It’s been nearly four weeks since that dark day – October 7 – when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel. They indiscriminately slaughtered infants, children, women, men, and the elderly, in the most brutal ways imaginable, and kidnapped more than 240 people, many of them children.
Homes, an outdoor music festival, and army bases near Gaza were among the places targeted in the atrocious attack, while missiles and rockets were shot at much of Israel. Among the victims were agricultural expert David Schvartzman, an employee of the Evogene Group, and his wife Orly, who were murdered in cold blood in their home in Kfar Aza. Like all of Israel, we mourn all the victims.
How does a human being go on with normal, daily activities after such horror? It’s painful and difficult, but shutting down our lives is not an option; that would hand Hamas its biggest victory – the strangulation of Israeli society and its economy. We cannot let that happen. We have a personal and a national responsibility to move forward, both as individuals and as a society.
And as a company, we have further responsibilities – to our employees, ensuring they can survive economically during one of the most challenging periods in Israeli history, as well as to our partners, both in Israel and abroad, who are counting on our technology to help their businesses succeed and to pay their own employees.
For better or for worse, Israel has had a great deal of experience in war – the situation we find ourselves in right now. The economy is still functioning, although more slowly than at its usual frenetic pace, but there have been times when the local economy was nearly shuttered – most recently, during the height of the COVID pandemic. Before that was the Second Lebanon War, which took place more than 17 years ago.
Israel, including the Israeli economy, is resilient. This is especially true for the country’s advanced technology sector, which mainly serves markets abroad and keeps on going no matter what challenges are happening at home. During crises, the tech economy also responds with new products and solutions to meet the latest challenges.
So, I am confident that we will get through this. Israel is just too creative to let a war shut it down. In addition, we can expect a huge economic leap forward when the crisis has passed. The technologies that we have developed here over the years – from computer networking to cybersecurity to AI to agritech – are in demand throughout the world, and that demand will help ensure a quick economic recovery.
That's all on the macro level – but what about an individual company? How do we, as an organization, deal with all the hardships that a war brings – from shuttered schools (what do we do with the kids while we try to work?) to limited transportation to the constant threat of rocket attacks that interrupt the workflow to the national and personal mourning we are all experiencing?
We've been through this before, we'll make it through again.
For us, it’s about leadership – providing guidance to our employees and helping them soldier through as best as possible, given the challenges. That’s our “call to arms” – ensuring that our partners get what they need, that our employees can continue supporting their families, and that we fulfill our responsibilities to the investors who trusted us with their funding.
At the same time, we provide the emotional and material support employees need to cope with the situation. To us, this seems to be the best way to deal with a crisis of these proportions. And as difficult as working under these conditions may be, it is our only choice.
Our partners and investors are concerned about production, but in our case, our production lines are located abroad. In addition, we have multi-year collaborations with partners, and we expect those collaborations to outlast the war.
We are committed to ensuring that our partners get what they need from us. We are still very active in the capital markets; Evogene, just a few months ago, raised a sizable investment from leading trust funds, while our subsidiary Casterra has an agreement for castor seeds for castor oil production with one of the biggest players in the biodiesel industry. That customer recently received its first shipment of seeds.
Our partners and investors understand what we are going through. We have received hundreds of messages of sympathy and support, and we appreciate each and every one of them. Many of our partners have said that they would completely understand if there were delays in our deliveries of products or services – but we are determined not to make them, or our company, victims of Hamas terrorism.
This has long been our approach during the other challenges the country has faced during my two decades at the helm of Evogene, including during the Second Lebanon War, several Gaza conflicts, and the pandemic.
The loss of David and Orly has made this war even more personal for us, and we are determined to prevent the terrorists from further hurting us, our partners, and our employees. Israel has been here before, and we’ve lived to tell the tale.
I have no doubt that will be the result this time as well, especially given the way Israelis have rallied to the defense of the country. The secret of our survival is in our resilience. That resilience is serving us well now, and it will ensure that we – as a country, a society, and a company – not only survive, but thrive.
The writer is president and CEO of Evogene, a computational biology company based in Israel.