Entrepreneur Dinner Series

In 2014, I started hosting the Entrepreneur Shabbat Dinner Series every month. The idea behind the series is to take what is a traditional and historically religious and communal bonding platform—the Shabbat dinner table–and use it to facilitate dialogue and the spirit of entrepreneurship. Since we launched, the concept has been warmly received by the investor/entrepreneur community, the media, and the Jewish community at large.

New York Times best-selling author Dan Schawbel and 94-year-old Lucille Osborne, teaching about the wisdom of perseverance at J.R. Rothstein’s Entrepreneur Dinner Series​.​ New York, New York​, April 201​7​

The dinner series has hosted entrepreneurial people who have started non-profit charities to billion-dollar companies. The following is a partial list of the speakers:

  • Dan Schawbel, a New York Times best-selling author, serial entrepreneur, Fortune 500 consultant, Millennial TV personality, global keynote speaker, career and workplace expert, and start-up advisor.
  • Ari Tolwin, a serial food and beverage entrepreneur, CEO @ happytree Organic Treewater.
  • Tom Sperber & Rena Wasser, CEOs of Hooomi, a Real Estate Development Firm.
  • Slava Rubin, the Chief Business Officer, Co-founder, and former CEO of Indiegogo.
  • Natasha Nova and Sonya Kreizman, Founders of JCrush.com dating application platform.
  • Avi, Co-founder and CEO of LAVAN, a network of angel impact investors who support Israeli entrepreneurs tackling the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges.
  • James Goldman, Founder/CEO of JWG Associates, Inc., a $135-million advertising agency with 250 employees in 10 offices in the US that was acquired by TMP Worldwide, Inc., in 2001

The dinner series has been sponsored and made possible by JICNY, OneTable, and the Moishe House Foundations. The social mission behind the Entrepreneur Shabbat Dinner Series has been endorsed by the prominent American Jewish Historian Jonathan Sarna. Professor Sarna relates:

“I am glad to encourage all efforts of the Entrepreneur Shabbat Dinner Series to interest Jews in entrepreneurship. Jewish entrepreneurs have been the driving force behind the success of Jews in the United States, going all the way back to that great Revolutionary-era entrepreneur, Haym Salomon. From then until now, successful entrepreneurs have been the all-too-often unheralded engine behind the success of the American Jew. At a time when Jewish life, more than ever, depends upon the creation of Jewish wealth and the generosity of Jewish philanthropists, we need to encourage young Jews to develop entrepreneurial talents. Best of luck with your work”

If you would like to get involved with the dinner series, please reach out and contact me.

“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

George Bernard Shaw