Ariel Serber with Baruch Glaubach
Interview With Baruch Glaubach
By Ariel Serber
Ariel Serber (AS): I’m here today with Baruch Glaubach at the Israel Chesed Center. I want to talk to Baruch about his background, his connection to Israel, the people, the business world, the land.
Baruch Glaubach (BG): It’s a lot, Ariel! I was born in 1960. It’s been quite the journey. My parents are Doctors Miriam and Felix Glaubach, 93 and 90 respectively. My mom was born in Israel in 1934 and lived there the first 17 years of her life.
They really have taught their six children and grandchildren and great grandchildren what real ahavat Yisrael is. And when you have that foundation from the beginning, you have a real powerful connection, like I have, to Am Yisrael. Not only what we’ve undergone in the last 14, 15 months, but from the time we were kids to the time when we adults, and our children and their grandchildren have seen it in action. So this is our connection.
AS: When were you born?
BG: I was born in 1960. I went to a school that is still in existence, YCQ, which taught Hebrew before Ivrit b’Ivrit was really taught. I went on to yeshiva high school and then Yeshiva University, a little bit in Israel. But I’ve spent a lot of time in Israel, back and forth and a lot of time today.
AS: So early in your business career, you were already making connections with Israeli businesses?
BG: That came later. Originally from 1981 to early 2000, I was an oil trader. And then I went from oil trading to managing investments and things for the family. And we had gotten connected through Israel, to various people, through mistakes originally!
AS: So how did you see it as it was sort of starting because you were there, you’ve been involved since really the beginning of the Israeli tech ecosystem, or at least have seen it grow, expand to what it is today. How did that connection inspire you, motivate you to get involved? And be connected to it?
BG: We got involved through some bad investments originally, which always happens. It’s not a great investment where you learn by the mistakes. Right? And the mistakes brought us to other people who introduced us to people who are the boots on the ground, who had VC funds in Israel and were able to introduce us to other people. The VC ecosystem is, I don’t want to say, incestuous, but everybody seems to know each other. It’s like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. It’s like Jewish geography to the max, and we got involved and one conversation led to another, and that conversation leads to three more and six and nine and so on and so forth.
AS: So obviously we have to talk about October 7. Where were you when it was happening? How did you hear about it? What was your initial reaction, your family’s reaction? Because obviously you have a lot of connections there, family there?
BG: So we were here at the time. We had been in Israel a lot then, and we were actually in Israel in 2022 for Yom Kippur through Sukkot. And in October 2023 I was back and forth trying to figure out what to do. Eventually I said we want everyone to come to our home for Sukkot, so we stayed in Lawrence.
I woke up and I went to shul and that was it. The word was starting to get out and the world was in a different place.
I have a story, actually, from 1973. I was in a choir in Silver Spring, Maryland. And, it was a conservative shul, and when we went to shul, everyone heard about the Yom Kippur War. Fast forward to 2024. Well, today, everyone has their way to see the news, right? And it was out front and center and then we waited until chag was over.
I fielded many, many calls starting Sunday night, and in the first 48 hours, I said something to myself. I said, look, everyone needs money, everyone was calling us, and it was beyond scary. Sitting here in the States and thinking about our brothers and sisters and all these people and, you know, having no idea what happened, and you’re getting footage in real time, and we had to figure out where to start. And it was so overwhelming.
And then I also said to a bunch of people, sadly enough, that this is going to be a very long ordeal. And if you want to participate in this ordeal, you have to be present. It’s not going to the party early and leaving early or going to the party late and leaving early. It’s coming to this and understanding that every day you’re going to be needed. Whether to listen, to volunteer, to write letters, or whatever it is you can do. You need to think every day that tomorrow you still have to be here. For months and months, as we see, and we’re still here today. That’s the Chesed Center; it’s proof of that.
AS: What can or should the business community, whether the Jewish world or non-Jewish world, know about what’s going on in Israel in the business environment now, tech or non-tech?
BG: I think what we’re going to have to see when peace breaks out, are people getting back to work. Companies rehiring soldiers who are out serving the country and people are coming back. And will their jobs be there? What will that look like? What will everyday life be? There’s no normal. Especially in this situation. People are going to have to think about what they’ve suffered, endured during wartime. The civilians, the wives, the families, the soldiers, themselves.
They’re going to need help. They’re going to need us to be there for them, emotionally, financially. The government, as we know in Israel, is different than the government here.
AS: It’s hard to be PC about it!
BG: It’s very difficult to deal with as we know from sending equipment and things like that. So we need to constantly be there for our brothers and sisters. Like I said, emotionally, physically, “E before F in the alphabet”—emotionally and financially.
AS: Like you mentioned before about, from the ground up. It’s sort of like it has to be that way. It can’t be, let’s just wait for someone else to tell us what to do.
BG: We have to constantly be there. We should be vigilant. if we’re not going to be there… This is our AHA moment. Like with Esther and the greatest people in Jewish history. This is the moment. We have to grab it and say “Yes, we are here 110%.” And if we think we’ve given something, we need to dig a little deeper and give a little bit more of ourselves, for Am Yisrael to continue and grow.
AS: So what does that look like for the business community? What do you think?
BG: The business community starts with an investment. That’s how firms subsist—on capital. Human capital, we need to see people coming back to work; a person with a job is way more valuable than a person not at work. And it’s real capital dollars. If an investment made sense before, it’s going to make way more sense later. From the idea of Startup Nation, of all the things that have been created, built through Israel….
I love the book Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, by the founder of Waze, which was bought by Google, and who founded another couple of companies as well. We need to understand this—the problem is what happened. And now let’s go forward to solutions that you and I, in any manner, shape, or form are able to help out.
AS: So in the end that is the solution?
BG: We are the solution. We are here. We have to continue to be here. When peace breaks out then we will have other problems that we will fall in love with.
The land needs to be rebuilt. Small things. We need to continue our support for this country, that we started around the world 15 months ago and to be there each and every day.
AS: Thank you so much for your thoughts. Any last words or practical ideas that people should take with them?
BG: It’s really just common sense. Think about it. We all need each other to survive.
Baruch Glaubach is the managing partner of Shevet Glaubach, a family office that manages investments and philanthropic activities. Baruch was interviewed on December 22, 2024. His father, Dr. Felix Glaubach, a’h, passed away on December 26, 2024. Dr. Glaubach and his wife, Dr. Miriam Glaubach, shetichye, instilled in their children a love of Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael, and led by example in their many acts of chesed on behalf of the Jewish people.
The full interview can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/icc-glaubach.
