Dear Friends,

One of the most exciting recent developments is that we are witness to a growing number of business leaders in Israel who are taking a leading role in philanthropic and civic leadership. This is beginning to slowly mirror the business/civic leadership that is so rooted in the culture of our Jewish communities overseas.

This lends us the opportunity to join together these business leaders in a new initiative: Business-to-Business: Partnering Israeli & Diaspora Jewish Business Leaders for Civic Entrepreneurship. Our goal is enable these business leaders to collaborate on how they can strengthen the State of Israel, their own Jewish communities and the Jewish people at large. 

Bringing together Israelis and world Jewry is not new to the Jewish Agency - we have been doing so for more than a decade within the framework of Partnership 2000 (P2K).  P2K has been developing and deepening relations between 45 regions in Israel with 550 Jewish communities abroad on an individual, organizational and community-wide basis. We want to continue to strengthen the Jewish people by creating new forms of partnership by building upon on the P2K international network. Business-to-Business (B2B) is our newest initiative.

Our first effort will be a joint effort at the upcoming "Globes" Conference scheduled to take place in Israel on December 8, 9, 10th, 2007. Globes is one of Israel's leading financial daily newspapers and its prestigious annual conference attracts some 3,000 business people from Israel and around the world to learn about Israel's financial/business sector.
 
We have committed to recruit at least 75 Jewish leaders from overseas to this event. In addition to our guests participating in the overall conference, we will develop special sessions, a site visit to see first hand the accomplishment of Israel's high tech and business sector; and we will also be hosting our guests along with Israeli business people from your P2K regions and our Jewish Agency family.

Please read the attached information, including a copy of last years program (2006) and forward this material to business leaders in your community who you think would be interested in participating in this exciting endeavor. These can be individuals from P2K; those not engaged with P2K, or even someone not currently very involved in federation life. We will be forwarding to you in the coming weeks a preliminary program of the 2007 conference as well an official registration form.  We thank you in advance for helping to get this new and exciting initiative off the ground. 

Sincerely,
 
Andrea Arbel
Director, Partnerships Division