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Women: Breaking Business Barriers

On November 4th 2009, the eleventh annual Jewish-Arab Businesswomen’s Conference was organized by the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. The conference, which took place at the Dan Carmel Hotel in Haifa, attracted over 270 Arab and Jewish businesswomen, policymakers, economists and academics from across Israel.

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At the conference, entitled “Women: Breaking Business Barriers”, speakers from both the Jewish and Arab sectors discussed the various tools accessible to women to promote and develop their businesses (especially internet–related tools), the issues and challenges that women face in business and the effects of the current global economic situation on women in business.

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Cherie Blair

Focus was given to the “Jasmine” portal which offers all its members the option of posting their own website. “Jasmine” was founded in 2006 with the assistance of KAS and provides women-owned businesses with information, advocacy and access to finance and credit. Jasmine aims to represent and promote businesswomen from all ethnic communities in Israel in the national and international business arenas.

The main objectives of the event were:

  • To raise awareness of the various tools that businesswomen can use to promote and develop their businesses.
  • To give businesswomen from all communities in Israel a sense of support, confidence and empowerment by sharing success stories of large and small women-owned businesses in Israel.
  • To increase awareness and knowledge on how to use the “Jasmine” portal.
  • To provide a networking platform for Jewish and Arab businesswomen, academics and policymakers and to encourage joint initiatives.
  • To introduce the public to the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development, “Jasmine” and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and to raise awareness of the work that both organizations do.
Dr. Lars Hänsel, Director of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Israel opened the conference together with CJAED Director Helmi Kittani and Kiram Baloum, Director of the Women’s Unit in CJAED. Dr. Haensel spoke of the work of KAS in general and in Israel. He highlighted Germany’s progression in the field of women’s rights through the example of Germany’s current Chancellor Angela Merkel who is the first woman chancellor in Germany’s history and was just re-elected. Chancellor Merkel was pronounced by Forbes the most powerful woman in the world for 2009. He added that Ofra Strauss who is taking a major role in “Jasmine” as its President was also chosen among the 50 most powerful women and commended her for reaching out to other women to help them succeed in business.

Kiram Baloum, Director of the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development’s Women’s Unit and Jasmine thanked the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung for its partnership and welcomed the speakers and guests. She also introduced the conference theme ‘Women: Breaking Business Barriers’.

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Kiram Baloum introducing the “Jasmine”-Portal

Helmi Kittani, Director of the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development gave personal thanks especially to three women who have been close friends and board members of CJAED for many years and have helped the Center to develop Jasmine. These women are Nadia Hilou, Ruth Dayan and Galia Albin.

Avi Gabay, CEO of Bezeq Communications discussed the importance of the internet in the modern business world. Mr. Gabay also discussed the powerful partnership between Bezeq and Jasmine in helping Arab businesswomen advance their businesses through the use of the internet.

Tarek Basher, Director of the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development’s Business Unit discussed the benefits of loans for entrepreneurs interested in starting businesses or expanding their businesses. Mr. Basher addressed the processes involved in applying for a loan including the preparation of strong business plans. Tarek Basher also spoke of loan conditions and of the challenges facing Arab women in particular in accessing loans. He also raised awareness of CJAED’s Loan Scheme ‘Sulam’, informing the audience of the process involved, conditions and benefits.

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Panel Discussion: Giving Credit to SME’s

The panel discussion was moderated by ex-Knesset member and CJAED Board Member Nadia Hilou and included Economist Galit Hami; Dalit Raviv, Manager of Hasharon Business Center; Daniel Matsliach, CEO of the Israel Small and Medium Enterprise Authority and Aiman Saif, Director of the Authority for the Economic Development of the Arab, Druze and Circassian Sectors at the Office of the Prime Minister.

The panel discussed some of the issues affecting women in business including striking the balance between family and business responsibilities and the lack of press interest in women-related business issues. Galit Hami conveyed her pleasure in seeing women with their children at the conference. Daniel Matsliach discussed the services offered by the Israel SME Authority including its loan granting facilities, its entrepreneurship courses and assistance in building business plans. Aiman Saif spoke of government initiatives and partnerships geared at boosting the Arab business sector including the formation of incubators for women entrepreneurs.

Nissim Duek, Director of Unik Communications gave a presentation on how to identify primary and secondary audiences, formulate the company’s key messages and engage in a strong customer dialogue. Mr. Duek emphasized the importance of clarity, brevity and creativity. Nissim also discussed how to build media relations.

Yair Carmel, from Agent Interactive gave a presentation on the power of the internet as a marketing tool and explained how customers use search engines to find desired products/services. Mr. Carmel gave the audience helpful tips on search engine optimization and on how to harness google and the web search in order to increase business exposure.

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Panel Discussion: Women – Breaking Business Barriers

The panel discussion was moderated Iman Kassis Ciliman and included Sara Shemer, Founder of Arcaffe and Liat Timor, Editor in Chief of lifestyle magazines at Maariv. Each of the women described their own experiences of entrepreneurship and of building their businesses. They each discussed the influences and factors that had encouraged them to start their businesses as well as the barriers that they had to overcome, especially as women in business. The three women discussed the issues of business development, how they balanced their business commitments with their family commitments and how they reached where they are today. Following the panel discussion a short documentary was screened of the success stories of three women business owners that have benefited from the services offered by Jasmine. The documentary included the stories of Iman Zahabi who opened a guest house in Nazareth, Iqbal Rizik who produces and sells natural remedies and Ilana Aviv who has a business in ceramics and sculpting.

Panel Discussion: Women Mean Business

The panel discussion was moderated by Dana Weiss from Channel 2 news and included Guest of Honour, Mrs. Cherie Blair; Ofra Strauss, Chairperson of the Strauss Group and President of Jasmine and Reem Younis, Founder of Alpha Omega.

Mrs. Cherie Blair spoke of the importance of integrating women into the workforce and business on a global level. She praised the work of Jasmine, commenting on her trip to Jaffa where she had met unemployed women that Jasmine was helping to train in employment and entrepreneurial skills. Cherie Blair discussed the impact that integration of women into the workforce is having on the economy and of the necessity to fight for equal rights. “I just learned from the Economist that if you are looking for who is contributing most to growth in the 21st century, its not India or China but women - those women who are now participating in the workforce. There is no doubt that if we are to get out of the crisis we have to utilize all of our resources, including women” commented Mrs. Blair. Cherie Blair also discussed the role and activities of her foundation, ‘The Cherie Blair Foundation’ in helping to break down barriers for women to actively participate in the economy. Ofra Strauss discussed the importance of equal opportunity and of women and men sharing the burden to support their families. “Women should be harnessed for making the economy better and improving society” commented Ofra Strauss. “A woman’s ability to work allows us to share the burden for raising a family. That means equality… one salary often cannot sustain a family. But when a woman can be raised to feel that they can share in this burden, working and supporting our families and kids, that is a goal and the type of equality that I consider to be happiness.” she continued. Reem Younis related to the Arab businesswomen in the audience, sharing her experiences as an Arab businesswoman and encouraging women entrepreneurs to leave their comfort zone. “If you keep trying you will succeed” Reem exclaimed.

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Hava Doron Soferman, CEO of Copyhouse and 4girls.co.il and Kiram Baloum, Director of “Jasmine” conducted the final session of the conference on how to use the Jasmine internet portal. Mrs. Soferman guided the audience through how to surf the portal and how to integrate their businesses into the portal through the creation of their own pages on the portal.

The conference attracted media attention already beforehand and was covered extensively afterwards both in Hebrew and Arabic media outlets. Many businesswomen took the opportunity during the conference to sign up with “Jasmine” portal and thus working closer together and boosting their businesses.

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