This week at the Jerusalem Conference in New York, the Binyamin Regional Council launched a special model for raising investment capital from American businessmen.

Three entrepreneurs who are Binyamin residents, including Yehoyada Nizri, a graduate of the Master Chef reality TV program, and Hanan Rubin, founder of Riseup, the successful economic technology program, ascended the stage and presented their business initiatives in the Binyamin region.

Each entrepreneur’s initiative was portrayed in a short film prepared by the Binyamin Council Media and Advocacy Department, and was followed by a question-and-answer session in which the entrepreneur was given an opportunity to convince the businessmen on the panel.

The event was held in a format similar to that of the well-known American program “Shark Tank.” The investors panel consisted of businessmen Dr. Edgar White, CEO of Phoenix Data Systems; Michael Farkas, CEO of the Farkas Group and New York City commissioner, businessman and philanthropist Joseph Douek.

Binyamin Regional Council Governor Israel Ganz thanked the investors, announced that he intends to make this event a tradition and explained how the idea for it was born. “Binyamin and the towns and communities there have quality reserves in several areas for the State of Israel. We have tremendous potential for growth, land reserves and rare human capital. We knew that the Americans would connect to this idea and thank God we succeeded in promoting it. We have the ambition and the ability to be trailblazers in a wide range of fields and the State of Israel can only benefit from this.”

The businessmen were presented with three unique enterprises: one is an initiative by two Binyamin residents, for an educational project to teach software coding in junior high schools in Binyamin - Yael Zeevi, founder of the Binyamin technology entrepreneurship hub and high-tech entrepreneur Hanan Rubin, founder of the successful economic enterprise Riseup.

Rubin presented the initiative to the sharks, who were excited by it and immediately announced that they will invest tens of thousands of dollars in order to boost the program, and will promote further investments in the future.

The investors thanked the Binyamin Council for the opportunity for them to be introduced to initiatives in which they will be happy to invest, both for ideological reasons and for economic and business reasons.

The businessmen showed special interest in the development initiative “Farm Project,” which is designed to empower youth through agriculture education.

One of the main farms in this progect is 'Malachei HaShalom' in memory Malachi Rosenfeld and Rabbi Shalom (Shuli) Har Melech, Binyamin residents who were murdered in terror attacks in the region.

The third initiative, by Amichai resident, Yehoyada Nizri, is the establishment of an interactive culinary center with cooking workshops based on the Bible and foraging, as a spinoff of his successful boutique restaurant Gofna in Shiloh. Nizri, a chef and a graduate of the popular TV show “Master Chef,” told the businessmen, “I want to open a biblical culinary center in the mountains, to open my doors to people from all over Israel and around the world, who will come and taste the biblical cuisine of Binyamin, and will connect with the people and the land of Binyamin. I cook here out of a desire to connect ancient Shiloh, which is adjacent to my restaurant, to modern, sophisticated Shiloh, which draws its inspiration from the ancient biblical sites where our forefathers walked and ate.”

The investors decided to invest over one million shekels in the projects that were presented to them and have already committed to promoting the initiatives via their connections with other interested parties in the U.S. The businessmen will also provide ongoing consulting to the entrepreneurs and share their business experience with them.

Eliana Passentin, International Desk Director for the Binyamin Regional Council, who initiated this project said: "We wanted to bring the story of Binyamin to New York, the history, the taste, the innovative ideas. I chose three young and successful entrepreneurs to tell the story through their initiatives." "Sharks are predators", says Passentin, “they look for the kill. But wolves live in packs, they know that to succeed they need each other. They are smart, they do not win by power-plays but by community." The businessmen on stage represent our "wolf pack".