Raised on hummus and chutzpah*
Our father, Shlomo (Aaron) immigrated to Israel from Romania as a child, and our mum Editha (Edith) was an immigrant from the Ukraine. They met, got married, had three kidsâGabby, the eldest; Einat, our sister; and Heziâand raised us in Nahariya, a beautiful seaside town in Israel. Our birthplace holds a very special place in our hearts. It was a city where everyone knew and cared for one another. Israel is the home of Jewish immigrants from all parts of the world and, as such, we got to share the best and worst moments of growing up in this warâaffected region with friends and neighbours from many cultures and countries: Spain, Morocco, Romania, Poland, Iraq, Russia, Iran and more. Our community was colourful, vibrant and full of love, laughter and noise. Every family in our apartment block had an average of four kids, and dozens of families shared a play area the size of an Aussie backyard. After walking to school in the mornings (six days a week, not five as is the norm in Australia), the afternoons would be filled with soccer, surfing and wandering the streets hanging out with our friends until it was time to go to bed. We didn't have any devices or internet and we were the better for it. We often tell our kids that we had the best childhood ever, surrounded by friends, love and great weather.
All the parents were out working hard to support the families, so we kids had no option but to grow up fast, fend for ourselves and face life head on. Growing up in this tightknit neighbourhood taught us how to accept people from all cultures, share what we had and be tolerant of other points of view: all valuable life skills that have served us well ever since.
Our childhood sounds idyllic, and it truly was, but it certainly wasn't an average childhood. The closest most Australian kids get to experiencing war is playing video games such as World of Warcraft or Call of Duty. For us, however, war was real. During the conflict with Lebanon in 1982, our city, being the northernmost city on the Mediterranean, was the main target for rocket missiles into Israel. We'll never forget huddling in our houses or shelters during war times, and hearing the nonâstop whistles of rockets falling all around us. Wheeeeeee Boom! Wheeeeeee Boom!
When the rockets stopped, all the kids in the neighbourhood would continue life as if nothing had happened, except for one popular local challenge. We'd all run around to see who could find the largest piece of missile shrapnel and show it off to our family and friends. (You could say we did âshow and tellâ a little differently in Israel.) Every kid in the neighbourhood had a prized collection of shrapnel in their bedroom. We kept ours on the top of a bookshelf, next to Gabby's poster of Samantha Fox and our 34âcentimetre blackâandâwhite Metz TV.
Growing up during a warâtorn period like this made us impervious to most forms of fear and forced us to make a decision. Do we let these situations scare us and stop us from living life? Or do we find a way to overcome them and turn them to our advantage? We chose the latter.
As a result, things that scared others never really scared us. After all, when you've had bombs exploding outside your front door, what is there left to be fearful of? A customer saying, âI won't buy your productâ; a journalist saying, âI can't cover your storyâ; a supplier saying, âWe won't let you sell our productsâ? Meh.
It all started at the dinner table
Our parents were unusual in that they exposed us to entrepreneurial thinking from a very early age. In other words, we talked about âhow to make moneyâ a lot. In fact, at dinner it was our favourite topic. Their attitude? Don't focus on saving money. Find ways to make money. Their advice gave us a high appetite for risk, and cultivated within us a mentality of innovation and creativityâall crucial skills for being an entrepreneur.
Our father was an electronics engineer who worked multiple jobs to support the family. In Israel he worked for the Department of Defence, and when we moved to Australia he ran a series of electronic stores and had a market stall at Croydon in the outer southâeastern suburbs of Melbourne. He was an oldâfashioned kind of entrepreneur, the kind who could spot an opportunity wherever he went. For example, growing up in Israel, he discovered that chan...
