The challenge: finding talented, business-minded Americans to help a Russian proctologist in Israel market his device for hemorroid removal.
In one of the latest Partnership 2000 adventures, students from the University of Michigan's graduate school of business, eager to lend a hand, flew to metro Detroit's sister region in Central Galilee.
Partnership 2000, a program linking Israelis and Diaspora Jews through cultural, economic and academic exchange, shifted this month with several cross-continental visits.
Once in Israel, the U-M business school students met with the struggling Russian proctologist -- who has little problem designing scientific marvels, but remains clueless about what to do next.
"Oftentimes, inventors don't understand markets. This is especially true of someone who was not brought up in a market economy, " says Jeff Camiener, a second-year student in the MBA program at U-M.
The group -- Mr. Camiener, John Stein, Amir Rubin, Scott Dougall, Matt Haile and Brad Adamczyk -- traveled with U-M Professor Andrew Lawlor. The dean of the business school, Joe White, in cooperation with the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, is responsible for spearheading the Partnership 2000 projects at U-M.
"The trip enabled us to work with a real inventor with a real product. He's someone who needs support developing a business plan, help understanding how to penetrate the U.S. market and help getting venture capital funding," Mr. Camiener says. "This wasn't just a theory in a textbook."
Another group of U-M students with similar goals departed for the Central Galilee (specifically, the principality of Migdal HaEmek) yesterday. During the four-week trip, they will assist an Israeli agriculture company with its finances, marketing and advertising. U-M students in both groups have promised to submit complete business plans to their Israeli partners by the end of April.
On the local front, Partnership 2000 delegates from Israel traveled to metro Detroit earlier this month to meet with Sinai Hospital staff. Another group of Israelis visited representatives of Jewish communal agencies, like the Jewish Vocational Service and Fresh Air Society.
At Sinai, the medical professionals discussed ways to combine resources in the fight against hepatitis, a disease inflamming the liver, and the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients.
"This represents a new and evolving relationship between peers," says Federation Executive Vice President Robert Aronson. "We are identifying and focusing on some real results." One of those results is a new machine for breast cancer detection. Developed by scientists in the Central Galilee, the machine bases its diagnosis on electrical charges at the site of a potential malignancy.
As a result of discussions between local and Israeli physicians in the Galilee last summer, Sinai ordered one of the machines for its new women's health center in West Bloomfield.
The recent flurry of Partnership 2000 activities has led many participants to an ironic realization. When psychologist Esther Bar Sadeh traveled to metro Detroit as part of a young-adult delegation March 13-15, she was shocked to find the Jewish community so "complex and so well-organized."
Whereas most Diaspora Jews consider a trip to Israel the key to preserving religious and cultural identity, Ms. Bar Sadeh believes that the tactic can work from East to West as well.
"I found more of my Judaism coming here. Here, I realize I'm part of a larger Jewish world. In Israel, the state provides (the social agencies). In America, I realize now that the Jewish community has to raise separate funds for these services, " she says. "I'll be going back to Israel with a stronger linkage to my heritage."
She and other delegates working in Israeli schools hope to teach their students about Detroit Jewry during regular classroom lessons. They also intend to establish pen-pal relationships among students.
David Bitan, a coach and former Israeli basketball star, met with Detroit Pistons management during his stay last week in metro Detroit. He plans to invite ex-Pistons and National Basketball Association champs to an Israeli summer camp for aspiring, young players.
"I hope we're going to make it," says Mr. Bitan. "For the kids, it'll be an unforgettable experience."
March 1996