HR CEO's Week With the Jewish National Fund

HonestReporting’s work increasingly finds partnership in communities around the world, most recently when HR CEO Joe Hyams had the opportunity to tour and teach with the Jewish National Fund up and down the US East Coast in February. His lecture tour began in Orlando, Florida before moving on to Boynton Beach for Shabbat, where the warm and welcoming community of Rabbi Sholom Ciment at Chabad of Greater Boynton welcomed JNF and HonestReporting with open arms.

From there Joe traveled north, where he was honored to take the stage alongside Russell Robinson, JNF’s CEO at the JNF Annual Garden State Breakfast in New Jersey. Here Joe addressed hundreds in attendance with a simple message: “If a JNF tree grows in a forest but the next generation don’t come to water it, was it truly worth planting?” The answer is, of course, ‘yes’ and our work, he explained, is to ensure the incredible accomplishments of JNF in developing the land of Israel, do not become diminished or tarnished by those who seek to defame Israel and deny the next generation their connection to all that has been achieved.

Joe Hyams addresses the JNF Annual Garden State Breakfast in New Jersey

This focus on making the true Israel known to the world is the message Joe took forward with him as he continued to Baltimore, Delaware and Washington DC. There, JNF’s Lawyers for Israel chapters taught him much about the remarkable investments JNF has made in water, civilian infrastructure, education, integration and a host of other remarkable projects here in Israel. He learned how diverse JNF’s work has become in recent decades, and discussed at length ways in which those who care for Israel can develop positive relationships with news outlets, and work to strengthen counter-media bias efforts in partnership with efforts such as HonestReporting’s.