They Left Tech Jobs to Serve the Jewish People. Was It Worth It?

Shlomo Ashkanazy and Ami Yunger both had it good. Stable careers in the Israeli tech world, clear paths forward, mentors they trusted. Then they walked away. Shlomo is now Co-Director of JLIC at Washington University in St. Louis — a program he and his wife built from scratch. Ami is COO of Mizrachi Canada, running operations for one of North America's fastest-growing Religious Zionist organizations. In this conversation we get into the real story behind the leap: the anxiety, the bitachon, the professional second-guessing — and what it actually looks like to apply tech-world skills to klal work. We also go deep on October 7th. Shlomo was in New York on Simchat Torah with a five-month-old and a WhatsApp group full of chevra boarding planes back to Israel. The decision he made that day still stays with him. Ami went back for from Canada to serve — and came home to a community that had never felt so connected to what was happening in Israel. Plus: anti-Semitism on the ground in Canada, the 40-year test for big decisions, and why "COO of a Jewish nonprofit" isn't an oxymoron. Timestamps: 00:00 – Preview 01:19 – Intro & guest backgrounds 06:29 – Was leaving the tech world scary? 10:54 – Zionism in North America post-October 7th 16:33 – Anti-Semitism in Canada: what it's actually like 18:15 – How tech skills translate to shlichut 25:00 – The nonlinear career path 29:22 – Shlomo: October 7th and the decision not to go back 39:05 – Lightning round