Israeli Chronicles — Connecting Israel & Cincinnati
Bungee Jumping: Three Days in Cincinnati with Adi Altshuler
Israeli serial entrepreneur Adi Altshuler came to Cincinnati with much to offer. Now 28, as a 16-year-old she started her first startup, Krembo Wings, bringing together children with and without disabilities. She’s been named a Next Generation Leader by Time Magazine, given a TED talk, spoken at the UN, and been honored by Israeli president Shimon Perez.
Getting Adi Altschuler on the phone in Israel, is an almost impossible task, you always get the call-waiting tone. She works—all day, every day.
In the end I got ahold of her on Election Day, which in Israel is a day off for everyone, so that all its citizens will be able to vote. She voted … but when I called she was already in a meeting.
Finally Adi answered the phone. We went through her visit schedule to Cincinnati: meeting with rabbis and educators from the Jewish community, conversation coordinated by Cincinnati Hillel with the TAP program for integrating students with intellectual disabilities into the university, meeting with professionals from the field of inclusion, visiting the new Ocean startup accelerator program of Crossroads Church, and of course the keynote lecture at the JCC. In between, I told her, we would walk around the city, we would visit HUC, the Freedom Center . . . get to know Cincinnati.
She was over her head in busy, but I felt she had become curious about visiting….
I came to pick her up at the airport, and we started heading back to the city. On the way I was telling her about the community, the Ohio River, about slavery and freedom … she was telling me about Memories@Home—the social startup she initiated after Krembo Wings and has been engaged in for the last four years. It is a special project that allows young adults and Holocaust survivors in Israel to learn about the Holocaust and make Holocaust Remembrance Day a day of real conversation on serious issues.
She has not slept for almost 20 hours, and is still full of energy as she tells me about her resignation from Google this coming August, and a network of schools for children with special needs and abled-bodied children she plans to open in Israel. This is her next project. “I’m going to jump—bungee jumping,” she tells me. “I have no place, no teachers, no plan, and no money. But I have a vision, I have a picture in mind. It will happen.”
We meet the next morning at Rockdale Temple, going to Adi’s first meeting with the community. First conversation with educators and rabbis. First conversation that leaves not one dry eye. She is exciting, creative, and she takes me on a spectacular journey of empowerment and inspiration. She talks about her encounter with Kfir, a kid with CP (cerebral palsy) who changed her life, gave her the inspiration to establish a youth movement for children with special needs and their able-bodied peers (Krembo Wings), a movement that has today 40 branches all around Israel.
We continue to meet with students from the TAP program, and in a second Adi creates an intimate conversation with the students she has just met. They share with her their fears, their vision, their pain, and she cries, she’s moved, and she strengthens them.
She has an opinion on everything, she thinks fast. Between one talk to the other, we walk the streets of Cincinnati, and she shares with me the problems she identifies in Israel, in the diaspora, worldwide. She talks about her vision, the solutions she offers, her original thinking.
We show her the river, the Freedom Center and its temporary exhibit on the liberation of Auschwitz, we visit HUC.
Adi is thrilled. She is excited about the Jewish community of Cincinnati and the wider community she gets to meet around the city, the patriotism, caring, pride, and warm hospitality she experiences. All human encounters move her, and everyone who meets her is magnetized by her, and her ability to speak straight to the heart, and empower everyone she meets.
After another day of meetings and talks with social entrepreneurs and social activists from the inclusion field in the Jewish and non-Jewish community, Adi comes to my house for a light vegan dinner Amit, my husband, prepares for us. They talk about vegetarianism, veganism, Israel, and what next…
Adi asks me if we shall say goodbye tonight or tomorrow morning, and brings me a small gift, a lovely booklet made of recycled materials, a creation of people with disabilities.
“I’m going to jump—bungee jumping,” she tells me. “I have no place, no teachers, no plan, and no money. But I have a vision, I have a picture in mind. It will happen.”
We reach the main lecture at the JCC, she goes on stage and reaches right into the hearts of her listeners.
Adi talks about how to create change, about social entrepreneurship. She talks about the need to bungee jump, not to wait, to not be afraid of failure. “Have a vision, a problem that has really been bothering you, and find good people to create the change with.” I drive her to the hotel and we say goodbye.
My first moment alone in three days, and I find myself grateful for the opportunity to bring Adi to Cincinnati, invite her to talk about her wonderful work, her way to make Israeli society stronger by accepting and learning from the versatile variations within it. Also for getting to know the special person she is, for the reminder to make change, not to be afraid of failure, and not to wait for tomorrow.
