Helping Jews by helping Palestinians

As news of Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza headlined the nightly newscasts and daily newspapers last winter, two Jews and two Palestinians in the United States who had toiled to fund a micro-financing venture in the West Bank found themselves in a tricky situation.

But the seven ordinary Palestinians who have relied on micro-loans to launch small businesses in the West Bank could breathe a sigh of relief that cool heads prevailed, and there was no stopping last February's launch of LendforPeace.org - a culmination of efforts by the four Ivy Leaguers to make a difference in an area where diplomats and generals have failed to do so.

"It really was a very emotional process, especially during times like Gaza," Sam Adelsberg, the founder of LendforPeace.org told Haaretz. "But we all agreed to disagree on many issues [about the conflict] because we knew we agreed on [the importance of the micro-lending venture]. We were united in our desire to create this platform where people around the world can create this change."

"There's no winner in poverty," Adelsberg said.

LendforPeace.org arranges for donors to contribute money toward micro-loans for Palestinians wishing to establish small businesses in the West Bank. Some entrepreneurs specialize in agriculture while others open up newsstands, groceries, and a public services office.

Though he didn't know so at the time, Adelsberg's father planted the seeds of an initiative that helps Palestinians right in the heart of ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem.

Growing up in a Zionist Orthodox Jewish household in Brooklyn, Adelsberg observed how his father launched a revolving loan fund for the Haredi community in the Geula neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Known in Jewish law as a gemach, it fired Adelsberg's imagination in ways that would later come to affect the hardscrabble lives of simple Palestinians, though they did not know it at the time.

"I'd always been interested in [loans], the notion of how access to capital creates certain bonds in societies," Adelsberg told Haaretz. "It showed how people contribute more to the community when being able to develop themselves economically."

Having been immersed in the Israeli narrative through trips, summer camps, and Jewish schools, Adelsberg always knew in the back of his mind that something was amiss in all the talk surrounding the precarious state of the Zionist enterprise.

"There are many issues about the conflict ? religious issues, national issues, and historic issues," Adelsberg said. "But there's also an economic component that often gets overlooked. I saw this especially when I was in Israel, when I studied there, it became more pronounced when I got back [to the United States]."

Following his yeshiva studies in Israel, Adelsberg returned to the United States and immersed himself in the world of microfinancing. The grassroots aspect of microfinancing ventures held a special appeal for Adelsberg, who suddenly saw an avenue through which he could combine his two great passions ? finance and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

By the end of his freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, he had found partners to collaborate on a project that would focus on "a transparent bottom-up approach" to empower the Palestinians economically. With help from classmates Allam Taj, a Palestinian Muslim; Andrew Dudu, a Palestinian Christian; and David Fraga, a Jewish American, LendforPeace was born.

With freshman year out of the way, Adelsberg and his co-founders flew to Ramallah to meet with prospective microfinance institutions that can serve as a middle-man for nascent Palestinian businesses on the ground.

"The response has been great, actually," Adelsberg said. "Since we launched [the site], we've catalyzed $40,000 in loans. I think we've done very well, but we have a lot of work to do. We've just signed on Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, to our advisory board."

LendforPeace has solicited donations from individuals in the United States, Canda, Israel, Switzerland, Norway, and Germany. It has even attracted funds from Bill Clinton's foundation.

Adelsberg said that up to 95 percent of loans have been repaid to donors, who have recycled the cash back into the West Bank in order to help businesses grow even further.

"Small businesses are the lifeline of the [Palestinian] economy," Adelsberg said. "Those are the ones we're really trying to help expand."

Adelsberg then reflected on the difficulty for some to reconcile their Zionist identity with aiding the average Palestinian.

"To many Jews, there's a certain visceral reaction that comes along to helping Palestinians," he said. "Some would say, 'Why not help Jews?'"

"I see this as helping Jews," Adelsberg said. "I'm a Zionist and I think this is very much in line with my own vision for Israel. This isn't a zero-sum game. Until we recognize a sense of stability and hope among Palestinians directly affects our future as Jews and Israelis, I don't think we're ever going to get the security we yearn for."