When Avi Bitton went to visit his fiancée in Jerusalem on October 5th for a short vacation, the trajectory of his life would change forever.
The 35-year-old, who worked in real estate development in New York, had already picked out his apartment in the Big Apple.
The Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas changed everything. Like so many others, the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust had a deep impact on the young entrepreneur.
“I can’t leave Israel,” he told his fiancée Natasha, who had immigrated to Israel from Argentina two years earlier but had agreed to his request to move to New York after they were married. “This is a defining moment for our country, and we need to do something about it.”
A “global community” for Jews
Born in Argentina but raised in Mexico, Uruguay (where his father served as Uruguay’s chief rabbi), and New York, with some time spent in Israel, Biton jumped into action. He was determined to connect Diaspora Jews with Israelis in real time. He wanted to effect long-term change.
He quit his job and approached New York investor Ari Bergman with the lofty goal of creating a global Jewish community platform that would connect Jewish families around the world with those in Israel.
And so our mishpacha (family) was born.
The group launched online the week after Oct. 7 and has since connected 1,000 Jewish families in the U.S., Britain, Argentina, Australia and Brazil with an equal number of Israeli families, who are matched by a team of coordinators and then meet via Zoom and sometimes in person.
The Stein family, who come from five towns, have already visited their “Israeli family” three times. Photo credit: Provided.
A total of 5,000 Israeli households have already registered, many of which have heads currently serving in the military.
“We may be the smallest nation in the world, but we are the largest family in the world,” Biton said in an interview with JNS. “Our enemies want to defeat us and divide us. My goal is to see us emerge stronger than ever.”
The project quickly attracted the interest of established Jewish organizations such as the Bnei Akiva Youth Movement, the World Zionist Organization, and the Jewish Agency. It was a success, with 55 Diaspora synagogues participating, and five times as many Israelis signed up for the free English- and Hebrew-language online platform as Diaspora applicants.
“I need Diaspora Jews,” Bitton said.
While 4,000 Israeli families are waiting to be connected, Biton said the biggest beneficiaries of Family Connections are Jews abroad. The organization works with a small team of nine people, and Biton hopes it will eventually be able to become self-sustaining.
The Biton family, originally from Israel, was brought to New York by the Talansky family, originally from Great Neck. Photo courtesy of:
Online interactions between the paired people often blossomed into personal friendships, with American families visiting their new Israeli relatives during solidarity trips or meeting up in the United States over the eight months of the war.
An Israeli mother who joined the platform told organizers that after October 7, her children learned about people who hate us simply because we are Jewish, Bitton recalled. Now, the mother added, “we are learning about people who love us simply because we are Jewish.”
For Bitton, there’s no turning back. After serving as a lone soldier in the paratroopers and then meeting his wife at a Nefesh Benefesh thanksgiving dinner in Jerusalem, he always felt he needed to come back to Israel, but Oct. 7 marked a turning point for him.
Avi Bitton (fifth from the left) and staff from Our Mishpacha. Photo courtesy of Providence.
“I couldn’t go back to my regular job showing apartments in New York,” he said, weary at the thought.
“We are living through a defining moment for the Jewish people, and in this time of turmoil, we have an opportunity to come out better, stronger and more united than ever before.”
