Rabbi Dovid Asher in Conversation with Chuck Lessin

you have a different mic maybe is your phone on or is your your phone's off phone okay i'll turn it off you have like a bluetooth headset or something that you use with your phone or one of those frankly i'd do this like twice a day i've never had i think it's working now i think it's working now no no okay better yep yeah i think i think that's good okay sounds good sounds good to me okay um i know i used to be the rabbi of a yakisho so i know about yucky time i am sephardic i know about sephardic time tell me about virginia time virginia like is 8 16 the same thing as 8 15. i i think 8 816 870 whenever you're ready is fine you know i the good news is in virginia the time moves slower so you're on time but it happens to move slower anyway so it's amazing okay so with that i think it's a it's a good time to kick off shavuo tov david pardo i uh i work at the orthodox union as pointed out so kindly uh welcome for those of you who are new welcome to in conversation conversations between rabbis and their congregants um if this is your first time you can catch past episodes on our torah just search for in conversation you can also sign up for email alerts mr sham we plan on continuing this program through the winter months winter months until we change the clocks right before pesach i'm excited to uh introduce we're finally breaking out of the tri-state um our first esteemed rabbinic host rabbi david asher uh rabbi asher is the love of bethknesseth right nezibeth israel i'm so sorry i don't have in front of me look at the flyer i don't have it in front of me okay i'm feeling embarrassed already wait a second i'll fix it sorry knesset's beth israel i got two out of three knesses beth israel in richmond virginia he also sits on the executive committee of the rca he's very involved locally in richmond virginia he's on the executive board of the virginia holocaust museum he's on the board of the jewish community federation of richmond he is the rabbi of the local catholic health system um i'm not sure if you have any official titles at apac you always seem to be running the show at the rabbinic you know lunches dinners whatever um and most importantly former caruso of yours truly i'd like to introduce everybody to rob david asher thank you thank you robert pardo also uh board member at the the yeshiva here as well and uh thank you for all those tuning in uh near and wide and uh yes rome pardo is not from the new york area so there's a special bond there as well and i did notice that all of the episodes so far within this excellent series that rabbit pardo is hosting have all been in the new york new jersey area and for those who don't know rabbi pardo hails from california and so we definitely enjoy being outside the new york area for this program and lots of other programs it is my distinct honor and pleasure to welcome a congregant a past president one of the leaders and pillars of our community here mr chuck lesson and uh mr lesson wears a lot of hats here in richmond area both inside the jewish community and without and we look forward to having this conversation about what is an incredibly important topic here in america today it's in the news pretty pretty frequently about economically depressed areas how as our industries change and it is uh important for us to think about how amazing it is for the ingenuity from the state of israel to be brought stateside and through the virginia israel advisory board we'll talk about the story of the incredible organization governmental organization that is the viab but that's what we're looking to discuss tonight and uh i will ask mr lesson just maybe introduce yourself briefly tell us a little bit about uh how you got to virginia um and i know the answer to that already it's a trick question and how you got involved in the jewish community here and uh just briefly about your family thank you rabbi usher thank you for inviting me and shivohatov to everybody um i my parents i i i often insult my northern family and friends when i say that my parents had the good sense to move south when i was nine months old so i say it half seriously and and half kidding but i am a southerner i've been in richmond since i am uh nine months old and my parents settled here and two of my three siblings are here one in atlanta now but we grew up uh not religious uh in richmond as a matter of fact we were part of the reform temple and then in my 20s i began searching and took the trip to israel and like many others thank god found my way back and joined kbi and have been very active in the community ever since um i am a home builder by trade and um my son and i are youngest son akiva and i are involved in many other businesses um and probably 15 or 20 years ago i began lobbying bills through the virginia general assembly and began to familiarize myself with virginia government and from there have been asked to serve on a couple statewide boards one of them being the virginia israel advisory report so i guess you know we'll we'll get the ou connection in a moment but uh yes uh mr lesson was uh the past president here at our school the ou synagogue in central virginia for those of you who don't know that israel started in the 1850s we are the only ou synagogue within about a hundred mile radius and um i guess chuck let's let's start off helping some individuals understand what it's like to to be jewish in richmond you spend some time living in silver spring which is a larger community you might be able to contrast it a little bit with the experience here and we'll slowly kind of work our way up to the uh to the viab operation sure you know it's it's probably like anything else in life it's all about how you see it the glass the glass can easily be half empty or half full when many of my friends that live in larger cities say you know neva how can you survive you know living in a place you don't even have a forget a pizza shop you don't even have a butcher you know how do you survive and you know my answer is having lived in big cities we lived in yushalam for two years and uh and as you said in silver spring i commuted but the answer is all the women that live in richmond bake their own collars yes we don't go out and buy them but everybody bakes and everybody's at everybody else's house house uh when it's not uh covered 19. um but it it's it has its challenges living in a smaller town but i would argue that while we don't have all of the amenities it really encourages the community to pull together we've built our own mikvah under the leadership of rabbi usher it's beautiful and it was a community effort and the list just goes on and on so i think while there it's lovely to live in any beautiful community of any size um i like the advantages of small town life there's no traffic and it's just a very pleasant place to live so i wouldn't trade it so i i think we should give some credit to the ou here before we get in deep in our conversation ncsy is uh certainly a part of my life i know it's a it was a part of rabbi pardo's life as well and i know that ncsy made an impact on you as well not necessarily in high school but it had a role in your family and i'll let you tell the story a little bit about how ncsy eventually came around to influence you you as well well thank god for ncsy because i never would have found my way back in that i married the lovely judy lesson who went through the ncsy program here through richmond and led her region and really developed into a serious and committed uh jewish woman and you know when i met judy and i was sort of looking for my way back and trying to figure things out and um she was my coach she was in many ways my rebbe i can remember uh traveling together and she was literally you know reciting kiddush for me um and all of this you know all of the zamiro that i know everything from the back of the venture uh came from my wife through her ncsy training so while i didn't have the merit to go through ncsy i developed a little bit later in life took me a little bit longer to cook um judy was and thank god for that so let's get into the virginia israel advisory board you've been very politically active now for how long how many years have you been involved in politics here in virginia probably about 20 years about 20 years and uh how old is the via be and where did this idea come from in terms of the incubation period and then we'll get into some of the impressive data that uh that we're dealing with now here in virginia because of the viab so the virginia israel advisory board was really the brainchild of a young up-and-coming local richmond delegate who became very famous to us all and that's eric cantor there were iterations of it before but they were unfunded and really ideas but under eric cantor's leadership in 1996 i think the viab was launched by virginia government it started in the executive branch of government and is and is and remains an agency of virginia government its mission really from the beginning was to develop primarily business relationships between israeli companies and virginia companies now there are cultural ties and there are cultural programs that we do sponsor and that we are involved in but the bulk of our work is to introduce israeli companies that want to expand their market share west uh we would never ever encourage an israeli company to close up shop in israel and come here but those that are growing there there is a limited market in a very small geographic area there so if they're growing and they want to come west if they choose the us they're 50 states and we start out by saying that the most business friendly state and the only state with a really active viab type board is ours and we encourage those companies even if they're going to shop and they all do they'll shop all over the country we i think do a superb job of convincing and hand-holding and making them really take a good look at virginia now what was the opposition like because it's kind of strange to have a state link with a foreign country to such a great extent and the fact that virginia is linked to israel in this way for sure as a jew living in virginia is a beautiful and it's it's a good source of pride but what was the opposition like if any as this was developing and they were lobbying for it to take for it to kind of take hold and to continue it because we know it um very often if not on an annual basis it requires some upkeep in terms of uh reminding people the impact that it's at we'll get to that impact in a moment i you know if you'll allow me rabbi i i'll i'll jump forward to today and then maybe in a second tell you about the original opposition but i can tell you that i received a text about a week and a half ago so for those of you who may not know virginia has the shortest general assembly session in the nation we meet somewhere between 30 and 45 days every year and that's it it's been modified because of the covet 19 virus you can have special session but generally it's 45 days is the session um so we had our first day of session this year um the 13th i think um and i got a phone call the very first day of session excuse me a text from a colleague who said oh my goodness are you watching the joint senate and house finance committee meeting uh because now everything of course is zoomed and i wasn't and i turned it on and there was a palestinian woman woman speaking before these joint committees senate finance and house appropriations um the opening day of testimony uh there are 3 000 bills every year that gets get introduced to the virginia general assembly it's busy cramming all of that in 45 days this woman she was the third speaker of the year and she said that she was calling for the defunding of the virginia israel advisory board and the absolute abolition of it um it is a racist idea um this there is a a group that um is comprised of palestinians of uh certain jews uh and and others who feel like uh there should not be a virginia israel advisory board so you had political opposition then from the same groups and we have that political opposition now it's it's worse now than ever but i'll tell you another very quick funny anecdote there were politicians who were supremely supportive of the idea from the very beginning and as the viab gained traction and it became popular and people wanted to know about all of our projects and many many meetings there were other delegates and senators who came to us and said hey the viab is so successful would you help us form a south korea virginia advisory board a great britain virginia israel so on and so forth now we thought that we wanted to be generous and we said sure you know well there are no secrets we'll have we are very happy to tell you how we do it um we do think there is a secret sauce to the way we do it versus other states um and they were thrilled and bills were introduced and very slowly all those bills were killed and it seemed that a number of people high up in government felt like there is only one state that we want to have this special relationship with and we really we we have other economic development drivers in the state that can do business with south korea and great britain and all the other nations of the world but this one uniqueness we want to preserve so every opportunity has been shot down well you know maybe you can speak to that too because i do think unlike in major metropolitan areas that people might be more familiar with there is a certain love for the state of israel in various communities here in the south and especially in virginia and i wonder if you can kind of speak to those sentiments that you maybe experienced on the positive side in terms of people in terms of people's love for israel and maybe even uh one or two stories that might come to mind along those lines well you know in my mind i said i'm a southerner virginia's the southern state and um so i think and it is a it is a state that is home to many evangelical christians i think just in the normal course of a day many people that you come in contact with in richmond and many other parts of the state and i do get to travel in this economic development that i do um maybe it's even more prominent in the southwest section of virginia where people are just devoutly loyal to the jewish people and the jewish land and you know we've all come in contact with folks like this before but it is prominent in virginia and um it was in virginia very much like at the national level for many years it was sort of a bipartisan love and like nationally it's changing a little bit we have a different makeup in the general assembly now and there is a different a little bit of a different vibe but for the most part most of our delegates and senators uh are super supportive of what we're doing now you lobby probably more than uh anybody else i know during session here in virginia especially more than any summer shabbos person i know um and uh i know a lot of it is israel-related um and you know maybe you can talk about what's what it's like because i know i think you wear a kippah and and uh you don't have any issue wearing a keeper on capitol hill our capitol hill hill here in richmond have you ever received any comments or stories because of that in terms of your shimmer shabbos persona that is now um present on our capitol hill here in richmond well it's sometimes a bit you know i i want to make a little explanation and that you know people will often come up to me who have not come in contact with people wearing a yarmulke and you know they greet me as rabbi and you know for a while you quickly try to say oh i'm not a rabbi actually but thank you very much and you know whatever at this point i sort of give it up a quick funny note a number of years ago one of the more prominent senators um walter stosh was head of senate finance and through a friend i said to him i've got a young son akiva and he began interning for senator stosh and then became an assistant to him and so that was the second yamaka and the truth is it took a lot of pressure off of me because i'm down there lobbying for three hours a day six hour days but akiva was there all day every day so this spotlight came off of my yamaki and onto his but um uh then then instead of people calling me rabbi oh you're a kiva's father so that's besides senator stosh before we get into uh the nitty-gritty of uh the amazing statistics of the viab what any special relationships that kind of come to your mind with uh within the senate or within the house of delegates here in virginia in terms of people that you've have a real kinship with or friendship with over the years well we certainly would be remiss if we didn't start with our speaker of the house who was a jewish woman eileen filler corn that's right and for a number of years speaker filler corn served on the viab perhaps we should have started the board consists of about 30 people 25 are citizens that are appointed by either the governor the speaker of the house or the head of the senate um but five of the um of the representatives are elected state officials and so generally we have the speak the secretary of commerce and trade serve and usually the secretary of agriculture and consumer services um eileen was as a sitting delegate at the time before she was elected as speaker served on our board so she's obviously been very prominent and very helpful through the years um you know there are as you could imagine there's some you know super support on both sides of the aisle um our former speaker bill howell was if we walked into the office it was like before we said hello it was like what does the via be need um because i'm here if you want me to meet people bring people and that that really has become very key so many of the senators and many of the delegates who are so committed to the programs the projects and to and and let's face it also to a growth in jobs in virginia because that's what the viab really helps with they are available to us whenever so we call and we say we speak to a legislative aide can the speaker sit with us can you have senator norman meet with us in the capitol so that we can do a press release right and everybody is available and excited very rewarding very cool now let's move into some of the projects here and uh i just for full disclosure my wife used to work for the viav so there's some more familiarity and inside information if you will but most ou orthodox union synagogues do not have coal country in their backyard we here do have coal country in virginia and maybe uh chuck if you could describe for people uh what what uh what communities are like that are kind of uh focused around coal in terms of economy and what they're experiencing now so people can try to relate to it in terms of understanding where things are at as we speak well southwest virginia is part of appalachia it is a very depressed area of the country for many many years it was largely dependent on coal and back and forth through the different administrations both at the national level and at the state level the coal is up and coal is down but the community realizes that it needs to diversify and they are looking for anything and everything and so when i joined the board about eight years ago um our then director ralph robbins we now have a new director uh dove hoke we have been blessed by the way with two aaa plus directors it's pretty unbelievable um but ralph's focus and dove has picked up this focus is let's go to areas that are depressed if we're trying to get israeli companies to take a look at virginia and partner in some cases with virginia companies or start out on their own why not take them to depressed areas where we can buy land cheaper buildings cheaper there is trained workforce and if not we can work on that there are many different state programs that help to train up workforce um but we really made um southwest virginia sort of a target of many of the companies that we brought in over the past i would say eight to ten years and uh some of them have been successful and some not just as you would imagine but we've had some fascinating companies and and tremendous support i mean it's like they literally say you know it's the gift from god you know we come into town in our yamakas you know richmond's one thing but you drive to bristol or withville or you know buckingham that sounds right oh my goodness i mean they've never seen they've never met jewish people let alone somebody wearing a yamaha so what what is the most inspiring israeli innovation what are what are some companies and what are some of the technologies that kind of blow you away and blew virginians away in terms of being able to uh create jobs and parnassa and give sustenance to families in these southwest towns here in virginia um i the first company that comes to mind now again uh it's not it's not directly southwest um but is oron safety glass auron safety glass is a company uh on kibbutz outside of usual i am um and they make this very thick glass that goes into humvee vehicles and they came to virginia actually southern virginia and they um and it's very similar in that not really coal and you'll forgive me for taking you geographically a little bit off base but the same idea that it was a it was tobacco country and tobacco's gone just like coal is gone and over on safety glass came in to emporia and and bought a building and fit it up and employed 100 people and they build this to see the glass is pretty unbelievable it's i don't know the thickness but you can imagine you can you know it will take fire from a machine gun um they were actually going to move away from virginia part of what we do is not just bring companies but we have to retain them they were going to move away because the actual humvee vehicles were made in oshkosh in wisconsin and that company contracted with our on safety glass and said hey why are you sending this fabulously heavy glass you know halfway across the country move up here and of course we got wind of that and said we don't want that to happen and we convinced them and it was in their best interest and it worked out um but it's a it's an amazing company um they now are producing as you might expect they are not just in one thing so they went from this fabulous safety glass that's used in most humvees that the americans make and the israelis as well and now they're making um the equivalent of oled technology organic light emitting diode so if you go on a train or a subway car and you have this thick glass in between the glass you can have um this what is really like a television but it's as thin as a sheet of paper and you can advertise on it you can show movies on it you can do whatever so they're negotiating for that so it's so let's uh so let's talk numbers how many jobs let's say this company how many jobs if sacha call all of the companies that you've been able to work with what is the net gain economically in terms of numbers of jobs for virginians based on what israeli companies are doing right now here in our backyard because of the viab so it's it's a little bit hard to measure and it's also um there are people so it doesn't operate in a vacuum maybe this is the best way to say it the viab um identifies the company brings the companies and then there are many times state incentives the governor's opportunity fund their coal field authority grants there are tobacco commission opportunity grants there are jobs training grant many different grants that come from different pieces of state government and while our board is aware of and in touch with the folks that run those agencies we oftentimes rely heavily on the vedp the virginia economic development partnership as a for instance so we don't like to take all of the credit is i guess what i'm saying we really do this in conjunction with a lot but the magic i talked about the secret sauce when you have an israeli ceo come to town and he's met from somebody at vedp who could be the nicest person in the world that's one thing and when he's met from a guy wearing a yamaka whether the ceo from israel is religious or not religious you know we we host them at our homes you know on a regular basis um so it's that's part of the secret sauce in terms of jobs um you know since our inception and i don't have the number off the top of my head but we've created in the thousands of jobs the the if you measure if you so the amount of money the state spends on the viab is tiny it's about a quarter of a million dollars a year you pay an executive director and travel and some expenses of course all the board members are serving as volunteers so the amount of money that is spent is tiny but when you bring a company in i just talked about or on safety glass and you just let's say 100 employees now they're almost 200 employees but take 100 employees and they're now paying state tax local taxes and you begin to measure all of this and you can see that the amount of the state's investment the roi the return on investment is just astronomical um the the the viab's efforts along with other state agencies by bringing these companies here has brought in millions and millions of dollars compared to the fraction of a quarter of a million dollars a year that's been now i hope my information is correct because the company the next company i like to highlight here is a company that from israel obviously where they allow people to harvest fish away from the ocean and you can create these pools of ocean quality fish i guess if i if my information is correct you can set it up in a landlocked area like southwest virginia and you can essentially have a whole fish industry that otherwise wouldn't exist because of israeli innovation can you talk to to that company i think that one's my favorite yes uh that company is awkward oath and they have since merged with other companies um the technology is spectacular it is israeli technology um the the primary piece to that business model is the filters that go into these massive concrete tanks um that grow the fish as it were and um but yes it is amazing and another piece to this that i don't want to leave out we've been working on that project for eight years and it is just about ready to come to fruition this is not for the faint of heart you can't if you're hoping to hit the step up to the plate and hit the home run this is not the business for you and what's the projection on jobs you hope just roughly just block 400 jobs 400 jobs in southwest virginia they'll grow um thousands of ton of salmon they they bring them in and they can't they put the hatchlings in these tanks they create the flow of water they take all the debris out zero discharge and there's there's less of an environmental impact because you don't have to run a ship you don't have to run gasoline enough to all of that stuff and it's really incredible to be able to take an industry which you would think is geographically sensitive and to be able to kind of put it there in southwest virginia and that's 400 jobs that's 400 families now we could talk about sabre hummus i'm sure everybody wants to but i want to go to a one other company that i thought was really interesting there's a company where you share you shared with me in the past about muslim jewish relations not all of the companies are fully 100 jewish and some of them have uh non-jewish israelis as well of course and i think it's important for virginians to know that and for americans to know that and you've gotten to know some muslim business leaders because of the viab as well so if you can kind of speak to that and uh maybe if you if you would indulge this request to maybe share that story about uh two different perspectives on the binding of isaac that's that's one of my favorite stories from your travels so this company is called transbiodiesel i'm sorry to say that we have not made the final connection but again i just told you the story of oklahoma oath many times these things happen quickly and many times it takes a year but you're building that you're building religious tolerance we are building what company comes to fruition that is very very true so this is a company based in haifa um founded by uh israeli arabs and um they opened the company up for investment and jews began investing in this company those of you that know anything about biodiesel might know that biodiesel is is difficult to make under very high temperatures and there's a very specific way that you take high fatty acid foods and convert it into biodiesel clean burning fuel much cleaner by the way than ethanol and gasoline etc this company has developed an enzyme that is a catalyst to the process that greatly reduces the expense of bringing in all of these um fats as it were food fats and converting it into thousands and thousands of gallons of biodiesel i think there's still some more work to do but i am confident that it will happen the story that the rabbi is talking about is um so i met these folks and before i actually met their jewish partners i was in israel and i drove to haifa actually my son dovid drove up with me um i think maybe adam adam was with him both of my friends all of them were people trying to put the map in front of them from harnessing and from harnoff i'm pretty sure both of them went with me um and we went up and we had this meeting and they took me through their sort of antiquated factory um but they were committed to the process and the project and very warm and receptive um and anyway on the way out they said we'd like to send a couple of our representatives to you um and i said great they wanted us to show them around i said fine and and i said you know can i ask you know who are you gonna be sending did i meet them today well you met ahmed and you met muhammad they're going to be coming but we're also going to be sending usama um and i was like you know just the name i was like wow it was a culture shock right and i'm thinking okay we are ready we picked them up a couple weeks later at the airport and we picked him up in roanoke and we drove from roanoke to deep southwest it was about another three or four hour drive and um i'm not shy and i said listen you know we could be working together for a long time let's get to know each other um everything you're not supposed to talk about those are all the things i love talking about let's talk about politics and and let's talk about religion and they they laughed and they said okay fine we talked a little bit about israeli politics and what their view of what it was like to be an israeli arab it was eye-opening for me i certainly was disappointed in some of the comment but i heard and i listened and we talked and it was a great conversation and then we started talking just about you know judaism and islam and um and they said to me you know um it's you know you know we're cousins and we share a lot of the um we share a lot of the same history but you know you guys have it very mixed up and confused they say so i was and they were sort of giggling and laughing and poking you're trying to poke the bear so i said oh yeah what what part do we have mixed up well you tell us what's the story of uh of uh our father abraham um so i start telling them you know our jewish version of avraham avinu you know binding yitzchak and and you know i go through the whole thing and they're listening and they're very respectful and then they said you know that story is so close except it wasn't yitzhak that he bound it was the smile that was very interesting and so we spent the rest of the three hours talking more about religion but it was uh but i will tell you doing business together really does tear down a lot of barriers if we had had that conversation in a coffee shop it would have been tense and who knows what but we won't get into geopolitics but the abraham accords is certainly something which is fascinating in light in light of this conversation without without question but i i guess you know one more company and then we'll move on to other topics but uh i think that we might be on the verge of revolutionizing you know the recycling industry because of this company that's here in virginia and uh in terms of also the enviro environmental impact and and perhaps leading the world to the country in this uh plastics uh business and if you could kind of just share a little bit about that company uh i think it's called ub ubq um and then we'll move on from from from the companies ubq from ubiquitous trash is everywhere the founder of the company is somebody that we all know and love rabbi yehuda pearl who was the founder of sabra hummus the viab was instrumental in bringing sabre hummus to south richmond the plant started with about 150 workers and now there are almost 500 workers it is the largest hummus producing plant in the world now because of the very excellent experience that yehuda pearl had as he helped settle sabra here um he formed a new business ubq with partners and he decided that he would come back to virginia to see if there was a way that he could base here we've been working with yehuda for the past two years essentially trash is gathered up for most of us at the base of our driveways i assume it's the same everywhere as it is in richmond and trash is taken to a transfer station at transfer stations the trash is then separated the recyclables and by the way yes we also in richmond have separate recycling cans but nonetheless in the regular garbage can there is often recyclables so when it gets to the transfer station rather than take plastic and paper etc that can be recycled they go through it from there the garbage is taken to landfills all over the world not just the united states and it's buried in landfills this company has developed a secret sauce of its own where they take the non-recyclables the absolute garbage banana peels and dirty diapers and chicken bones and everything else and they mix it with a chemical as it were and they are able to turn it into through through a prop through a significant process they're able to turn it into the equivalent of plastic pellets that can then be turned into anything anything that you can essentially make with plastic you can make with this recycled garbage so we're talking plumbing pipes we're talk when i first met them and i i went um and saw the factory in israel when i first met them well it was new and they could only do outside building type products with it and maybe trash cans but they couldn't do food grade product products they've solved every possible problem and they now can make you can make tupperware out of this and use it for food so again trash is ubiquitous it is everywhere in the world everyone struggles with what to do with their garbage if this works and we are very hopeful then why would any city take trash by the way it's very costly to take the trash to the landfill ubq says just give it to us you don't have to spend the money to take it and pay the tipping fees etc just leave it let us have it we dry it we will convert it into these pellets and then they sell the pellets to con to to be converted into whatever product and did you all have any projections on job creation with that company at all yet or is it still too early it's a little too early for that um but you know a a factory that would service a city the size of richmond um you're probably talking in the neighborhood of two to three hundred jobs but the amazing part there is every major city in the world is going to want one of these um assuming that it happens the way we hope that's very cool now do you do you have a favorite story from uh southwest virginia or coal country i know just just seeing the uh the press conferences with the governor and with other elected officials really is it a tremendous uh kirish hashem and uh amazing to see sean richards people israeli companies down there these communities you can maybe speak to this point more intelligently haven't had the level of investment that they're getting with these companies and with these partnerships do you have a favorite comment a favorite line a favorite story from any of these interactions or rollouts of these companies from uh coal country i think really the most obvious is just they feel this incredible bracha of people anybody that would come to their neighborhoods their neck of the woods they know who they are they are well aware that they are thought of as hicks and uneducated etc and they're sensitive to that and many of their children are moving away when they see one israeli company after another coming in it is an amazing kid of cheshire and that's how they say it they they they really see it as a blessing from god that people are coming and you know whatever the stereotypes are if it's an israeli company they want it because you know they will tell you oh of course we want the israeli companies that are coming they're going to be the smartest and they're going to be well financed etc so um it is a pleasure to see the interaction that occurs between the israelis that are coming and beginning to develop and uh and the people there and maybe if we could kind of pivot now to talk about your personal background you grew up here in the richmond area uh you went to university of virginia and uh that's right and and you lived in a frat and uh you became a very big zionist and your kids are very into their zionism if you could just take a moment to talk about your journey as a zionist going from as you said a reform background not known for their zionism especially here in richmond virginia and now where zionism is is part of your professional life and i know you do this voluntarily but it's a major part of your volunteer life and business connections and talk if you can talk about your transformation as a zionist over the course of this uh life here mostly in central virginia it's interesting uh you know i i mentioned at the beginning that uh my parents moved here from philadelphia both of my parents were born in philadelphia and you know both jewish people and grew up in jewish homes my father's father was more religious my mother's parents were not but when i was growing up in richmond we had a christmas tree in the house now we called it a hanukkah bush but we had a christmas tree in the house and we went to sunday school but when we didn't want to go we didn't have to go but through all of that you know we all say that every jew is at a seder and every jew knows shiman every jew likes a hanukkah um but in my world what i was most familiar with was my father's love for the jewish land and so with all of the lack of tradition in my house growing up there was a super sensitivity um to israel to the land of israel and as i grew up and i began to explore on my own and i went to israel as a unaffiliated unreligious person i was in graduate school and i left and spent a month or so in israel that was i guess my first real connection i hadn't been before um and i came back and i began learning and um and then i met my wife and she was sione herself and um it was just a sense of pride as i was learning how to be religious um i was taught by people uh to understand that part of that is the love of the jewish land i remember one of the first things that i learned with rabbi lipschitz who uh was the rav of your shul rabbi um yes thank you um in that very in that very spot where you're sitting um you know not far from it we learned uh every week um and i remember one of the things i think we were learning shimiro talashon i'm i think and um you know it was the first time i had ever heard the concept that you not only can you speak lashing horror about a jewish person but also about the jewish land and it just hit me i was young and i listened to that and i was like how's that possible i understand that you know we can't and shouldn't say bad things about people but the land and i learned about early as i was sort of returning um the vitality of the land and the significance that the country plays in the role of omisro so and if you could tell us briefly how did you get to ephrat how long did you live in israel for and is there any similarity between richmond and a fraud in terms of communities well let me tell you we lived in israel for two years in 1992 we just decided you know what let's go for a year and i'm a home builder by trade and that's what i did and i had people that were competent and i could leave the company with the first year we went to israel we lived in harnoff now we went to harnoff because judy has a cousin there alan freistadt who is a famous musician and he lived there and you know so judy had cousins so we tried and we and we lived there and we loved it we loved ephrat we came back to richmond and then three years later we decided you know what maybe it could be for good this time let's let's just give it another shot and this time we decided we wanted to try a different place where maybe our hush guffos might be better suited and and we looked into a front um we loved it um it was incredibly beautiful uh very very different experience than living in harnoff as you can imagine they're both beautiful um it is a very um zionistic place um but you know right behind me uh i have a picture so i have two sons and their wives and and ten of my twelve grandkids that live in israel now and if i turn my computer you'd see a picture of two of my grandsons who are living in harnoff now and they have an israeli flag draped over them so it's not necessarily where you are it's the feeling that you have in your heart and thank god all of my kids and all of my family are married to me i guess if we could kind of dig a little bit deeper you talked about growing up in richmond and studying with one of our predecessors rabbi lipschitz eventually as well uh what it how has the fact that there's an ou synagogue in richmond in richmond impacted your life the fact that the orthodox union has a school here the fact that there is a shul here what level and points of that to you to your life and perhaps if you could speak to this because i know it's relevant how you got a little bit more involved in your judaism um and uh truth is there's an overlap there's there's a connection between the existence of the shul and your involvement in judaism whether it's through your wife or other connections uh if you could kind of speak to that i think that you know when you live in a small place first of all everybody has to be president of everything um and that sort of how it works out in a place like richmond that's a mild exaggeration but you know i think stuart cantor and i were in our early 30s and we were president of the school already because we needed to be um the so all of the institutions in richmond we obviously love them all our our day school and our high schools and our mikvah and everything but the shul is really the center of the community and um it is a really unique and beautiful place so having lived in or commuted at least to silver spring for a number of years for there were no high schools at the time and we were there um and having lived in ephrat and lived in harnoff um i've never darvened in a shul quite like the one in richmond and uh i i am biased because it's my hometown but it is the most welcoming warm loving place um imaginable and i watch constantly as new people come in and out um it doesn't matter if there's a new member of the shuld or somebody old like me somebody's rushing the new person to greet them and love them and and get them a sitter or help them and it is it's just a very very special place and i think you know everybody here is important you know you everybody needs to pitch in and do their part but the school has really been integral to that and whatever the programming is most of the community wants to be involved in it because it is it's our place so i i think i remember being very inspired hearing stories about you know even though when you're president of the institution that doesn't mean that you avoid the grunt work and when president of the day school or parents of the day school and coming in and needing to take care of certain menial tasks because it's just what you do you roll up your sleeves and you you pitch in so i remember hearing about those stories and they're very uh powerful stories are there any uh kind of closing thoughts about the virginia israel advisory board how people could learn more um and uh and then i'm going to after that make a plug for an upcoming program that we're doing but anything that people should know about the viab or how they can learn more about it um whether you're a virginian or you're outside of virginia uh if you are so moved if you could go on to the website of the virginia general assembly and pick a senator or a delegate of your choice somebody who that we have many jewish delegates and senators but they don't have to be jewish you may say that you have recently become aware of the virginia israel advisory board and the work that it does and you just want to congratulate the state for continuing to support economic development in virginia through israel and the connection that that the state has chosen to make and maintain i'll add one quick thing one of the companies that we brought a number of years ago it was it was actually the fish farm that you were talking about we i took a billionaire israeli investor to washington dc to meet the then house majority leader eric cantor and we went into eric's office and one of the first things that eric said is he congratulated me and ralph robbins who was with me on the longevity of the board he was very modest of course didn't mention that he really formed the entire thing but what he he said it's amazing that it's been able to maintain itself for all these years so plugs like that sending an email to a legislator a senator or delegate saying thank you for continuing to support israel and economic development in virginia would be helpful sounds good sounds good so uh in the chat box this is just a little advertisement on monday night we have a program unrelated to this of international holocaust remembrance day and there's a registration link that i put in the chat box and it's a virtual event so if you live outside of virginia you can be a part of it should be fascinating conversation of a panel with the german ambassador talking about how they approach free speech how they approach holocaust education what they're doing to own their responsibility and and make sure they're respectful of our loved ones and of course it will be a very interesting conversation we have a holocaust survivor speaking as well and our local congresswoman who's speaking virginia is one of 16 states talking about politics that have compulsory uh holocaust education in their their curriculum so please uh uh join us for that and the link is there in the chat box and click and paste and and sign up um chuck i have to thank you for all of your time here this evening but more than just the conversation for all of these projects and being such an amazing example for all of us working for the jewish people and for virginia uh jewish relations virginia israel relations and um just to think of this legacy here whether it's all of your time spent at shul and uh your partnership here at the shul it's very much appreciated and of course in a small community all of our institutions are intertwined a little bit if not with personnel um then then certainly some some functions every now and then as well so we appreciate all of your time with all of the institutions um and your your concentration your focus on building a stronger richmond jewish community so thank you very much and uh rabbi pardo i don't know if you have any closing uh special words of words of thanks i can't don't want to compound too much but uh i did got a couple text messages just want you guys to know put you on the spot uh rabbi this is the best yet so i feel uh you should feel proud of yourselves uh i i really enjoy getting to uh meet and get to know you chuck thank you for everything that you're doing for uh for the local virginia community for israel claustro um everybody who's uh here the first time the nth time uh please join us next week at 8 15 p.m same time same link we're going to be with rabbi avraham schmidmann of the lower marian synagogue in ballot kenwood pennsylvania you can get email notifications if you um mosey on over to the website or to ou torah and look for in conversation you should find a link there in the meantime um thank you again this is a lot of fun everyone should have a thank you this is a program great series especially during a pandemic connecting all of us so thank you rabbit pardon for the great job that you're doing and when the pandemic is welcome to come for a visit sounds good let's have an in conversation in person all right all the best be well though you're watching