Building a bridge between Taiwan and Israel

Dear Friend,

A few weeks ago I had the great honor and pleasure of traveling to Israel together with Dr. Chung-Ming Kuang, the President of National Taiwan University, and his senior leadership team. In today’s update, I’d like to share a few reflections from our trip, as well as some photos. We also created a short video that you can watch here.

Why we went to Israel

One of the objectives we outlined in the founding charter of the Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association (JTCA) is our desire to shape the younger generation. We believe that if we want to have an impact on the future of Taiwan, you have to start with the younger generation.

A few years ago, before Covid, we decided to put together a special program that would introduce top Taiwanese students to Israel and Israeli innovation. We wanted to give them a firsthand experience of how people learn, how they think, and why innovation flourishes there.

I reached out at the time to President Kuan of National Taiwan University (NTU), a personal friend who was aware of our initiative to launch the JTCA and build the Jewish Community Center. I shared our plan of bringing a group of 20-25 top students from Taiwan to Israel to experience Israeli-style innovation firsthand. Upon their return to Taiwan, they would inspire more students to take an interest in Israeli innovation. Eventually, we would bring more students from Taiwan to Israel on subsequent trips.

Unfortunately, Covid forced us to put our trip on hold for over two and a half years. But with the recent relaxation of quarantine restrictions, we decided now was the opportune time to go. Before bringing a group of students, however, President Kuan and his leadership team decided to make this inaugural trip to lay the groundwork for future visits by their students. They also used the trip as an opportunity to renew long-standing educational exchange agreements in place between NTU and Israel’s top universities: Hebrew University, Technion, and Tel Aviv University.

Israel’s vibrant startup scene

We visited several fascinating Israeli startup companies that already have some connection to Taiwan, whether through an office they’ve already setup here, or through people they’ve hired.

We wanted to meet the founders of Israel’s dynamic new startups, learn how they get their funding, and understand how they find their ideas. Most people know about the large multi-billion-dollar unicorns in Israel, but once they’ve reached a certain scale, they aren’t that much different from many large corporations. So we focused on smaller companies on our trip.

We saw a company that is reinventing the sugar that goes into the foods we eat. One of their scientists discovered that only a small amount of sugar is actually required to create the taste that we seek in our foods. Most of the sugar that people consume goes into the body in the form of fat, and is a leading cause of diabetes.

They figured out how to make sugar that reduces the amount of sugar that is needed for certain products by 50%. For example, they can make a chocolate bar that has the same taste profile but which uses 50% less sugar. The sugar substitutes currently on the market taste terrible, are chemical-based and cancerous, and are usually stuck in the back of the store where nobody can find them. As a result, many people end up buying and consuming too much real sugar, which causes obesity and diabetes.

In one meeting we joined the company showed us products we all know and recognize but with 50% less sugar. We couldn’t tell the difference in taste. They figured out a completely natural way to maintain the exact same taste profile with less sugar and without adding chemicals. Interest from industry is huge, and they’re already signing contracts with major confectionary makers.

We met another startup that is producing new technology for the next step in LED display: micro LED. Micro LED is currently extremely expensive to manufacture, and the failure rate is high. The company we visited is developing the technology with a Nobel prize-winning team that can rapidly identify good pixels and discard the unusable ones.

We also visited a company called Orcam which develops technology that helps visually impaired people read and recognize people using optical head gear and software. It opens up a whole new level of perception for people that can’t see.

A meeting with President Isaac Herzog

While we were in Jerusalem, I had the great honor of being invited to President Isaac Herzog’s office where I provided an update on our initiatives at the JTCA and the JCC. When I showed President Herzog a book containing photos of the beautiful building that we built, he expressed great surprise that a place like this would exist in Taiwan.

It was a very meaningful milestone in the relatively young history of the JTCA and the JCC to receive this recognition by such an eminent representative of the Jewish people. As an NGO, President Herzog said he gives us their full support.

Establishing a new foundation with the City of Jerusalem

Shortly after our meeting with the President, we met with Moshe Lion, the Mayor of Jerusalem. He too wanted to understand more about the JTCA and the JCC. He said in Israel today, there’s a high level of interest in Taiwan. I was astonished by how much they already knew about us, and how excited they were by what we are accomplishing in Taiwan.

We discussed how we could establish another non-profit, the Jerusalem Taiwan Foundation, that will give us a platform for collaboration on cultural initiatives. It’s an exciting opportunity to position the JTCA as an organization that is playing an active role in building the global Jewish community.

Yad Vashem

We went to one of the most important museums I’ve ever been to in the world: Yad Vashem. They tell the story of the Holocaust through the perspective of the people that went through it. What was it like for Jewish people in Germany? What was it like for Jews in the villages of Poland, Yugoslavia, and Russia. Why and how did Hitler create such a systematic way to eradicate the Jewish people from this world? These stories are presented through the eyes of people like ourselves. If we were experiencing this tragic situation today, how would we deal with it? 

It was an amazing experience, and we were privileged to have their top curator take us on a detailed tour. By the end of it, everyone was in tears. Later that day, Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan reached out to us for a private meeting to discuss Holocaust education, and how they can support us in our effort to raise awareness of this devastating chapter of our people’s history.

It was an example of another important and globally-recognized Jewish institution reaching out to the JTCA, which to me was a humbling and important experience. It validated the work we’ve been doing over the past 5 years setting up this organization to become an important player in the global Jewish community. 

The endless variety of Israeli cuisine

Another highlight of our trip was the food. We ate until we couldn’t eat anymore. We sampled a wide variety of cuisines, from restaurants in the desert serving Canaanite food, to the top gourmet restaurant in Israel, to the famous Levinsky Market in Tel Aviv.

Through our dining experiences we could see firsthand how Israel is a country of immigrants. In the marketplace there were Bulgarian Jews sitting next to Turkish Jews and Egyptian Jews. It was like taking a trip around the world. It was fun and enlightening. We collected information that we hope will inspire our dishes at the Kosher Culinary Lab.

How Israel views Taiwan

Probably the most inspiring aspect of our trip was the fact that wherever we went, whenever we said we were from Taiwan, people’s eyes lit up. They may not know a lot about us, but at least at this point they know more than they used to. 

The first thing that came to mind was that we are a true democracy. The second thing they know about Taiwan is they are aware that we also have problems with our neighbors, just like they do.

Everyone we met said they are planning to visit Taiwan, or expressed a desire to do so in the near future. What was really gratifying was the knowledge that we can now provide a place for the Jewish people, a place they can feel at home when they visit Taiwan. On a personal level, I was quite pleasantly surprised by the high level of awareness of the JCC in Taiwan both among the university officials and the startup founders that we met.

This trip was a very important initial step toward building a bridge between Taiwan and Israel, with a view to establishing a closer bond between our two countries. The Jewish people have a history of outstanding accomplishments in many different fields, despite their small numbers. The Jewish presence in Taiwan and our efforts to collaborate with Taiwan will be good for the economy. It will help stimulate creativity and innovation, and it will be good for the development of the arts. 

All in all, it was an extremely eye-opening experience for everybody, an experience we will remember for a long time.

Please take a look at a few photos from this special trip below, or click here to watch a short video.

Warm regards,

Jeffrey D. Schwartz & NaTang

Co-founders, Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association

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