporter of many of our programs yeah and uh very wise man no i'm just saying he's very wise men if you live in south florida if you've been at apac you know the name if you don't you're about to meet a man who's really at the front front uh front row seat of many organizations that you're familiar with and is making a big difference and hopefully everyone will come inspired by the difference that he's making and we'll hear a call to action for a difference that they can make in their own lives one of the pieces of feedback i got is to give a little more bio on our guests so let me tell you that bob dean the co-founder president get a room.com was which he just sold awarded best hotel booking site byfrommers.com and uh that is not my website and he received uh he uh started found at hotels.com and sold it he had a law degree from cornell where he's the editor of the law review he practiced law in a firm and then uh founded and headed and sold several airline travel companies and created the merchant model for booking hotels launched one of the first travel sites in the web in 1995 was ahead of the curve using technology he has one of the most successful ipos ever and the leading travel industry expert frequent guest on nbc cnn fox news and more he's on the national boards of apac israel bonds hasbro fellowship he's active at check hello community school is greater miami jewish federation jcs kosher food bank miami children's museum the list goes on and on a great supporter entrepreneur momentum of the year by university of florida great supporter of momentum that's right he lives in miami and he's a good friend so it's really a great honor to be able to welcome him behind the bema this evening ladies and gentlemen bob deaner it is to be joined by our dear friend bob deener hello community day school isha torah federation i don't think there's anything that you're not involved in leading and helping and building bob it's a privilege and a pleasure to have you with us thank you so much well it's great to be on with you so i want to start with an article you have several articles on h.com and in one of those articles you offer some of your reflections on this pandemic and what it's been like and you're right there yes it's nice to have possessions and have the funds to take vacations buy what we need nothing wrong with acquiring wealth as long as we did it ethically and use the wealth to improve the world around us now is the time to think about whether we're making best use of the talents and assets we have when we realize we have a purpose and mission in life we realize that wealth is just one tool we've been given to fulfill that unique mission really powerful and pro and really profound words help us understand how does a person ask themselves that question how do we know if we're making the best use of our talents and assets how do you ask yourself that question how we should be making the use of our talents and assets well it's a good question you know first of all i've been through a lot of a lot of different types of up and downs in the economy in the world and obviously the pandemic now uh sars ebola the great recession uh the nasdaq crash and many others so i've seen a lot of ups and downs and what happens is you know we go so fast in life that we're just going hundreds of miles an hour and we really don't think about what's our mission and where are we going what are our goals until something happens and when something happens like this pandemic we just stop we slow down and all of a sudden we can't lead our normal lives we start to ask well uh maybe i have a purpose here maybe i should be doing something different you know this is a time this is a it's an awakening it's a wake-up call this is a time for us to think about where are we going in life what's our purpose in life and i believe that everybody has has a unique purpose god gave us all unique gifts and we're all different we all have very different talents and it's incumbent upon each of us to figure out what those talents are and how we can best utilize those talents to make the world around us better and so how do you do it you think about what are your best assets what are you really good at and how can you use those assets to help your community to help those around you to help make your word world better and to help uh reach your overall goals and you can also the same time be thinking about what are those goals and what do you consider success in life this is this is the time when you're spending a lot more time at home when you can't go on the road much to think about those issues so let me ask you a personal question we'll go a little bit behind the bema as you've thought about those issues is there anything you can share with us coming out of the pandemic are there things you want to work on you you've led almost every jewish cause you can name you've been involved in the jewish community in extraordinary ways and we're so so deeply grateful for that but coming out of the pandemic have you pivoted have you realigned do you say you know what my next chapter i want to do this either professionally personally philanthropically have you come out with uh with a different direction and can you share it with us sure so the way i look at though how where can my contribution go and how can i contribute to the world around us i think about how to make transformational change you know i i'm in the technology business the hotel and technology business and my life's you know been all about um changing the way we do things it's been about disintermediation it's been about technology it's been about how the internet changes our lives and so now i'm thinking about that much more from a jewish organizational perspective what can i get involved in that's going to dramatically change the paradigm so let me give you an example uh a and a shertor and i've been very involved with ace for many years i was very involved at the at the early stages of h.com and really helped them build it out i'm involved in the ask the rabbi with the chat with the rabbi at h.com right now and so i'm working with them on they have a a goal and they have a great vision and the vision is over the next 10 years to reach 3 million jews and primarily jews that have not really been are not really connected to the jewish community that's a very difficult task but it's transformational because if they can succeed over 10 years in connecting 3 million jews to their heritage that's incredibly powerful and so i'm working closely with them and achieving that and it's going to take a lot of testing it's going to take a lot of the latest technology a lot of trial and error a lot of persistence but that's what i see is transformational i'm also working very closely with khabad on campus i work with them on totally revamping their technology platform and they have just completed the first days of totally revamping their technology and now all national programs about on campus are all automated it's all built in a system and what we're doing is with each individual chabad house around the country we're doing tests right now and pilots and working to have them taking all the national data and all their local data and making sure it's all tracked so they can use that data to be much more powerful to show students where they are in their journey to show them for example what others are doing that are in similar situations they can see where what programs are more effective they can see what programs have a better roi or a better return on investment and that way they can be much more effective with their time and reach a lot more people through technology this is going to be transformational for cabana campus we're through the first phase we're working on the second phase right now which is combining the local chapters with the national programming and looking at the data we have and seeing how we can use that data to make every club house in every community so much more important and we're working on how we can make khabad relevant to every jewish student that gets to campus so particularly we want to reach every jewish student and we're working on ways to do that largely through technology so those are those are just a couple of the programs i'm working on that i see as transformational and i see through relevant tools through recent technology and how we can really change the paradigm of jewish connection to our roots and reaching a much higher percentage much wider percentage of the jewish population does sound amazing we're looking forward to seeing the uh the results and the impact but but your message to our listeners your message to those watching is figure out what you're good at where's your skill set what's your proficiency and don't only think about how it can benefit you contribute it to benefit the world around you and in your case that's technology but in our listeners and everyone should ask themselves what's your skill what's your passion what are you good at and now don't only use it for your benefit and advancement use it for others as well right right when you get to certain stages in life you realize that it's not only about yourself that if you really want to feel fulfilled and if you really want to have success and when you think about what you can do for others it's thinking about what are your strengths what can you contribute what strengths do you have that will make our community better and then you should utilize those strengths uh to actually go out and help organizations and help our community now how do you decide what to get involved with my guess is you get an influx of opportunities to impact the landscape of jewish organizations how do you decide how do you decide what speaks to you what you're passionate about how did you come to that passion take us behind the beam a little bit and when someone comes and makes a pitch to you and says you know bob you have this great experience in certain areas we would love for you to get involved in our organization what are you looking for where you can make that impact you say this is the type of thing i want to get involved with this is where i think i could make my mark and where do you get that inspiration from knows what in your childhood what in your upbringing led you to that point that that's what you're looking for in jewish organizations so unlike unlike a lot of people that you know they get involved in organizations because people call them and people contact them i'm really the opposite i find the organizations i want to get involved in so let me give an example uh when uh after i first saw the first part of hotels.com i wanted to get i wanted to build a jewish website that i thought could connect millions of jews everywhere without a lot of juices aren't comfortable coming to a synagogue going to a class but you know going on going on to the internet where they're they don't have to answer any questions anyone no one sees them they're they're much more comfortable so i wanted to build a jewish website so first thing you do is when you want to build something you look and do you do your due diligence and so i did my due diligence to see who was out there and the site that i thought was most aligned with my thinking was h.com and so i contacted them and i arranged for the editors to file from jerusalem and we've been in my office in miami for about a week and we mapped out a whole program to build.h.com to where it is today which is just an incredibly uh an incredible uh site where you can go for almost uh almost anything you want to know about judaism you can find uh some information on h.com so another example is the other thing i wanted to do [Music] in uh after i sold the first part of hotels.com was to work on israel advocacy because the israeli government at the time after oslo they thought well hey we you know we have oslo now and what do we need shaliah and a lot of resources on campuses um advocating for israel we have oslo now we have peace well obviously that didn't work and so campuses were left with almost really no pro-israel professionals there and it was really a disaster and so i was looking to build a program to train students on how to advocate for israel and after doing again my due diligence a lot of research i found this program called the hasbro fellowships that was just starting it was partially being funded by the israeli government because they realized they they needed to do something but they really needed a boost and so i contacted them and i also met with them and i met with their team and i worked with them to build out house bureau fellowships to make it an incredibly strong program where we find talent on campuses find really leadership on campuses around the country bring them to israel for intensive three-week program and teach them how to advocate for israel not only by taking classes and listening but actually have them get up and debate the issues with others and so those are a couple of examples of how uh you know how i find organizations or missions that i'm interested in now what's my motivation well i grew up in a jewish home in miami uh i'm i was a student at hebrew academy so i spent uh you know i grew up in a jewish day school my mother was from haifa and we spent every summer with my grandparents in israel so i became a real zionist like my grandparents were and i just have a special love for the state of israel given that i spent almost all my summers growing up there i have a lot of cousins there and i believe that you know if i'm not in israel fighting in the idf and defending the country in israel then i need to do what i can here in the u.s and what i can do here is use my resources and talents to advocate for a strong u.s israel relationship hence my involvement with aipac and do everything i can to make the jewish community here stronger hence my involvement with h.com how about on campus and other organizations that i believe are doing a great job now almost every non-profit that i'm involved in it's not just meeting them you know seeing their information and sending them a check so what i try to do is i first of all if i believe in what they're doing and i think they're doing a good job at it and i believe they have good jockeys very good people working in the organization what i try to do is make them more efficient i try to understand their mission help them refine their mission and then i provide them and i work with them and setting up tools of measurement so almost every charity that i'm working with provides me a report typically quarterly that i call it's an roi report return on investment and the way i look at it is and what are the expenses of the organization and what are they achieving and i try to set it up so that it's an algorithm that puts different organizations on a similar footing based on a weighing skill so for example if an organization is successful in taking a student with no background and they're going to israel and learning for a year they're learning one-on-one say with a rabbi every week or they're going to regular classes that's a pretty high level of success and someone that's really connected with the community if it's if i'm measuring your organization and saying okay their work where did those students end up in a few years after they left college or after they finished their involvement with that organization what's their level of engagement with the community and then we measure those based on a scale in terms of their level of engagement are they chairing an organization are they regular attending an organization are they really attending a synagogue are they regularly doing advocacy work on behalf of the usos or relationship so i try to set up measuring tools with each organization so i can see how effective they are so at the end of the day you know if i'm let's say i'm involved in five or six organizations for israel advocacy i can compare which one is more cost effective and it can be dramatically different so an organization can spend a fraction of the money a fraction of the dollars to achieve the same goal as another organization that maybe is is not really using technology maybe is uh really working kind of in the stone age and just is not nearly as efficient it could cost them 5 10 20 times as much to achieve the same goals so obviously i'm going to work with the organization that's much more efficient because my dollars and resources are going to go much further so i try to look for number one organizations that are fulfilling a mission that i believe in and connecting jews to their roots is something i really believe in yeah at very at different levels but just so many years are unaffiliated i want to connect them i want to get them connected so they start asking questions so they start appreciating who they are where they came from they started appreciating their background and once you appreciate it you have a self-motivation to learn more and to get more involved and i want to make sure that we set up the next generation in the us solely of jews but also non-jews that are care about the state of israel and i want to advocate to the state of israel and i want to make sure that the u.s is a relationship but keeping that strong is something that's important to the next generation here because that's how i can help make the state of israel so much stronger even i'm not even though i'm not out there fighting on the front lines i can do a lot to help the state of israel stay strong by keeping us support for israel strong the truth is we owe you a big debt of gratitude we had this event last night and um your family one of the sponsors and supporters of it and we're deeply indebted to you we had almost a thousand people jews and non-jews and they stood up for israel advocating for israel and everybody left with homework they left with a charge which was today and going forward to make sure to lobby congress uh to help get our boys home hadar golden and shaul who are continuing to be held by hamas for seven years we had hadar's mother here on our on our program behind the bhima and this family is still tortured seven years later against international law against all human rights and we're hoping that congress will condition aid to the palestinians and rebuilding gaza on these boys on their bodies coming home so those families can grieve so we had a great event last night a huge crowd people are active and you're definitely you're making that happen and we're so appreciative what's interesting about the answer you just gave is in the fundraising world and i'm on the other end of that um they often say the number one reason that people don't give is because they weren't asked and it's true sometimes we'll ask someone for a large sum of money to join a certain cause to be part of our pillar society let's say at a high level and they say yes right away well why didn't you ever do that nobody ever asked so on the one hand there's a big part of fundraising which is the number one reason people don't give they're not asked but you're saying and it's really refreshing and i hope people listen to your messages don't always wait to be asked and don't only give to the people who come ask be thoughtful about what you want to be part of and come to them say i have certain dollars i want to make a difference your cause or this effort matters to me and i want to be part of it and i think that's a great message and i certainly welcome anyone anyone coming to me as well can we go a little behind the bema on i know brodie's itching to get in but one more question first can we go about a little behind the beam on hotels.com and get a room.com how does a person go from having an idea and turning it into an enormously successful world-class business you had a thought let's use technology to book hotel rooms and obviously it wasn't overnight that's what people think you know something becomes hotels.com and you sell it and then you start your next company what goes into from the do you doubt the thought do you research the thought did you run into obstacles and at some point are you prepared to abandon the thought how do you break through to have that success well that's a great question and you know we live in a great country live in a great time but you know most important and we have the opportunity we have the opportunity here so the most important is and we understand this as jews you have to believe you have to believe in your mission you have to believe that you can succeed at it and you have to you have to uh you have to have a plan we have to have a mission and you have to be really diligent and persistent in reaching that mission and you know when i started hotels.com was actually called hotel reservations network it started off slow it took you know it took many years to build it up to what it became it started off slow but we were methodical we were careful it's the same thing with getaroom.com and now recently we recently sold getroom.com to to to a major company and we launched another company now called travel funders network or tfn and it's actually the same thing it starts off slower but we're very methodical we're very careful we make sure whatever we say we do we make sure we deliver for our our hotel partners and our distribution partners and you know a lot of a lot a lot of the principles that i learned just growing up in a jewish day school and uh through through starting uh through studying the five books and studying uh proverbs i'm starting um starting talmud a lot of those basic principles are the principles that i use in business every day so let me give you a couple of examples uh um how do you handle employees employ employees and you want to build the company it's all about your people it's all about finding the right people and motivating those people you know we learn a lot in judaism about how to do that because we learn in the talmud that you should never let your workers wait to the next day to compensate them so what's the message you need to be very fair and so we have we have an absolute policy of fairness with our employees you know we never ever delayed their pay even during the worst times you know sometimes we have to put people on on on a reduced schedule but we were always fair with them we made it up when we could we treat every employee fairly and every employee knows that and we try to make every employee part of the family you know at hotels.com every employee had options and so when the company did well they all did well but everybody was there and it's the same with our current employees at the tfn they're all part of the family we're there building an organization from the bottom up to make it great and it's about it's about quality it's about everything you do making sure you do it right you know there's a very uh as a very well known uh jewish principle in leviticus chapter 19 which says don't put a stumbling block before the blind so i'm sure we've all had experiences where stumbling block was put before so what's the stumbling block for example you go to the you go to publix and you're going to get some fresh fruit so i like berries so you go and you buy strawberries and this is this is a classic tom looting example so you look at the berries on top they look amazing right they're plump they're red they're juicy you go buy it it was expensive you're all excited to have you get home you're washing me take out the top ones the rest are all rotten and have mold on them that's putting a stumbling block before the blind judaism teaches us you never want to do that you always want to be fair with your customers with your employees and if you have a real policy of being honest and being fair and of course probably the most famous line of judaism is treat others like you want to be treated right which we learned from from the famous story with hillel explaining judaism on one foot so that is the essence of judaism that's what i grew up with is that treat others fairly so now when it comes to customer care in the travel business customer care is probably the most difficult thing to deal with because uh almost everyone has had some travel horror story you know the airplane's delayed the luggage is lost the plaster falls in your head in the hotel the elevator is making noise and wakes up in the middle of the night there's just so many issues that can happen so how do you deal with them so a lot of companies have tons of manuals and they hire these very expensive consultants and they have take the whole company out for big retreats we don't do any of that we have no manuals we don't have any retreats on customer care we have one standard in every company i've been with and this is the standard we teach put yourself in the shoes of the customer and respond the way you would want to be treated now sometimes it's yes sometimes it's no sometimes it's a refund sometimes it's not a refund maybe it's a partial one maybe it's a credit but whatever it is that's the policy we follow treat others like you want to be treated and when you build a business like that regardless of what it is by not putting that stumbling block before the blind and being very fair to everyone you deal with people start to appreciate you and they start to patronize your business and that's how you build a great business little by little being methodical being careful so getting great employees treating them properly great customer service and there's another principle in proverbs which says that it's much better to be the creditor than the debtor and it's not great to be beholden to the creditor so in other words don't over leverage be careful and i always think i'm what you call a conservative entrepreneur and a concerted entrepreneur means we're very careful so i've seen so many companies in my industry they're spending a fortune and they're and they're advertising everywhere and their top line numbers look great and the bottom line numbers have massive huge negatives next to them and they can never recover so we're very concerned with top line growth but we also watch the bottom line and we watch it like hawks and we're very careful so being and that's again all these are principles that i just learned growing up it's part of it's part of it's part of what i grew up with but these are principles that anyone can apply to make a business successful give us an industry secret what should we know when we're booking a hotel how do we get a great deal a great hotel give us an insider industry secret about hotels uh sure well uh first of all you want to shop because prices can be all over the place so you want to shop and that there are different way there are different organizations you can join um to uh to get it to get a better rate but really the best way is to to really do your homework um shop and be a little bit flexible you know for example a lot of hotels will give you a third night for free if you stay two nights because most people especially resort areas like orlando and others most people don't know that so you know when you split the room up over three nights and maybe uh the right all of a sudden is so much better so there's a lot of things like that checking in on sunday night is usually cost a lot less than checking in on say a monday night when so many business travelers are coming in so it's being even time of the day that you book sometimes you can get a better rate you have to check the time of the day because it's all about supply and demand so my message is it's all it's all about the shopping and doing your homework and being diligent brody yeah thank you so much so even as a conservative business uh business man i'm just wondering you know with all the boards that you sit on and uh do you see that there's a different set of standards that the non-profit organizations have to abide by and the for-profits in other words even being conservative and marketing a a product like hotels.com you got to spend a lot of money marketing many of us have great products out there but sometimes we're we're limited by the boards putting restrictions on how many how much dollars you can actually spend on a marketing program in the nonprofit world do you kind of help them push the marketing side where we don't really have that would you also just you know pull back and say listen dollars are scarce develop your program go out to the the local neighbor who can probably get the marketing done for for a fraction of the expense but you would never do that in the for-profit world so my answer to you is that the standards for a non-profit board and how you operate should not be that much different than in the for-profit world okay the only difference is is that you're not necessarily making a profit on the transaction where you have another purpose right the purpose may be to um um have someone advocate for israel have someone travel to israel uh the jewish learning maybe putting on filling maybe it's um maybe it's um uh coming on coming on a trip um maybe it's all all different uh whatever the purpose is of the organization that's your that's your um that's your we'll say profit like uh transactions so when you measure your roi your return on investment you're looking at how much are you putting in and what are you getting out but what you're getting out of it your return is not necessarily dollars but it's something else and for every organization it's different and so you need to measure that and so the answer is i actually just dealt with this on a call with another israel advocacy organization that was looking in expanding their reach and it took an investment over over the course of eight to 12 months to do that and we looked at it very carefully we looked at the what the upside is what the downside is what their cancer rates are and so forth and i advocated that they go ahead and try it um you know limit the expense but that they needed to try and and they needed to test it uh because you want to expand your reach and you want to try different things so yes we're all under profit or not profit we're all under financial constraints now people come to me and my companies and they say they want to spend x now everyone knows when my my executives know if they want to spend x they have to tell me what the return y is otherwise i just look at them and say well what's the return so they have to come in and they have to present and they'll show me what the expense is and what the expected return is over the course of the period of time and based on that return expectation first of all i hold them accountable for it and we measure it and we watch it but if i'm going to improve an expense i want to know what that's going to bring to the company may not be today but maybe over time so it's the same thing in a non-profit world if you want to increase the expense well what is it going to bring how is it going to further the mission of the organization maybe it may be you know maybe it's raising dollars for the synagogue maybe it's raising dollars for the hospital maybe you know it can be a variety of different variables but you need to measure it and you need to be creative and you need to be innovative you can't know so many organizations are living in the past and they had they had a they had a purpose 30 or 40 years ago but they don't really have a purpose today so you asked me earlier about uh um the number one reason why people don't people don't give us because they're not asked and and is that is that is that is that the reason why people don't give well i think yes of course you have to ask but it's a lot more than that it's because so many organizations don't make their case right you need to show to the prospective donor what their return is what are they investing in what are they going to get out of what is this going to do and most organizations fail to make that case at least don't do it well and the better you can do that the more you know if i'm going to talk to somebody about making a donation i want to show them your donation this is what it's going to do this is what it's going to do for the organization this is going to bring in new equipment into the hospital that new equipment is going to help heal x number of people it's going to allow us to serve a much bigger portion of the community it's going to enable us to hold a lot more classes in the school or in the synagogue it is going to make our school so much better which means our students are going to end up getting into better schools etc etc so you need to clearly define that so a potential donor really understands what are they investing in this should be watched at every rabbinical school every non-profit school i know that in addition to all this philanthropic work and business success and communal leadership you're an avid kite surfer snowboarder and triathlete have you competed in ironman and triathlons well i actually just uh about two months ago i completed my 12th a half ironman race a triathlon so it's great and i've done many open ocean swims wow and it's right now it's part it's part of balance so when i get up in the morning i do i do uh i do yoga every morning and then i do a workout either running swimming biking playing tennis or if it's windy i try to go kite surfing um but it gives you about it gives me balance and actually when i'm out doing sports this morning i took a several mile run i was thinking about an organization that i'm working with that i i met with their ceo yesterday and i'm trying to i'm working with them to help them really change their marketing through social media and really change kind of the audience that they're reaching over time because they have a mostly elderly audience and they really need to lower the age demographic if they're really going to succeed long term and so while i was doing my run i was thinking about how am i going to suggest they do that and so engaging all these sports is just not only is it great for the it's great for the mind great for the body but also it gives me some time uh without any pressure being out of the office or out of the house to really think about different issues that that are on my mind at the time love it and couldn't agree more um i'm sure many people are listening to this and they're thinking how can we clone bob deaner right if we had communities of people who are engaged and passionate and ready and willing to take their time energy resources and wisdom and put it to our organizations we would have very different looking communities are we doing a better a good enough job of that right are we doing a good enough job of training our children our teenagers or college students that one day you're going to go off into the workforce please god you're going to have success and it's going to be your opportunity to give back and you can't sit on the sidelines but you have to follow in the footsteps of those who came before you and afforded you these opportunities and you got to make your difference are we and again i i'm challenging almost rabbis and community leaders are we doing a good enough job of using that vocabulary and educating children teenagers college students that it's not just enough to go to the workforce it's not just enough to make money and to raise a family but you gotta look to make a difference that has to be part of the portfolio that you're putting together as you engage in your professional career so you know a couple of times a day we say a a a prayer that you know comes from comes from the bible which is that uh it's the shema prayer that that you should teach them to your children so that's really a fundamental principle of judaism and i think about that every day and a lot of what i do now is trying to just not do it myself but and i try to teach my children how to do it and i try to teach others uh you know when i was transitioning uh you know we recently sold the get a room and as i was transitioning it was really all about training others to be able to run the company which we did very successfully and and now i'm very uh i spent a lot of my time working with my kids uh and and teaching them uh business principles investment principles i i learn i learn with right now one of my kids almost almost every day we we study and i've done that with almost all of my kids over time i wrote a book which you can you can pick it up on amazon it's called the biblical secrets to business success because i believe that if you have something to contribute you need to put it down in writing so we have this video which which should be great to distribute others will see it but also if you can write in an article um or in a book it's a great way to compile your thoughts and leave it for for others and for the next generation so that the principles that you know i took the principles that i believe led to my success in various businesses and i try to lay them out on this book from a jewish perspective and so people can think about those when they're moving ahead in their lives and hopefully they'll realize i talk a lot about balance and and balance means balancing you know not only obviously your business and your professional career but also what about your family what about learning what about community engagement so it's taking those i call them really kind of for those four pillars so your professional life your your family community engagement with study and community engagement or uh taking those are kind of the four pillars that i look at all the time and so you need to need to balance between these four and i write a lot about that in the book what are you studying with your children you're studying jewish texts you're studying business texts what do you when you sit down with your children every day and you're saying i'm making time to educate you what is it that you're focusing on so we study jewish texts but we also we also uh we have and that's on a daily basis and then on a weekly basis we have investment meetings between the family and i try to uh i tell i tell the family and others what i'm thinking about from an investment perspective what's happened during the last week and we go around and ask each of them their perspectives as well and their comments but i try to i try to teach them the way i think about the world the way i think about investing so they understand it and they'll be able to do it themselves down the road that's brilliant now um bob my family comes from elizabeth new jersey my grandparents were there actually before rabbi tights rabbi brodie grew up in elizabeth new jersey wow tell us about your connection to elizabeth so my my grandparents uh lived in elizabeth and were uh were very involved with the jec the jewish educational center uh my grandfather judo dina was actually the founder of the da fashion which was a program that started on wevd radio in new york where once a week um they would learn a page of talmud and eventually that became daffy well now people learn what people learn every day a page of tama but growing up um my grandfather and rabbi tights would come down to miami and they would do the program often here on sunday mornings and i would go with uh with my grandfather and rabbi tyson the program where they uh uh learned the page of talmud and and they did it over and was broadcast over the radio which is really a novel thing back because this was many years ago and of course now with all the uh with the great technology of the internet it can be done uh so much uh you know on a so much wider basis so you're really continuing your grandfather's legacy he spread torah on radio you're spreading torah on the internet with ash and others it's really an incredible continuity you see that same theme of tech using technology and and platforms to be able to promote torah which is very very uh really amazing really amazing and there's so much more to do you know we're we've really only scratched the surface i mean there's the technologies get better really every day and and what i try to look at is how we can use these these technologies to spread jewish wisdom on a much wider basis because we have the ability to do it and we have the ability to connect with so many more with all the tools that we have and we can do it in a very cost effective way it takes dedication it takes being methodical and testing but that's what i'm very focused on now amazing well bob thank you for your time we really appreciate it your wisdom so much to think about i'm so inspired right now and motivated and honestly in our role in our non-profit our our greater community that's made up of so much activity and we have so much ambition the language you gave us about how we measure and uh how we um ask people to invest with us by giving them that roi on what they're doing it's really inspiring it's really motivating we thank you so much for all that you do thank you for your help in in the event that we held last night we're really proud of it and it was uh thank god a great success and uh thank you for your friendship we're looking forward to doing things together please god in the future well it's been great being on with you and colin cavada and all your great work for for claudia sorel i i've i've seen your involvement and the large groups you bring to the uh that you brought to the apac conferences i see your students um from your community that are involved with with the ncsy israel advocacy programs that were a big investors in and all the other great work you do to keep uh to keep the state of israel and jewish communities strong so kola khabar and all your great work thank you so much take care thank you thank you great interview great conversation a lot to think about a lot to unpack gentlemen highlights first of all his grandfather started daffodil i love that amazing innovation a great contribution daphyomi did not come from that da family did precede that but maybe the popularity of daf yelmi because the radio reached so many people it was uh something innovative in its time some takeaways highlights what are the biggest moments i love to self-awareness his awareness of what he's good at what he can contribute and his willingness to put his skin in the game to improve other organizations and i think that's a something that a lot of people can learn from you know he clearly has that knack for the technology side of things i thought it was fascinating his discussion of metrics and measures for organizations something that i think jewish organizations in general struggle with of what what that return on investment is going to look like how are you going to measure success over the long run and i got to say i loved his description of running clear your head your best ideas you need to come up with something creative you go out for a run that's when i have my best thoughts robert musculus when are you adding swimming and bicycling you too can be a triumph i happen to be my my my running kharusa recently did a triathlon and uh i am not yet ready to do that and my wife might kill you for suggesting that you're right you're running harris house with a group of guys this could only happen like with a group of guys who decided to like drop and have a competition with push-ups for some reason all fully dressed so everybody was winded after like 14. was at like 80 push-ups with one finger with his ankles crossed and when he stood up he wasn't out of breath he it's just obnoxious which is funny because he's the most humble modest amazing person but he's obnoxious and how we have a deal he doubles anything i do anything i do he doubles it that's our starting point you and i have the same idea when it comes to eating [Laughter] we go out and i double whatever you do that's amazing first of all i love how you said to him how you know traditionally we we hear from donors that you know if they're not asked they're not going to give and now he does his research to look for companies that best suit his uh skill set um i was actually listening to it to an interview that he had done with someone else and he asked the the person during the interview he said you have any idea how much money i spent to invest to build hotels.com the guy's like i really have no idea i mean how much a couple hundred thousand dollars he says it was me and my partner we each contributed 600 it took two years to collect the other 600 from my partner after we already started doing well but what he essentially did and this is what's so amazing is that he changed the entire industry it was everyone was used to actually paying for hotels when you went to the hotel you showed up you but he actually came up with this concept he says you know what maybe people actually pay well in advance which gave him the money to then hold it over for later but when you come up with ideas that no one else is thinking of and you change the entire industry by doing that it just shows you in the jewish world maybe there's there's so many things that we could be doing if we just think out of the box i want to follow up on that conversation i already texted you that we should make a a meeting with him go down to miami because you know we try to use technology at book return synagogue to get our values and our deals ideals and the difference we're trying to make using technology and 100 thinking out of the box i love how he's promoting chabad but aish you know jamie gellers was on behind the bema and she's the chief technology officer and and charged with trying to reach those millions of of people and and i agree with you it was really um it was really inspiring that way i just did hear from i got an email from bob dyner's eighth grade english teacher penny jane lynn penny jane lynn so shout out penny jane lynn who emailed to tell us she was bob deaner's eighth grade english teacher i don't know if she's taking credit for it all but she does want us to know that so she did a good job he spoke very eloquently and he did a good job so but i agree with you i was very inspired by his not being passive not sitting back not waiting for someone to ask him but taking initiative being proactive saying you notice you know and you can you can simply google to get the history of his selling hotels.com but he said i sold thefirstunithotels.com and i said to myself what difference do i want to make it's amazing other people say to themselves which yacht which plane yeah what mansion i'm sure he did that too you could also google that but he said to himself what difference do i want to make what do i care about what am i positioned to do how do i combine my knowledge my wisdom my skills with now my resources and how do i go make a difference you imagine you get that knock on the door you're asha torah you get that knock on the door hi i just made a lot of money and i have a lot of experience in knowledge with technology and i really want to help you get ish.com from a mom and pop amateur site to blow this thing up and i'll fly you to miami to meet with me correct everyone 561-3940 if you have resources skill wisdom and you want to meet with us for josh brody with call we are all ears and we're more than happy to partner with you but that that's i think a model i hope people listen and i'm going to try to listen to say not only what do i react to because a lot of people react a lot of people they're stuck as like what envelopes they got in the mail who knocked on the door what phone call did they get instead of proactively say where do i want to give what difference do i want to make and that was a major point i think there's also a big point for us how he includes his kids also it's it's not just him right i was gonna ask him can i can i just sit quietly on that call can i get in how do we get in no but i also love the image of and and some of our local mentors who've been helping us we have a major campus expansion project that we're going to be announcing soon and thank god we're well on our way uh but but that exact argument that the if this then that right if you were to partner with us if you were an investor and stakeholder with these resources here's what we could do not just the black hole and not just keep the lights on and not just more of the same but if this then that with your help with your support with your contribution we can meet this need of children of teens of empty nesters of singles that outreach of israel of more torah study more learning more bruce's partners whatever the example is so it there's a lot for us to think about how we package and how we communicate and how we solicit we're not only soliciting the funds we're sliding the partnership yeah and there's so much room for growth in all organizations even as i was listening to him and i know you felt the same way of my mind was racing of areas that he obviously you know hopefully we'll have a chance to meet with him and pick his brain more in depth but as you said there's so many people that can contribute in so many ways to so many organizations and whether it's from a technology perspective customer service perspective marketing perspective as you spoke about by brody if you're in the for-profit world and you're successful and you have a niche that you really excel in you've got to share that skill set with an organization choose one that you're passionate about that you love that that resonates with you and go make a difference okay well let's go a little behind the beam here i think though we the nonprofit sector have to do a better job of running our governance in a way of creating the opportunities for the people with the success and the know-how and the skills and the resources to not get bogged down by the bureaucracy to not get bogged down by you know the classic jokes about school board meetings being about the egg salad brand and the paper towel dispenser and getting caught up in that kind of thing where board meetings our b-o-r-e-d meetings right and ours are now at boca raton synagogue we have phenomenal lay leaders but that's the classic joke about show board meetings so right sometimes like the person that you want we have to find opportunities for them to partner and lead without their without part of the ask being to participate in something that will drive them away and they'd never want to do correct and we see this all the time someone with an entrepreneurial mindset or someone who's the ceo of a company and is used to being in charge and all of a sudden you bring them to a board meeting and you know as you said people are asking about the herring and the gefilte fischer kiddish and this person's like that's not me i'm a very busy person i'm used to giving orders not taking orders i'll help you but you can't subject me to the to the challenges of a board meeting sometime and that's a that's a challenge we have with a lot of our our donors as well absolutely well it's another behind another great behind the bima we have bob deaner and david mueller twins separated at birth bob deaner and david david thank you for that sponsorship in shaman's father and aliyah and david himself is by the way a great successful businessman um halal meet a large distributor i read his whole book cover to cover on the history of history which was no that was a different book i know right now shelf i told him he cost me a lot of money david mueller i put on a bookcase because he writes a book a week which are uh they're my kind of books because they have a lot of pictures not a lot of work we should do we should do a series profiles of boca residents we have some great members with really fascinating stories yeah we should do we should do a series what was that we used to do at charlottesville what was it called true boca stories or something yeah yeah we should we should do a series online we'll get back to no question about it so uh thank you everyone for tuning in thank you for those who are uh encouraging the niagara falls visit falls the american side and the canadian trade even those advocating the american side have acknowledged and conceded that there is more there's better food kosher food and opportunity on the canadian side i still don't have clarity on going over in a barrel got to spend some time working on that tonight researching that i think we need to do a site visit rabbinic road trip tune in next week for be a great marketing ploy and the three of us in a barrel for the resort where's our uh fact checkers had an hour and 11 minutes to let us know about going over niagara falls he's sleeping or redlining or yeah i'll watch the two of you go over there who knows what he's doing but anyway until next time thank you for tuning in stay happy stay healthy