Meet Our Team: Ido Dembin

Name: Ido Dembin

Title: Israel Director

Home Town: Holon, Israel

Currently based in: New York City

Tell us about yourself. 

I have recently transitioned to become the itrek Israel Director after working for a year as itrek’s Senior Law Program Manager. Outside of work, I’m an avid follower of politics and sports—I’m a big fan of Maccabi Tel Aviv and Real Madrid. I am married to the wonderful Shay Bialik, who is an adviser in Israel’s mission to the UN. We became friends when advocating for Israel in 2012, and became a couple a few years later. We’ve since lived together in Jaffa, Paris (where we got married as well), and now New York. 

What is your professional and educational background?

After working as a lawyer in Tel-Aviv, I was an advisor to the Israeli ambassador to the OECD and UNESCO in Paris. I decided to move to New York to pursue my graduate degree at Columbia University, studying human rights. I first learned about itrek while I was there and had the pleasure of leading the Columbia Law and School of International and Public Affairs itreks in 2018. In my free time, I write two blogs, including one for Israeli newspaper “Ha’aretz” as well as op-eds for various outlets.  

Tell us about your role at itrek.

The Israel Director is part of the on-the-ground itrek team in Israel, which oversees organizing the programming, content, and logistics of itreks as well as the itrek Fellows Program, which is for Israelis studying in Israel who wish to join an itrek and get to know the participants. We are currently enhancing our operations in Israel, which means I’m moving back home and will hire a team of people to develop our program even more.

I’m really excited about our itrek Fellows Program, which is soon to be launched, as it will increase our involvement and impact both in the short and long terms. I believe this will be a major breakthrough for itrek and will serve to benefit everyone involved.

We’re also in the process of creating a speaker database of all the speakers who have met or may meet with an itrek in Israel, so we can continue to help leaders curate their treks exactly as they wish. We love connecting our groups with experienced speakers and letting them know which kinds of groups they’ve met with previously so we can find the best fit for each group.

What’s an interesting project you’re currently working on?

The Fellows Program is really changing the whole way we’re working with Israelis. We’re looking to recruit, train and onboard Israeli students to participate in the itreks when they come to Israel. The idea is to match Israel’s top students with our itreks as experience-enhancers: They join the leaders shortly before the itrek hits the ground, to help prepare, design, and customize the treks and then join the groups for the duration of their stay, serving as a connecting link between American academia and Israel. We’re recruiting fellows through academia and student bodies in Israel so that they can get to know us and will have training sessions to understand the students they will meet. 

Something we’ve realized is that a great Israeli student who joins an itrek and is engaged is almost like a leader.

We want to generate a buzz on campus and create a community of people who have joined, and will continue to learn from each other, and understand how to best work with the American and European students that they previously haven’t engaged with. Then, once the itreks are done, everyone not only makes new friends but also learns so much—and who knows, maybe some of these fellows could someday study abroad and even lead an itrek themselves.

Who do you work with?

The uniqueness of the work we do within itrek is that it’s focused…on everyone! We’re going to be working with the whole Programming team. We’re going to work on creating content and initiating relationships with speakers. I will be working directly with the Israeli Fellows, so I am learning what their needs are and how best to help them. And of course, the development and alumni aspects of itrek are crucial to us, too.  

What do you love most about Israel?

Israel is home. It’s a place that I hold very dear and I guess it might be a cliché, but I love the people, the places. It’s unique in ways that I’ve never seen anything anywhere else. The stark contrast between regions, cities, even streets in the same neighborhood. The struggle between the spiritual and the material. Think of the difference between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, which are only an hour apart but can seem 100 light-years apart. The Israeli can-do attitude, the warmth, that something special that means you can recognize an Israeli just from the look in their eyes. That sense of partnership is so resounding. And above all else, the feeling of belonging which supersedes shallow aspects like language, color, and religion and is just always there, whenever I’m there. How do you explain that?