The Israel Plan Organization

In these dark days of Corona crisis mixed together with the biggest ever internal political crisis in Israel, when our in transit government in general and our "Minister" of Health in particular, it an exciting and warming event to deal with our friend and colleague, Benjamin Peng of Shanghai/PRC.

I think I have learned about this young and bright man some 10 years ago when he suddenly appeared on our company's LinkedIn or Facebook and I even thought at the beginning that someone was trying to make fun of us…

Shortly after he has arrived in Israel and fixed an appointment with me. Very quickly I have learnt that I am dealing with a young, bright and full of energy person with an interesting story of his own life. At the same meeting I have already noticed (I helped him to arrive for some of his meetings at that day) that he is a very special talent to create friendly and business connections in this country and this applies also to senior people as well as people that can be his fathers by age (including me…). Since then, he used to visit us quite frequently and always kept in touch via FB/LD/What's Up.

About three years ago I was quite surprised but also kind of proud when he informed me that he and his wife were planning to arrive in Israel/Herzliya (my city at that time) in order to study towards his Master degree in Business Administration in Herzliya Inter-disciplinary Center.

Well, of course they did! As we say in Hebrew slang, they "chick-chak" arranged themselves in Herzliya, rented an apartment and found their way very easily with all the good and bad daily life of Israel….Naturally he was one of the most active students in IDC and on top was involved in organizing different business and social/cultural events.  

We remember two remarkable events: Exhibition on Shanghai Jewry during WWII, and an entertainment evening, A Chinese musical about this period in history that not that many Israelis are familiar with (quite many Jews found refuge from the Nazis in Shanghai where there was a rather large Jewish community with some remaining members).

Some very big events in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were managed and "conducted" under Benjamin…

During these years of friendship, we have learnt and gladly took part in some very exciting personal events where the Peng family is involved.

Strange enough to many of us, Benjamin and his wife are Christians Chinese and they believe in the vision of the Holy Land! It was at the Wailing Wall where Benjamin proposed his wife.

It was here in Kfar Saba when his baby boy (Ziv!) was born and it was the famous Jewish French Millionaire Mr. E. Cukierman that hosted the Brith and even was Ziv's God Father.

With extensive experience of international business and investments, personal connections with Chinese, Israeli and global Financial/Education/Public arena. Frequent speaker in many biz events, author of news media including China Business News, Jerusalem Post, Jewish Business News and Times of Israel, Benjamin was involved via his co-founded investment fund "Yafo Capital" and their partner, the Cukierman Investment House and the private equity fund Catalyst , he was involved in almost every big business event based on the relations between China and Israel that took part in Israel in recent years and we are speaking on the biggest economic events in Israel.

Benjamin is also a learner, innovator, supporter and pragmatist, optimist, pacifist and as such allows himself to write from time to time articles on Israel's internal affairs, even if he needs to criticize from time to time. For a friend that is sharing his life with us it is totally accepted. It is important to understand how we are seen outside Israel and in particular in China was the first to fight with the Corona Virus and apparently, they did it quite well!

Fact – life over China and even the City of Wuhan, the center of the disease, is getting slowly slowly back to normal. This is the country to learn how to do it right.

Benjamin has written me a few days ago the following e-Mail that speaks for itself:

I have been busy with donation raising for Israel over the past 10 days, one day before that, I asked an Israeli friend if I can be of any help to send most needed medical equipment to Israel, he advised me don't try to get involved, because he already asked someone from the Health Ministry, but he was suggested not to get involved. But shortly after our conversation, I saw the cases number soared to over 2000, I started to worry, because I knew Israel was not ready at all, but they believed they were almost ready.

So against this Israeli friend kind advice, I launched a donation campaign called Operation Shalom（Mivtza Shalom）on our Israel Plan media platform, in less than 18 hours, we raised more than 1 million RMB and another 1 million RMB equipment, we plan to send all the donation in Protection Cloths and Masks for all the Israeli hospitals, so we coordinated with the Israeli consulate in Shanghai, and she was very supportive, and we collect all the equipment to their office storage, but we have been trying so hard to send the goods Israel, request the Israeli government to send a cargo plane to take it, actually we raised 4 million RMB goods until now, we can raise more if there is a scheduled cargo flight, but so far we got nothing confirmed, I have been trying so hard to talk to Israeli government in Israel and other people who can help in Israel, eventually we don't have anything confirmed, and I know the Israeli doctors are not covered enough, that's why so many Israeli doctors are infected. The government seems not to worry, and they have more urgent things to deal with, so they don't take care of the transportation. But you know all the European gov and US gov send their airplanes to transport masks and other equipment from China.

While many of us has a lot to say on our government's management of the crisis, this is not yet the time to do so and first we should help our medical teams with their devoted work and protection of life.

Therefor, any of the readers that can fine a way to collect this equipment or find any way in helping Benjamin and the Israel-China Plan Organization is kindly requested to contact us to create the connection.

We thank Benjamin and his organization for their initiative and good will!

Special greeting for the people of Israel for the Passover Holiday sang in Hebrew by Benjamin: