[Ruben Hassid — 0:00]

Dating is f*cked in every major cities in the world. It's just with Tel Aviv, you add on top six months of going to the beach, and everyone's naked. It's a country that is built on olim [new immigrants]. We literally have a word to say new immigrants. That's the newcomers, and they are, like, ascending.

[Ruben Hassid — 0:18]

Wow.

[Ruben Hassid — 0:19]

It's the only country from the West that is actually having kids. All the other ones are losing population. I was the only Jew in Montigny. I was surrounded by teachers and friends that just never met a Jew. If I wanted to go all in on my career, I would go to San Francisco. I'm here because it's the highest quality of life.

[Erica Marom — 0:41]

So do you ever consider leaving Israel?

[Ruben Hassid — 0:43]

No.

[Erica Marom — 0:43]

Is this your home forever?

[Ruben Hassid — 0:44]

It's my home forever. Like, Israel is a sh*thole, but it's the best one. So I like it.

[Abbey Onn — 0:59]

Welcome back to another episode of Yalla, Let's Go, the podcast that Erica and I started to remind ourselves why we live in Israel, why we made aliyah [immigrated to Israel], and why we put up with the crazy world that we're living in here. We host everyone on this podcast, from influencers to chefs, athletes, tech, VC, even shark researchers. And today, we're super excited to dig into another episode. But before we get started, Erica, pulse check. How are you feeling about living in Israel today?

[Erica Marom — 1:26]

Right now, what's occupying a lot of my brain space is this new man in my life, who—

[Abbey Onn — 1:31]

Ooh.

[Erica Marom — 1:32]

He's very attractive. His name is Eric.

[Abbey Onn — 1:36]

Should we tell Moshe about him?

[Erica Marom — 1:37]

Yes, Moshe knows about him.

[Abbey Onn — 1:37]

Oh.

[Erica Marom — 1:37]

He's my personal assistant. He does whatever I say, whenever I say it. He works 24 hours a day. He never complains. He never talks back to me.

[Abbey Onn — 1:46]

Sounds perfect.

[Erica Marom — 1:47]

And he is my AI agent that I made, that I'm very excited about. And honestly, I feel like, really, you know, there's a lot of FOMO around this whole AI revolution and what's happening with our lives and jobs and everything. And I feel really good that I'm, like, in the Israeli tech scene. I feel like this is a good place to be experiencing that.

[Abbey Onn — 2:08]

For sure. I feel like you've built an AI agent, and I have absolutely no idea how to do that.

[Erica Marom — 2:12]

So I'll teach you.

[Abbey Onn — 2:14]

Okay.

[Erica Marom — 2:15]

Well, maybe our guest—

[Abbey Onn — 2:16]

Yes, I'm very excited to welcome Ruben Hassid, oleh [immigrant] from Paris, who is a massive AI creator and has a great following on LinkedIn, had 100 million views of his content, and is currently a consultant at GPC.

[Ruben Hassid — 2:33]

GPC.

[Abbey Onn — 2:34]

Yeah. And we're excited to dig into all things with you today: AI, aliyah, and beyond. So welcome to Yalla, Let's Go.

[Ruben Hassid — 2:40]

Thank you so much. Super excited.

[Abbey Onn — 2:42]

Okay, we ask all of our guests to do something very challenging, which is tell their life story in one minute. You can do it.

[Ruben Hassid — 2:47]

My life story in one minute. I learned English because I wanted to be able to talk to the world, and I started by blogging about a video game I was obsessed with. And then I just— I was nine, and then I just did this for 20 years. So I've been telling people about my life obsession in a blog and social media, now by email. Just the same kid as when I was a nine-year-old.

[Abbey Onn — 3:12]

Seriously?

[Ruben Hassid — 3:13]

Yeah.

[Abbey Onn — 3:13]

All right, so you were born in Paris. Tell us about— you ultimately left Paris. You became some sort of nomad, digital nomad.

[Ruben Hassid — 3:20]

Exactly.

[Abbey Onn — 3:21]

Talk to us about that.

[Ruben Hassid — 3:22]

Yeah. So I had a music label when I was 17, and it was a techno music label. And I thought it was so cool to be able to connect with so many people from around the world. And so I decided to kind of, like, backpack and go to Korea to continue my studies. And then I dropped the studies, and I went to Berlin to pursue what I was doing in music. And then from Berlin, I did the biggest stretch possible, I think, by coming to Tel Aviv. I'm not— I mean, I am a Zionist, but I never had this thing where, you know, you go on holidays every summer to go to, like, all of the ones—

[Abbey Onn — 3:56]

Yeah, super common for.

[Ruben Hassid — 3:56]

Very common for French people.

[Ruben Hassid — 3:58]

All of the ones that are on the tayelet [promenade], especially now. It's in August. Oh my God, we hate them just as much as you do.

[Abbey Onn — 4:05]

You can always tell them though, because they are dressed so beautifully. You see them from afar, and you're like, yes. These are French people.

[Ruben Hassid — 4:10]

Yes. The white T-shirt, very big white T-shirt, all white, big kippah. It needs to be as big as possible. It's very important. So it was not my family. We were not coming to Israel. We don't have much family here. So I kind of came very late to Israel. I was 19. I did Taglit. I didn't like it. Not Israel, but Taglit. I left. So for all the people out there that had a bad experience with Taglit, you should come back by yourself. That would also be good, you know. And then I came back for holidays, and I thought, okay, let's test. Let's try it for a couple of months. A couple of months became three years now, and I'm Israeli.

[Abbey Onn — 4:48]

Wow.

[Erica Marom — 4:48]

Wow.

[Ruben Hassid — 4:49]

Yeah.

[Erica Marom — 4:49]

So when you grew up in Paris, France—

[Ruben Hassid — 4:51]

Yeah.

[Erica Marom — 4:52]

you were one of only a few Jews in your school. Most of your friends were not Jewish.

[Ruben Hassid — 4:57]

All of them.

[Erica Marom — 4:58]

All of them were not Jewish.

[Ruben Hassid — 4:59]

Which sounds weird, because when you say Paris, it's like, oh, but there is a lot of Jews in Paris. So first, 0.5 percent of the population in France is Jewish. So it's like 400,000 people out of 70 million. So it's very little.

[Abbey Onn — 5:11]

Yeah.

[Ruben Hassid — 5:11]

And people always, especially Israeli, they're like, "No, there is a lot of Jews in France. I know it. I see them on the tayelet." I'm like, "No, you just don't know France."

[Abbey Onn — 5:20]

They're all here.

[Ruben Hassid — 5:21]

Yeah, exactly. But the truth is, I was not exactly in Paris, especially from 0 to 16. I was a 30-minute drive near Versailles, in a small city called Montigny. And trust me, I was the only Jew in Montigny. There were two. So I was surrounded by teachers and friends and everyone in my life that just never met a Jew. Every year I had to tell my teachers, "Okay, it's September. It's New Year." They're like, "What?" And then I have to not eat for a day, and I can't come. And every year I had to explain Rosh Hashanah, Kippur.

[Erica Marom — 5:57]

But what drew you here then, if you didn't grow up a Zionist?

[Ruben Hassid — 6:02]

There is something about Tel Aviv, and also being surrounded by only Jews, is that all of a sudden, it's Jews that are just people. Like the Jews that I knew in France, I would go to the synagogue, so they were definitely Jewish and I knew it. So they had, like, the stigma. It's like, oh, the people from the synagogue, or it was my family. And then I came to Tel Aviv, and it's just some dudes biking and some guys doing groceries. And it's like very normal people that are Jewish, and that was very new to me.

[Ruben Hassid — 6:36]

The second thing is, and I always tell people, I'm not in Tel Aviv only because I'm Jewish, and it's probably the only place we can live safely. It's also because it's super fun. It's one of the best city in the world, like, best food, highest quality of life, even with the craziness around war, that I could find. I could never find something like this.

[Ruben Hassid — 6:59]

Paris is too chaotic. There are too many people. And I don't see a good trajectory for Europe right now. The US has its ups and downs. I think I'm too European for the US. Like, I want to walk to my office, I want to walk to my restaurant, and I want to walk to the beach. And this is just not possible in the US. So Tel Aviv has all of this mix, which makes Israel and living in Israel even better for me.

[Erica Marom — 7:25]

Wow, that was a great ad for Tel Aviv.

[Ruben Hassid — 7:27]

I know. They should hire me.

[Ruben Hassid — 7:29]

I don't know why.

[Abbey Onn — 7:29]

Especially the accent.

[Erica Marom — 7:29]

Hugely popular AI creator.

[Ruben Hassid — 7:34]

Yeah.

[Erica Marom — 7:35]

Tell us, how did that happen? How did that come about?

[Ruben Hassid — 7:37]

Everyone says, oh, it's an accident. It was an accident. I mean, an accident. No. When you see that a nine-year-old that was listening aggressively to the Arctic Monkeys and being obsessed with Louis C.K. so I could learn English, so I could—

[Erica Marom — 7:50]

That's how you learned English from Louis C.K.? Oh my God.

[Ruben Hassid — 7:52]

It's actually okay. Life hack. If you want to learn a language and you're like, "Okay, enough," go for a comedian that you love, stand-up comedian, because it's always the same tone and way of speaking. And I was writing a blog on a video game called Guild Wars, and I was obsessed about it, and so I just kept on writing. I like the medium of writing to connect with someone and convince them about something. And then I was a ghostwriter for a financial analyst. And while I was a ghostwriter for him, I discovered about GPT-2, which was not yet the revolution. It was really bad, and I was like, oh, this is bad. Then GPT-3, it was okay. And then Chat with GPT on the 30th of November 2022, and I was like, huh, that's interesting.

[Ruben Hassid — 8:41]

But everything was very technical about it. Only papers, people wanting to code with it, and I don't code. And so I just read the papers because I'm a bit of a psychopath, and so I read all the papers, and I just wanted to make sense of them. So I was like, okay, chain of thought prompting, super technical paper, 20 pages, 30 pages, but in the end it's like, give steps to the AI. So step one, do this. Step two, do this. Step three, do this, before you actually ask the thing that you want. So I was like, oh, okay, if it was not chain of thought but give it steps, I can do that. Zero-shot prompting or one-shot prompting is give it an example. I can do that.

[Ruben Hassid — 9:21]

So I just wrote about it like, hey, there is this thing, and this is how you can use it better. And then it just blew up. And then I just kept on doing it for four years now.

[Abbey Onn — 9:32]

And a lot of the people that you work with, or even most of them, are not in Israel. So again, why choose to do the work in Israel, and why choose to focus your audience in Israel?

[Ruben Hassid — 9:41]

Oh my God. Actually, it's not a career move for me. Again, it's very personal. If I wanted to go all in on my career, I would go to San Francisco. This is just obvious.

[Ruben Hassid — 9:52]

Or New York.

[Ruben Hassid — 9:54]

My consulting firm is training enterprise. Everyone is in Connecticut, near New York. It's like 20 people, my two partners, the whole team. And we mostly serve enterprise that are on the East Coast, and some of them elsewhere in the US.

[Erica Marom — 10:09]

What, like, helping them adopt AI?

[Ruben Hassid — 10:10]

Yeah, enterprise with, like, 500 people, 1,000 people, sometimes 2,000 people. Help them adopt AI. So it's marketing team, sales team, C-suite. So it's like, why are you here then?

[Abbey Onn — 10:21]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ruben Hassid — 10:22]

Right? Because most of my job is to write. So I have the privilege to take few calls at 6 p.m., which is early in the US, and then for the rest of the time, I just have to write and search and do research. Research and writing, research and writing. And there's no better place to live than Tel Aviv. So I'm like, oh, if I can have this balance, two months a year in the US, where I have to meet people still— clients in San Francisco, my team in New York— the rest of the year I'm here because it's the highest quality of life, not because it's a career move.

[Erica Marom — 10:54]

Wow.

[Abbey Onn — 10:54]

It's amazing.

[Abbey Onn — 10:56]

I want to dig, like, one layer deeper because Korea, Berlin, Paris, and now here. What kind of made you feel at home after being a sort of digital nomad for so long? What gave you the feeling that this is the best place to live?

[Ruben Hassid — 11:07]

So it's a very important topic for me since I'm a kid. Since I'm a kid, I knew I wouldn't live in France. And so, but at that time, when I was like, I don't know, 12, 15, I thought I could live anywhere. So my big question was like, oh, well, I'll be a guy in Australia, or a guy in the US, or a guy in, like, South Africa, I don't know. And then the more I grew up, the more I realized, like, oh, actually, you don't have that many options. Like, Europe, not so good, and I have a lot of— thing about it. And then like the US, where you could— I could go to the US, become successful, and be seen as an American.

[Ruben Hassid — 11:45]

Yes. I could be part of the country. When I was in South Korea, you can be the best guy ever. You'll never be South Korean. This is like— and you have to deal with it. But I wanted to be part of a country. So it's like, okay, I have the US, I have France, and I have Israel, and I just— I like to say I pick the best worst option. It's like Churchill and democracy, you know? Like, Israel is a sh*thole, but it's the best one, so I like it.

[Erica Marom — 12:13]

Do you feel like you're part of it now?

[Ruben Hassid — 12:15]

I need some years to learn Hebrew. Without Hebrew, it's going to be too hard. And I'm learning every week. I have— yesh li mora [I have a teacher]— anachnu lomdim [we're learning].

[Erica Marom — 12:26]

You're doing an ulpan [Hebrew-language course]?

[Ruben Hassid — 12:28]

She's from Ulpan Bayit, but she comes to my office and we do a two-hour. It's not enough, but I'm trying to. But technically, I'm Israeli. And Israeli makes you feel like— like you can get it, you can get there. You know what I mean?

[Erica Marom — 12:46]

So you feel that, okay— you made aliyah.

[Ruben Hassid — 12:48]

Yeah.

[Erica Marom — 12:48]

You don't have the language. You haven't done, like, the army service, which for, like, Israeli men is a big part of their, you know, like, who they are as a person. How do you— is it harder to integrate like that?

[Erica Marom — 13:00]

What?

[Ruben Hassid — 13:00]

It's definitely— you definitely have, like— I want to be open about it. It's a Middle Eastern country, so it's based on trust and whom you know. So if you didn't do army, or this high school, or this university, it's extremely hard. Versus when I go to the US, people are like, "Yeah, let's meet. It's awesome," because they don't care. It's all about, like, what you do.

[Erica Marom — 13:25]

Yeah.

[Ruben Hassid — 13:25]

What you've done and what can we do together? That's it.

[Ruben Hassid — 13:28]

This is the US.

[Erica Marom — 13:28]

Like, merit-based.

[Ruben Hassid — 13:30]

Merit-based. I mean, the US goes super extreme on it, which is interesting. France is a little bit in between, and then Israel is still very Middle Eastern. So when I go to a conference, I can see people are like, "Ah, Yoni, mah koreh [what's up]?" like, they know each other from this place and this place and this place, and they still see me as the French, you know? But I think it's okay. I'm okay with this idea. I'll always be the French. It's a stigma that's never going to go away. The culture is engraved in you when you're 12. I came when I was 26. I mean, what's going to happen? I'm not going to magically become the Israeli. But still, you can be part of the country. The country was built that way less than 100 years ago. So, like, yeah, I'll be part of it.

[Abbey Onn — 14:18]

All right, I want to take a detour because you moved here when you're 26. You've been here for three years.

[Ruben Hassid — 14:23]

Yeah.

[Abbey Onn — 14:24]

We ask almost all the women that come on this show, so I want to ask you—

[Ruben Hassid — 14:27]

Yeah.

[Abbey Onn — 14:27]

How is it dating in Tel Aviv?

[Ruben Hassid — 14:29]

Interesting.

[Ruben Hassid — 14:31]

Say more.

[Abbey Onn — 14:31]

That was the most American answer possible. Say more.

[Ruben Hassid — 14:33]

It's interesting. Okay, I have— it's an interesting topic also for me. I think dating is— can I say bad words? Can we say bad words? Dating is f*cked in every major cities in the world, because actually, this is what's funny: the flaws that I see in Tel Aviv are the same that I saw in Berlin, are the same that I saw in Paris. It's the same, too much option, or the feeling of having too much option. Too many options. So Tel Aviv is not different. It's just with Tel Aviv, you add on top six months of going to the beach, and everyone's naked. So it's like, oh, let's make it even harder, you know? Like, boom.

[Ruben Hassid — 15:16]

There is still one key difference between Tel Aviv and the rest, because Tel Aviv is part of Israel. And this is something that I love and I cherish. And this is also one of the reasons I want to stay for the long run in Israel, my whole life, is that people in Israel cherish wanting to have a family. People are proud of it. People want it. People talk about it.

[Ruben Hassid — 15:40]

I have friends who have kids, and this was my first time when I came to Tel Aviv that I had friends who were married with kids, wanting more kids. When I was in Berlin, the whole discussion was, how long can we be young? So marriage and having kids is for later, if not never. And then eventually they get there. So this is something that, to me, is different and makes Tel Aviv and Israel very different. Like, my office is in Noga, and you see babies everywhere, like young parents. And just being around young parents all the time gives you a different perspective on life that I think is important.

[Abbey Onn — 16:25]

Yeah.

[Abbey Onn — 16:26]

Kids and family feel very integrated here. And it doesn't feel like if you have them, then you have to move away, or everything feels like— It's like, I sit in cafes and I also see people 30, 40 years my senior—

[Ruben Hassid — 16:37]

Yeah.

[Abbey Onn — 16:38]

and people who are at this point 20, 30 years my junior and young parents. And you feel like, okay, it's for everyone.

[Ruben Hassid — 16:43]

It's part of it. And they have the things, and you can see that they're doing everything and still being part of the city. And that's so important to me. This is the good part of being a Middle Eastern country, I believe. It's like, oh, family is very important and it's part of the culture, part of the day-to-day. And this is something that we lack in Europe. I feel like talking about babies and marriage is, like, it's intense. I only have one friend who's married in France, whereas here it's, like, way more and way more kids. So I guess this is one of the key differences.

[Erica Marom — 17:18]

Yeah, I want to go back to AI for a second.

[Ruben Hassid — 17:20]

Yeah.

[Erica Marom — 17:21]

You're not working with Israeli companies on AI?

[Ruben Hassid — 17:24]

No, I worked with Bright Data, and that's about it.

[Erica Marom — 17:31]

So what do you think Israel is getting wrong about AI?

[Ruben Hassid — 17:35]

Yeah, it's—

[Erica Marom — 17:37]

Or what do we need to do better?

[Ruben Hassid — 17:39]

The first distinction is AI as a consumer product. When I say consumer, I don't mean consumer consumer, but you have, like, super enterprise companies, like cybersecurity, and they use some sort of AI, and this we're doing great. I feel like Israel is so good at going very big with enterprise, like large enterprise, but not so good with, like, the unicorns that are being built in the US that are doing AI, that are easy to use. For example, I work with Gamma, which is one of the leaders to make slides very easy. And their vision and understanding of marketing is so different than Israel that Israel could never— at least the culture, the Israeli culture, could never. I work with Wispr Flow, which also has tons of enterprise clients, but they're still a consumer product. I'm an investor at Wispr Flow. I work with Tanay for now two years. It's voice-to-text. It's a great product.

[Erica Marom — 18:40]

I love it. It's great also for using AI as a consumer.

[Ruben Hassid — 18:43]

Exactly. It's a great product. I work with Granola as well, which is a meeting note-taker.

[Ruben Hassid — 18:48]

So the difference when I'm talking to them and I'm talking to an Israeli company is their thinking is, how can we spend more? We're not spending enough. So their feeling of urgency is, how can we spend more? And by more I mean millions, so that more people can use it, so we have a better feedback loop to make our product better. When an Israeli is more like, okay, how do we go from zero to 10 while spending as little as possible, if not zero, so that then we can sell it? So basically, you have the Israelis that try to go as fast as possible to sell, when the American is like, "How can we be the best?"

[Ruben Hassid — 19:29]

And now the thing is, Israel is really good. This is what's funny, is that when Israelis have an obsession, they're really good at it. Like matkot [beach paddleball]. Boom. The best. They play fuchiball. The best. One day they decided that we need great restaurants in Tel Aviv. We have one of the best restaurants in Tel Aviv. And whenever I go to a restaurant, I'm like, "Wow." And if they want to be one of the best to sell companies, especially to the US, it's probably Israel. Like, the ratio, I believe, is probably one of the best.

[Erica Marom — 20:01]

So what does Israel need to do better?

[Ruben Hassid — 20:03]

They need to take more risks. And I know it sounds crazy when it's like, "Wait, we're a startup nation. Yeah, like, we take risks." No, you take risks to start. That's great. But then eventually you need to take on bigger. Like, it's not just one risk, it's multiple risks. For example, I'm very open about it. I enjoy Base44 very much, and I was happy when Wix bought Base44. I was like, oh, perfect. But now, if it was a US company, I think Wix would have just been like, okay, now we're a Base44 and we go all in. That's a big risk. It's a public company. I know it's tons of people, but that's the kind of risk a US company would be like, yeah, we go all in, because we need to be the best.

[Erica Marom — 20:54]

So you have, like, a love-hate relationship with Israel. You know, you've said Tel Aviv is the best city in the world, but also this place is a sh*thole sometimes, right? Which I think a lot of us can identify with. So do you ever consider leaving Israel?

[Ruben Hassid — 21:07]

No.

[Erica Marom — 21:08]

Is this your home forever?

[Ruben Hassid — 21:09]

It's my home forever.

[Erica Marom — 21:10]

Why?

[Ruben Hassid — 21:10]

Because I cherish having a future family, and even with war, I don't see anywhere else they could go. Probably the US, but that would make me feel not happy. I see more upside in Israel, and that's okay. I told a friend who came from nomadism and now he moved to Israel full-time, and I said, it doesn't matter, you can travel from Israel, but Israel is home. When I come back home here and I go down Ben Gurion like everyone else, I'm like, "Ah, I'm home." I don't understand the signs because I don't read good Hebrew, and it's weird. And I have to pretend to the taxi driver that I speak good Hebrew, because otherwise he's going to overcharge me.

[Abbey Onn — 21:51]

Yeah, for sure.

[Erica Marom — 21:54]

So what— is there anything that's hard for you about living here?

[Ruben Hassid — 21:58]

What is not? What do you mean?

[Erica Marom — 22:01]

What's the hardest thing?

[Ruben Hassid — 22:02]

I'll give you an example. It's a country that is built on olim [new immigrants]. We literally have a word to say new immigrants. We don't have a word in French to say new people who come and that are awesome. It's like it doesn't exist.

[Abbey Onn — 22:13]

And they've gone up to do so. They've—

[Ruben Hassid — 22:15]

And they—

[Abbey Onn — 22:15]

Yes, they've increased their way.

[Ruben Hassid — 22:17]

It's crazy. I don't know if there's any other country that says, like, that's the newcomers, and they are, like, ascending.

[Ruben Hassid — 22:19]

Wow.

[Ruben Hassid — 22:20]

And at the same time, there is no English option on most of the websites. Like, and I talked to someone at Discount. French I would still be happy, but just give me English. Like, for example, when you want to open a bank account, there's very little. You'll be surprised about how little English you have. If you want an eSIM for your phone, there is no website that just has the bad English translation. I'm not even talking about the good ones. Make the bad one, with the bad UI that I have a hard time clicking on. No, I have to use the Google Translate version of it. And especially, it's the startup nation. We have AI that can translate something just like this. Even if it's bad, it's still going to be done in, like, a second. And it's the country of new immigrants. You're telling me that you can't pay an engineer for a day, and he's going to vibe code a version of it that is functioning English? It can't be true. It's not possible. Misrad HaPnim [Interior Ministry] doesn't have an English option, and it's done for new immigrants.

[Abbey Onn — 23:35]

I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but Misrad HaAliyah VeHaKlita [Ministry of Aliyah and Integration]— their entire LinkedIn is in Hebrew.

[Erica Marom — 23:40]

Yeah, like the—

[Ruben Hassid — 23:41]

Like, who are you talking to?

[Erica Marom — 23:43]

Who is your audience?

[Ruben Hassid — 23:44]

Who's your audience? Oh my God, it is—

[Abbey Onn — 23:47]

So if you are in the position— you've been here for three years— I feel like you should have a hot take here. What is your number one thing you would say to someone who's considering moving or just got here?

[Ruben Hassid — 23:54]

My hot take is, as I think I said earlier, but that's the thing. When people say, "Why are you in Israel?" It's the highest quality of life. And people are like, "Wait, but you have war and the trajectory of the country." It's like, yeah, it's the only country from the West that is actually having kids. All the other ones are losing population, and it's really fast. In three generations, you'll have 90% less Koreans. And I was in Seoul. Yes, three generations, it's going to go from a 50 million country to a little bit less than 5 million.

[Ruben Hassid — 24:28]

And then you're like, oh, okay. And then you realize that Europe is the same, but the whole system is built on people that retire, that are paid by people who get to work. And then you realize, like, oh, no one— well, the system is going to break in Europe and most of developed Asian countries. The US is also starting. And then you're like, okay, actually, high quality of life, people who want to have kids. Which also means, when a population wants to have kids, it also means that they believe in the future. Meaning, oh, I want kids because I want them to live in the future. It's also an interesting mindset to be in.

[Erica Marom — 25:09]

It's hopeful.

[Ruben Hassid — 25:10]

Yes. But when you talk to, like, a 30-year-old friend, she's like, "I don't know if I want kids because I don't want them to X, Y, Z." And I'm like, people in the Middle Ages had six kids. They were not thinking like, "Ah, we don't have enough water." I'm like, no, they were just having kids. So this is one of the reasons: just highest quality of life. And also if you check other stuff, you're like, oh, actually, Israel is in a good position, even surrounded by everything that it's surrounded by.

[Erica Marom — 25:41]

Even with all the crap.

[Ruben Hassid — 25:42]

Even with all the crap. And the bank website that is in Hebrew and wants me to read from right to left.

[Erica Marom — 25:51]

So when you're looking back on your life—

[Ruben Hassid — 25:53]

Yeah.

[Erica Marom — 25:53]

in your 80s, what's one thing— you know, you've lived in all these different places around the world, Korea, Germany, France— what's one thing that you think will have been true because you lived in Israel that wouldn't have been true otherwise?

[Ruben Hassid — 26:05]

The importance of tradition in my family. We're not so religious, but we still do Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Pesach, Kippur, Hanukkah. And then you're like, oh wait, it adds up. And then Friday night we have dinner always.

[Ruben Hassid — 26:16]

I thought the importance of tradition was purely because of my family. But in France it's very easy to see it that way, because even Kippur, for example, for me it's a very sad day because it's gray in France. It's always the grayest day in Paris. I don't know how they do it, but they find a way. And then you go to the synagogue and you kind of have to hide that you have a kippah, so you put, like, a cap on, because that's the one day you actually put the kippah. And then you get there and you have to, like, go quick in the synagogue. So it was still a good tradition for me, and I loved it, but it was very connected to— it's my tradition because of my family. And then you have Kippur, you do Kippur here and all the other traditions, and you're like, oh wait, actually, it's bigger than just my family. It's a little bigger, and it's bigger than just one synagogue.

[Abbey Onn — 27:04]

It's peoplehood.

[Ruben Hassid — 27:05]

Yeah, it's my people. And then we can trace back, oh, you're from Iraq and this one is from Spain, and I'm from Morocco and Tunisia, and there's this other guy from Poland and this other guy from Argentina. And somehow it traced back to the same roots. And I think we're disconnected from our monkey self, and we're still monkeys, which is funny. We like to live in tribes and caves with a hundred people. Here, it made me feel way more connected to the fact that it's—

[Erica Marom — 27:32]

That's beautiful.

[Ruben Hassid — 27:33]

Our people. So it's like, okay. And sometimes I'm like, I feel bad for other people who are not Jewish, because they should be seeking that somewhere, and I hope that they will be able to find it. But for us, there is, like, an easy answer.

[Abbey Onn — 27:48]

Okay, we are going to do a rapid fire where we're going to ask you questions and you need to answer just one word.

[Ruben Hassid — 27:55]

One word.

[Abbey Onn — 27:55]

Okay. Favorite Israeli food or snack?

[Ruben Hassid — 27:59]

Schnitzel [breaded chicken cutlet].

[Erica Marom — 28:00]

What's your favorite place in Israel?

[Ruben Hassid — 28:03]

Geula Beach.

[Abbey Onn — 28:04]

A Hebrew word or slang that you love?

[Ruben Hassid — 28:06]

L'hatznif

[Erica Marom — 28:08]

What does that mean?

[Ruben Hassid — 28:09]

I thought it was a fake word as well. It's, actually—

[Erica Marom — 28:14]

To sniffle?

[Ruben Hassid — 28:15]

Yes. L'hatznif is a word.

[Abbey Onn — 28:17]

Really? Okay.

[Ruben Hassid — 28:18]

Which sounds— it sounds like I made it up.

[Erica Marom — 28:22]

What do you miss most from Paris?

[Ruben Hassid — 28:25]

Baguettes. Butter. Both of them together.

[Abbey Onn — 28:28]

What does Saturday or Shabbat look like for you?

[Ruben Hassid — 28:30]

Geula Beach, frisbee, matkot. Never laying down, because I'm like a dog just going after the frisbee.

[Abbey Onn — 28:39]

Ruben, thank you so much. We're so glad that we got to—

[Abbey Onn — 28:41]

host you and learn from you. This was wonderful.

[Ruben Hassid — 28:43]

Thank you so much for having me. That was great. You're doing something that is not obvious, and I hope it brings more people here. The people that at least want to try— I always say that: come and try.

[Erica Marom — 28:55]

Yeah, come and try.

[Ruben Hassid — 28:56]

Yeah.

[Erica Marom — 28:57]

So if you like this, come and try and share with all your friends.

[Abbey Onn — 28:57]

Yalla, Let's Go!

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