Tag Archives: Soviet Union

Jew of the Week: Avigdor Lieberman

Israel’s New Minister of Defence, Avigdor Lieberman (Photo Credit: Yossi Zamir)

Evet Lvovich Lieberman (b. 1958) was born in Moldova to a Russian-Jewish family. He grew up speaking Yiddish and dreamed of being a poet. In 1978, his family made aliyah to Israel, where he went by the name “Avigdor”. After serving in the IDF, Lieberman studied political science at the Hebrew University. During this time, he worked as a bouncer in a club, and went on to become the club’s manager. In the mid-80s, Lieberman co-founded the Zionist Forum for Soviet Jewry, and worked for Israel’s National Worker’s Union. His first real foray into politics was in 1988, when he began collaborating with Benjamin Netanyahu. By 1993, Lieberman was the Director-General of Likud, and in 1996 became the Director-General of Netanyahu’s Prime Ministerial office. However, the following year he had a falling out with Netanyahu over concessions made to the Palestinians. He left Likud, and two years later, founded a new political party, Yisrael Beitenu. That same year, he was elected to the Knesset for the first time. He remained in this position until 2004, when Ariel Sharon kicked him out because of his vocal opposition to the Gaza withdrawal plans. In the next elections, Lieberman returned to the Knesset, his party having won 11 seats. Once again, in 2008, he left his post to protest “land for peace” negotiations, and was re-elected the following year. All in all, Lieberman has been an MK in every Knesset since 1999, and served as Minister of National Infrastructure, Minister of Transportation, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and even as Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister. Most recently, he has been appointed Minister of Defense. His strong support among the million-plus Soviet immigrants in Israel gives him consistently large Knesset seat victories, making him a key part of forming any successful coalition government. For this reason, he has been nicknamed the “kingmaker”. Over the years, Lieberman has worked to improve ties with European and African nations, and campaigned for Israel to join the European Union and NATO. He has always insisted on keeping Jerusalem undivided, on responding harshly to terror attacks, and strengthening Israel’s borders. On being a controversial figure, he has said: “I’ve always been controversial because I offer new ideas. For me to be controversial, I think this is positive.”

Words of the Week

The peace process is based on three false basic assumptions; that Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main cause of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict.
– Avigdor Lieberman

Jew of the Week: Jan Koum

Jan Koum, creator of WhatsApp

Jan Koum (b. 1976) was born in Kiev, Ukraine. When he was 16 years old he moved to California with his mother, having experienced enough anti-Semitism and political turnovers. (His father intended to join them eventually, but passed away several years later before he could do so.) The two survived on food stamps and a subsidized two-bedroom apartment. Koum swept floors at a supermarket to make ends meet. At 18, he started learning programming by himself from a set of used books before enrolling at San Jose University. Soon, he got a job working with computers at Ernst & Young, one of the world’s Big Four auditing companies. By 21, Koum had dropped out of school and was hired by Yahoo to work in its infrastructure engineering. After nine years with the company, Koum quit to do some travelling with fellow employee Brian Acton. Upon returning from their trip, the two applied to work for Facebook, but were turned down. Instead, Koum started thinking about a new iPhone messaging app, inspired by how difficult and expensive it was for him to keep in touch with family in Russia and Ukraine (as well as memories of how his parents avoided using a phone in the Soviet Union for fear of being listened to). The following month, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. Brian Acton later worked together with Koum to make his vision a reality, together with friend Alex Fishman. WhatsApp became hugely popular very quickly, and became the world’s most popular messaging app. In 2014, Koum’s friend Mark Zuckerberg bought out WhatsApp for $19 billion. This thrust Koum onto Forbes list of the world’s richest people. With his net worth now close to $9 billion, he is among the Top 10 richest US immigrants. Meanwhile, WhatsApp expanded to offer voice calls and document-sharing, became completely free (with no advertising), and now has over 1 billion users worldwide. Yesterday, they launched a new form of encryption, making WhatsApp among the most secure forms of communication available to the public. Koum continues to work on WhatsApp, and on the board of Facebook, and has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity. He is also a founding member of San Francisco’s JFE – Jews for Entrepreneurship – an organization that provides opportunities for young Jewish entrepreneurs in the high tech sector.

Words of the Week

From religion comes a man’s purpose; from science, his power to achieve it. Sometimes people ask if religion and science are not opposed to one another. They are: in the sense that the thumb and fingers of my hand are opposed to one another. It is an opposition by means of which anything can be grasped.
– Sir William Bragg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist

Jew of the Week: Avigdor Ben-Gal

The Man Who Saved Israel

Avigdor Ben-Gal

Janusz Ludwig (1936-2016) was born in Lodz, Poland. At the outbreak of World War II, his family managed to escape to the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, they were soon mired in Siberia, where Ludwig’s parents disappeared. Thankfully, Ludwig and his sister made it to Israel, together with a group of other Polish children (many of whom were orphans) by way of Iran. They settled in Tel-Aviv, and were raised by their cousin. In Israel, Ludwig adopted a new name: Avigdor Ben-Gal. Though he initially aspired to be a physician, Ben-Gal enjoyed his military service with the IDF, and decided to be a career military man. He saw his first action in Egypt during the 1956 Suez Crisis. Just over a decade later, he was an operations chief during the Six-Day Way. By 1973, Ben-Gal was commander of the 7th Armored Brigade. He sensed that a war would soon break out, but was ridiculed by most others within the political and military sphere. Nonetheless, he began preparing his own brigade for war. When the Yom Kippur War did indeed break out, Ben-Gal’s brigade was the only one ready for combat. They were able to miraculously defeat the Syrians in the Golan Heights despite being heavily outnumbered (700 Syrian tanks vs. 175 Israeli tanks). Ben-Gal’s skill and heroics turned back the Syrian invasion after just 3 days of combat. He then led a brave counter-offensive that brought the IDF within 20 miles of Damascus just 4 days later. At the war’s conclusion, Ben-Gal was credited with having “saved the State of Israel” by defense minister Moshe Dayan. In 1976, Ben-Gal helped to plan the rescue operation of Israeli hostages in Entebbe. A year later, he was put in charge of Israel’s Northern Command. After retiring from the military, Ben-Gal served on the board of Israel Aerospace Industries, the state-owned aviation manufacturer (and one of Israel’s largest employers). He was also on the board of Tahal – an engineering and infrastructure company that is an important defense contractor – as well as the NSO Group, an Israeli tech start-up focusing on surveillance and security. Sadly, Ben-Gal passed away last Saturday.

Words of the Week

I will always stand with Israel. I can’t tolerate people who criticize Israel without walking in their shoes. I hate the lies they spread and their lack of knowledge. I’m proud to stand up for the Israelis.

– Adam Sandler