For most of its history, Israel has understood how to respond to crisis. We’re used to this, and the resilience of our people carries us through. The real challenge has always come in the aftermath, in the prolonged period when urgency fades but consequences accumulate.
That is where the country finds itself now.
It is important to note that despite the current ceasefire, the war continues and economic strain has become a daily reality rather than an emergency. Families are navigating extended uncertainty. Small businesses are operating without reliable horizons. Local authorities in the north and south are weighing not only how to recover, but whether recovery is feasible at all. These pressures rarely command attention, yet they shape social stability more decisively than any single event.
Ogen was founded 35 years ago on a simple premise: that access to fair credit could improve lives and strengthen communities. What began as an idea in a small Jerusalem apartment grew into a national social-lending framework serving Jewish and Arab communities alike. Across decades of growth, economic cycles, and national crises, one lesson remained consistent: resilience is built through trust, not extraction.
Over time, that framework expanded significantly. Today, Ogen provides affordable credit at a national scale, with more than 2.6 billion shekels extended across 84,000 loans to families, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations.
That lesson now sits at the center of Israel’s economic debate.
Many of today’s challenges emerge at the intersection of systems that rarely align: banking regulation, competition policy, municipal capacity, and access to credit for households and small enterprises. In moments of prolonged stress, those misalignments become visible. When capital retreats, risk is transferred downward. When systems operate in silos, the most vulnerable absorb the shock first.
It is against this backdrop that the Ogen Conference will convene this week in Tel Aviv, bringing together leaders from the financial system, government, local authorities, and the social sector. The aim is not to celebrate success or announce solutions, but to examine how Israel’s social economy is functioning under sustained pressure, and where existing tools are no longer sufficient.
I am especially looking forward to my conversation with the incredibly inspiring Jeff Swartz, former CEO of Timberland and current Chairman of MAOZ. We will be discussing one of the central questions: how do we build Israel 2.0. How do we change our approach and create new structures of finance that can leverage philanthropy, bring impact investors, institutional investors and government to work together to create a reality that is not rewinding to Oct. 6th but rather helps us leap into a newly imagined reality.
Ogen is actively working to blend finance, to create a different approach that can make significant and lasting change. The government is sorely missing from many of these arenas and I hope that the conference can create opportunities for collaboration.
Thirty-five years of experience does not provide a blueprint for the present moment. It does, however, provide perspective. It shows that resilience is rarely created through sweeping declarations. It is built through thousands of decisions about access to credit, the allocation of risk, and shared responsibility that determine whether people remain economically included or are quietly pushed out.
As Israel continues to navigate this period of uncertainty, the questions now coming into focus about access to credit, the distribution of risk, and shared responsibility will shape the country well beyond the present crisis.
Thirty-five years of work suggest that resilience is rarely the product of a single intervention or institution. It emerges when experience is carried forward thoughtfully, and when conversations about the future are grounded in what has already been tested. The conference taking place this week reflects the need for precisely that kind of reckoning: one that looks forward, without losing sight of what has brought us here.
Eldan joined Ogen in August 2022 to lead the strategic partnerships and manage donor and investor relations worldwide. With 15 years of experience in the third sector in Israel, the UK, and the US, Eldan began his career in leadership development in non-profit organizations and pre-army leadership academies. In the last decade, he has been leading development and partnership-building teams in leading organizations throughout the Jewish world. Before joining Ogen, Eldan was the Partnerships Director at the Darca School network and was a member of the senior management team. Beforehand, he relocated to England as part of his role as Regional Director for UJIA. Building this role for the first time, Eldan led a team of fundraisers and educators across the Northern communities of England and Scotland. Under his stewardship, the association’s income was doubled and the impact of many young people was expanded significantly through their relationship to Israel. Previously, Eldan managed the Abraham Fund Initiatives’ fundraising efforts in Israel and Europe. Eldan has a BA in History of the Middle East and Africa from Tel Aviv University. He is married to Hila and father to three adorable children – Lily, Ilay and Gil.