I’ve been looking for a good opportunity to publish this interview. It was recorded in the summer of 2017, and I kept on missing the mark. First came Tisha b’Av, then the 10th of Tevet…Better late than never, right? And then this week happened, or to be precise, is still happening: Yom Yerushalayim was on Sunday, the US Embassy moved to Jerusalem on Monday, and in general there is a lot of tension about the security situation in Israel.
Original Linkedin post on May 17, 2018
Interview with Gabi Sackett – co-founder of Build Up Israel
Perhaps the time is ripe now to publish the fourth, and final part of “Rebirth of Shomron”. Why? Because it is all about building, vision, hope, and faithfulness to the land. Gabi explains his nonprofit Built Up Israel, which is not your regular nonprofit. Through Build Up Israel you can literally “buy a brick” in a public building which has already started, all required building permits in place. Your contribution is, literally, concrete. On the site, you can see the ongoing buildings they are working on, and you can currently see eight projects, two of which have been completed.
Gabi is an American-born resident of Leshem, in the Shomron. After working as head of security in Ben Gurion International Airport for eight years, Gabi decided to move into education (we both earned our B.Ed from Lifshitz Teachers College in Jerusalem). He is currently Program Director for Yeshiva University – his alma mater – in Israel.
Interview
The phone interview was inaudible, so I spent a while transcribing it to save you the agony of listening to it! And Gabi helped fill in the blanks, so thanks!
I’m Nachliel Selavan, and on the other side of the ocean we have Gabi Sackett, who is in Israel. Welcome to the show.
Hi Nachliel, thank you very much for having me. I do want to apologize, I’m currently driving on the roads of the Shomron. The view is amazing but the cellular connection isn’t the best, if we get disconnected, please call me back.
You got it. I hope this comes through as beautiful as what you can see.
You live in the Shomron now, is that right?
Yes, that is correct. I used to live in the center of israel, and I moved to the Shomron three years ago. I live in a settlement called Leshem, which is a ten minute drive from the city of Ariel, also in the Shomron.
Near the Ariel University, right?
Yes, that’s right. “Universitat ariel ba-shomron” (University of Ariel in the Shomron). I live about ten minutes west of Ariel.
What is it like living in a community in the Shomron?
It is beyond words. We are so happy to be here. Very warm community people here are so nice, and we are about 200 families living in Leshem. We have building permits and approved zoning for 700 families, so we are going to be growing by 500 families over the next few years.
And when I say a warm and supporting community, what do I mean by that? Let me give you an example.
This past Shabbos, not even a week ago, I wanted to bring a group of thirty Yeshiva University students who are currently in Israel during the summer. I wanted to bring them to Leshem for shabbos, so they can feel what the community is like. And I was really concerned, I mean, where are they all going to stay? I can provide food for them, that’s great. But I can’t provide sleeping accommodations for thirty of them.
So I sent an email to my Yishuv email list, and I asked who can take two of these YU students. And within an hour, literally that same day, eleven families wrote back to me that they can host two each. I didn’t have to out and beg.. Nothing. An email, and we had sleeping accommodations, and that included a Friday night meal as well.
And Shabbos lunch they ate by me. Motzei Shabbos we sat around in a circle and every single one of them were completely blown away by how amazing life was in the Shomron. They had no idea. They said “this is beyond what we pictured. We realized how normal life is as opposed to what is shown on TV and what we hear. You have a beautiful shul – synagogue, beautiful beautiful place to live, and we couldn’t believe it”, and they were very very thankful.
How did Yeshiva University students get hooked up with you?
That leads me to what I do for a living. I work for Yeshiva University in Israel. I started working for them a year ago. I used to work as a security guard in Ben Gurion International Airport. I worked there for over eight years. It was a wonderful career, I enjoyed it and learned a lot of management skills. But I had to move on, because I had to work nights a lot. I would leave my house almost every night at 6:30pm and come home the next morning around 9:00 AM. I’m not twenty years old anymore, and I wanted to get more into education, which is what my degree is in.
Just so our audience knows, we did our undergraduate studies at Lifshitz Teachers’ College together.
It’s been a while, but I will never forget taking many classes with you.
We actually did a radio show together back in 2009. Been a while!
Yeah. It’s been a while and those were good times.
So you are giving back into education now, and you are working with Yeshiva University in what capacity?
I went to Yeshiva University myself, so I am feeling back at home. My office is based in Jerusalem and I work for the YU in Israel, part of the greater YU. This is an Israel program, meaning the students that come to Israel, I take care of the logistics and educational content. We go on tours, we volunteer, we do a lot of (tourist) learning in israel. I deal with everything (they need to do), including budget, and I’ve been to NY a couple times making sure the students are followed up with from the very beginning. My trips to NY usually target student orientation and interviews.
Getting back to what we were talking about, basically this last shabbos was technically a “free shabbos”. Most of them had no plans for shabbos, So I asked them who would like to come to the Shomron, and I thought that 5-10 of them were going to come – 30 of them ended up coming.
Wow. that must have been an eye opening experience for them, to realize that life in the Shomron is really kicking and happening, and it’s real people, solid communities, it’s not just a bunch of huts build on a mountain top with all kinds of… you know…
Just another question about Leshem. What are the community demographics?
When my wife and I were looking for a place to live, we specifically wanted Israelis. We specifically wanted to walk down the streets and hear Hebrew in the air. We could have gone to Efrat, Raanana, Beit Shemesh, nothing against our friends who live in those places… it’s definitely a good place to live. But we wanted our children speaking Hebrew and having Israeli friends. So that’s exactly what we got.
Leshem is mostly Israelis. And out of 200 families I would say approximately 5% are anglo families, maybe a little bit more. Maybe 12-15 families, that’s it.
We do find ourselves most of the time speaking Hebrew. However, within the anglo “group” we obviously speak English to each other.. in the community, are very close with one another, and we actually celebrate Thanksgiving and 4th of July both annually. And I am not kidding, we order a whole turkey, they are not easy to find in Israel. We order it a month in advance and we go to the butcher shop, and the Turkey that we had last year was 9 Kilos (19.8 lbs)
For our American listeners, that’s about 20 pounds!
That was enough for everyone, and it provided leftovers for the next few days.
“Nice, fresh leftovers”, my father used to say.
About every half a year we have a nice bbq, a get together, etc. but it’s mostly israeli and everyone in Leshem, literally, over 95% of the people living there, are young couples. The average age is 30-35, and about an average of four kids per family. So there are literally hundreds of kids running around, babies, hundreds of babies. A beautiful and wonderful place to live. It really is.
This is especially powerful because this is about an article about the amazing rebirth of the Shomron. Especially in the context of the destructions, and we are now in the Nine Days ( – today’s events, including the moving of the Embassy to Jerusalem, makes this sensitive topic quite relevant as well). So to be able to see that is just.. It is breathtaking. It is so amazing to see Shomron being rebuilt like that. And I would really love to stop by Leshem during my next visit.
Be’ezrat Hashem.
You started a company called Build Up Israel. First of all the name – it’s a wonderful name. There is something very special about this company from what I understood from you, and it is a little different than other nonprofits that support Israel. Can you tell us about Build Up Israel, and how did it start?
Yes, absolutely.
Over the years, a few different building projects have popped up around Israel, such as schools, schoolyards, hospitals, community centers all of which are really very important… we noticed that there are many important projects that have just begun, but simply don’t have enough money to complete their vision.
Again, we are not talking about projects that are “ideas”, and haven’t done anything yet. We are talking about real projects that have already started, with approved building permits. They have all the hard paperwork under the belt. The only thing they are missing is money.
So we currently have on our website buildupisrael.com – we have eight building projects that have already begun, and they serve the public (since the recording of this interview, two of those building projects have been fully completed and are now being used, check out the website to see more). These aren’t private building projects such as homes. There is an IDF training center for the Nahal Haredi – where I served in the IDF.
There is a Mikvah (ritual bath) and a learning center. And when you go to buildupisrael.com there is a 90 second video that you can watch that explains our projects.
But basically it is letting people all over the world, wherever they are, to be a part of this building project.
What does it mean? You’re not just giving money to a project that is being built. B”H there are already hundreds of those. In Build Up Israel you are making a concrete contribution: You can buy a brick in the building you chose to support and actually be a part of the physical building process. And if you buy a brick in a Rehabilitation and Medical center, the money goes directly to that project, so you literally have a piece of that building built, thanks to you.
When you come to israel, I would be glad to personally take you to the project that you support, and you can say “Look at this building, look at this school, kindergarten or any one of the projects on our site which you wish to support, I have three bricks in this building thanks to you”. That is an incredible sense of pride, accomplishment, and an opportunity to literally build buildings in Israel. Be sure to check out https://www.buildinginisrael.com/ and you will learn about all of our projects.
I see here on the menu under the section called “Buy a Brick”, that you have already completed the building of a Mikvah in Eish Kodesh. – I don’t know where that is – and a kindergarten in Otniel.
Eish Kodesh is near the city of Shilo – also located in the Shomron.
Thanks to the donation of many, many bricks which were sent to those projects, we were able to finish the project, and now you won’t be able to send those specific ones any more, because we’re already done with that project. If you continue to visit our website regularly, you will find out about new building projects that are added to our website, that we keep on following up with and adding regularly, building as much as we can.
That is amazing. And you have been doing this for about a year, correct?
A little bit more.
As of now I completely volunteer by running the Build Up Israel project, it is not my main work. Every brick that we’ve raised, and dollar that came in, went directly to the projects that our donors choose.
This started with you and your father, is that right?
Yes, through an IRS tax deductible US account, which is our Amutah, our nonprofit organization as well.
And we really follow up closely as these projects are being completed. So it is not like those projects where you donate every single year and nothing happens. Over here you literally see something getting done!
Pun intended, but you have concrete results.
I like it. I like it.
We all grow up in kindergarten with that song “Ani baniti bayit be-Eretz Yisrael” (I built a house in the Land of Israel) so it is really that.
And you can sing that song when you donate to BuildUpIsrael.com because that’s exactly what we specialize in.
Any interesting stories about how the company started, or what happened along the way that reinforced what you are doing?
Actually, something just happened… interesting that you said that. I’m sure you have heard about the terror attack this past week in Halamish (this was a long time ago when the interview took place, so maybe just make note of that or change my wording to “a few months ago…”).
We were approached by an organization who train attack dogs and watch dogs. They work with the IDF and they are called the Israel Dog Unit (IDU).
So what is the connection between Built Up Israel and the Israel Dog Unit, and how can we help them?
In fact, every single terrorist that infiltrated a Yishuv, none of those houses, including the tragedy which just happened now, or the Fogel family in Itamar (2011), had dogs…. Chas veshalom, I am not saying that it’s their fault that they didn’t own one, I’m just stating a fact.
We have intelligence that the terrorist tried to infiltrate a house that had a dog, and was deterred, so he tried another house.
This unit is training attack dogs that perform Shmirah and start attacking as soon as they detect a terrorist, unit the Yishuv manages to react properly. This is something that we wish to help since it is an extreme life savor and a must have for many settlements.
What would a Built Up Israel donation be doing for the Israel Dog Unit? A complex for training dogs? A place to hold them?
That’s a very good question.
A short answer I do not have. But we do wish to help to buy dogs and train them. Training is a lot of money. Professional training, dietary needs… stay tuned and follow up, because this is probably going to be our next project, and it is going to be the only project on our website that is not an actual building project.
But if it can save lives, it doesn’t matter to me how we do it, as long as we do it.
You never know where things go.
I’m involved in security. I am in the yishuv’s immediate response team, the “Kitat Konenut”, that are basically on call 24/7 and our job is to respond within seconds if something happens, until the army gets there. Now until the army gets there, can be 5-10 minutes. Now, that is enough time, G-d forbid, for something bad to happen. I walk around on Shabbos with two phones and an M16, and we try and do everything that we can to save lives and protect our Yishuv.
Now I have to get going. But to sum it up – we are building all sorts of buildings not only in the Shomron, but everywhere in Israel, and we are also saving lives, and I think that is a wonderful combination.
Thank you very much Gabi.
Thank you Nachliel, continue your good work. I was just looking at some of your old work when I passed by your lions from the Old City.
Image below: Gabi with “my lions”. Click here for a blogpost about it, and here for an article I wrote about lions.
