My Turn:

• Dozens of Jewish and pro-Israel organizations have disappeared and thousands of individuals dedicated to the Jewish national home project passed away. Our past history dissipates and facts fade from public view.
• Unprotected  past becomes fluid and offers no support for one’s sense of ‘self ‘ and our place in history. The current generation of Americans and Israelis have little knowledge, comprehension or respect of the past; an easy prey to falsified or manufactured narratives.
• Having neither space nor need to preserve authentic personal history, Americans today have to reinvent Israel backwards, from the focus on the “now” without the benefit of knowing of how this ‘now’ came about.
• Israelis may love or dislike America for many wrong reasons – but not from the steady flow of personal commitments and sacrifices made by the American Diaspora.
• Americans see Israel within the context of crises of which there were many and more will undoubtedly come. We forget that a proper response can be fashioned only by minds well informed of the past.
• Victimhood, disengagement and ambivalence to Israel should not be allowed to define our connection to land both holy, promised and nourished by good people.

FOUNDER’S BIOGRAPHY

Boris Gorbis was born in 1950 in Odessa, Ukraine, where he studied thermophysics, Romano-Germanic philology and psycholinguistics. After coming to America in 1975, his first employment was a visiting professor at the psychology department at Stanford University.  Since his days as a “refusenik” he was fascinated by the operation of law. In 1980 graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, where he was a two term President of the International Law Society.

In the course of his legal career, Mr. Gorbis obtained California PUC Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for the first private shuttle operations in Los Angeles. He drafted Moscow Bar Association Agreement on Cooperation with the California Bar and negotiated long-term contracts for space-launch services of US payloads. In the almost 30 years of practice he represented thousands of clients ranging from community organizations and established businesses to victims of negligence and high-net worth foreign individuals. His interest in transportation issues made him an important contributor in exploring alternative transportation modes, and in particular, the “last and first mile” issues. In 2013, Boris was appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti for a 5 year term as the Los Angeles Taxicab Commissioner.

He practices civil litigation and consumer law in Beverly Hills, California and is an experienced arbitrator and dispute mediator which allows him to employs his analytical skills and result oriented strategies. His pro-bono practice is widely known throughout the Russian-speaking community. In 1989 Mr. Gorbis and his law firm set up a state-side operation that made it possible for hundreds of Russian families stranded in Italy to prove their right to come to the United States as refugees.

He is a known participant in the Jewish community affairs locally and nationally. Presently he serves on the National Board of the AJCommittee, as well as the Boards of Directors of Research Institute for New Americans (RINA), Citizen Empowerment Centers in Israel (CECI) and on the Executive Committee of “Savings Lives Gala”. He is a new President of NAFI (‘New Americans Foundation Inc.) and a founder of the AMERICA-ISRAEL Museum dedicated to celebrating the many connections between America and early Israel.

Married with two sons, Mr. Gorbis is a frequent contributor to Russian media and when not otherwise engaged can be seen at World Conferences on Computers and Computing where he presents on topics of Universal Grammar, cognitive lexicography and similar issues. He authored numerous articles and writings on legal, trade and just plain eclectic subjects. He is the primary investigator in a patent application on measuring values in Complex Systems.