2023 cohort of Birthright Israel Excel Fellowship. Credit: Or Doga

The 2023 cohort of Birthright Israel Excel’s prestigious lifelong fellowship in business and technology kicked off last night by welcoming to Israel 64 extraordinary college students from around the world to spend the summer in Israel. One of the students, Ari Salsberg, is from Austin. The opening event, a cocktail reception, was held at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

This year’s cohort is the most diverse since Birthright Israel Excel began 13 years ago, with 11 countries, including host Israel, represented, and a first-time participant from Panama. Forty-two participants are from the United States, while 22 come from Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Italy, Mexico, Panama, and Spain.

A particularly unique and highly valued aspect of the summer program is the one-on-one pairing between each Excel Fellow and an Israeli peer Excel Fellow of which there are also 64, enabling a quick acclimation to the local culture and to see the country through a more authentic lens than as typical tourists. Many peer-to-peer relationships grow into long-term friendships. Some have invested in each other’s business ventures.

About 30 percent of the participants are visiting Israel for the first time, which meets one of the program’s goals: connecting with less-affiliated Jewish students.

The opening cocktail reception included greetings from Gidi Mark, CEO of Birthright Israel; Idit Rubin, Executive Director of Birthright Israel Excel; Yoram Tietz, chair, Birthright Israel Excel; Heli Bennun, entrepreneur – Executive Chairman of Radcom LTD; and the spouse of the recently deceased Zohar Zisapel (founder of the RAD group of companies). Birthright Israel’s founder, Michael Steinhardt, and his wife Judy were also among the attendees, along with Tova Dorfman, the Executive Director of the Steinhardt Family Foundation.

Since 2011, the Birthright Israel Excel Fellowship has cultivated the next generation of Jewish business leaders. Each year the fellowship carefully selects top students from hundreds of applicants for summer internships with leading business and tech companies in Tel Aviv.

Their internships are in such areas as environmental sustainability, software development, consulting, finance, venture capital, engineering, marketing, cybertech, biotech business, and startups.

The Excel Fellowship summer experience consists of hands-on work experience interning throughout each Israeli workweek, Sunday through Thursday along with an evening speaker series featuring accomplished, fascinating leaders from across Israeli society, including Adi Soffer-Te’eni VP & GM of Meta Israel, and a discussion with community members within Israel’s Micro Communities to discuss diversity within Israeli society.

The third component features three weekend trips as a group traveling throughout the country: the north, typically including the Golan Heights, a winery tour and a rafting trip down the Jordan River; Jerusalem, including the Western Wall and the Machne Yehuda outdoor market; and the south, for a desert trek, a mud bath in the Dead Sea and a sunrise hike on Masada. Excel Fellows also enjoy free time to explore Israel with their peers.

After their return home, the Excel fellows enter a network that provides resources for professional and personal development, Israel engagement and encouraging them as philanthropists.

Birthright Israel Excel Fellows have progressed to positions at top-tier companies, such as J.P. Morgan, Bain & Company, and Google. Others have developed strategic partnerships with Israeli companies and started their own companies, often hiring other fellows.

“Birthright and Birthright Excel have been life changing experiences for me, empowering me to be a Jewish leader wanting to pay it forward for the next generation,” said Avery Rosin who was on the first cohort of Excel in 2011 and today serves as Partner at Lead Edge Capital and Board Member at Birthright Israel Foundation. “Birthright Excel has given me lifelong dear friends as well as tremendous business connections with both investors and entrepreneurs. Excel helped me get my start as a technology investor, as I am a partner at a growth equity firm that I have been with for over a decade. We’ve hired talented partners and associates from the Excel alumni community.”