28 | NOVEMBER 17 • 2022 

OUR COMMUNITY

S

parkIL — a first-of-its-kind 
initiative that enables individuals 
to support the small business of 
their choice in Israel, while strengthening 
meaningful connections and relationships 
between the lenders and Israel — has 
received a three-year, $600,000 grant from 
the Michigan-based Max M. & Marjorie 
S. Fisher Foundation. The grant brings the 
foundation’s total support for SparkIL to 
$1.1 million over eight years. 
Established in partnership with The 
Jewish Agency for Israel and The Ogen 
Group, the platform enables users around 
the world to participate in crowdfunding 
interest-free loans that aim to make a real, 
measurable and continuing impact on 
underserved populations across Israel. 
“
At its core, SparkIL brings the best of The 
Jewish Agency’s expertise at connecting the 
Jewish global community with Israel and 
the Israeli people,
” said Fisher Foundation 
Trustee David F. Sherman, chair of the 
Foundation’s Jewish Committee that 
approved the new grant. “SparkIL also 
activates Ogen’s expertise at making loans 
… perhaps the highest form of tzedakah 
[charity/righteousness], to bring about 
change here in Israel … We at the Fisher 
Foundation have been privileged to be one 
of their partners as well.
”
In additional support for the peer-to-peer 
lending network, the Jewish Federation of 
Metropolitan Detroit’s Israel and Overseas 
Allocations Committee, chaired by Leah 
Trosch and Richard Broder, has approved 
the transfer of $100,000 to SparkIL for risk 
cushions. These funds will allow SparkIL to 
offer more borrowers opportunities to raise 

much-needed capital on the platform. 
“SparkIL is providing an opportunity 
for Detroit to participate using previously 
allocated and currently unused funds, 
and we are proud to do so,
” Trosch said. 
“Particularly at this time, with the influx of 
new olim [immigrants] from both Ethiopia 
and Ukraine, it is so important that diaspora 
communities, partnering with The Jewish 
Agency, remain flexible and creative.
”
This past summer, the Fisher Foundation’s 
Sherman also visited David Elimelech, one 
of the first borrowers to open a campaign 
with SparkIL. Elimelech, who is from an 
impoverished neighborhood in Ashkelon, 
grows his own mushrooms that are now 
being sold to restaurants and making an 
impact for vegans throughout the country.
According to Elimelech, while 
mushrooms are an ideal plant-based 
replacement for meat and seafood, “Israel 
had no mushroom market to speak of, so I 
took my savings and bought equipment to 
start growing them.
” And thus, his business, 
FUNGGIZ, was born.
“It was hard to navigate the bureaucracy 

of establishing my business, but SparkIL 
has been incredible in helping us get off the 
ground,
” Elimelech said. “Our biggest hurdle 
right now is inventory. We are regularly 
sold out of products and need a larger 
facility so we can keep up with the demand 
for supplying restaurant distributors. 
Because the demand is so high, we created 
at-home grow kits, so folks can incorporate 
mushrooms into their daily diets as well. 
This loan will help us increase production in 
both areas.
”
SparkIL CEO Na’ama Ore said, “We are 
deeply grateful to the Fisher Foundation for 
their generous early-stage and continued 
support for SparkIL, and we welcome 
the Detroit Federation in providing risk 
cushions that enable us to attract more 
borrowers in Israel’s periphery. 
“The support from these organizations 
is helping us to empower Israel’s small 
business owners with the long-overdue 
resources that they need and deserve, while 
simultaneously pioneering a new vehicle 
for creating connections between Israel and 
world Jewry.
” 

Peer-to-peer lending platform receives $700K 
in support from Detroit. 

Helping Israeli 
Businesses Grow

COURTESY OF SPARKIL

GUY YECHIELY

Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher 
Foundation Trustee David 
F. Sherman speaks about 
SparkIL at The Jewish 
Agency for Israel’s Board of 
Governors meeting in July. 

TOP: Laurence Tisdale, Board of Governors member at The Jewish Agency for Israel; Max M. & 
Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation Trustee David F. Sherman; David Elimelech, owner of the Israeli 
small business FUNGGIZ; and SparkIL CEO Na’ama Ore. Elimelech, one the first borrowers to 
open a campaign with SparkIL, grows his own mushrooms that are now being sold to restau-
rants and making an impact for vegans throughout Israel. 

