Is There a Place for Jews in Big Tech?

by Faygie Levy Holt – chabad.org

On Oct. 7 of last year, a Jewish Amazon engineer in southern Israel was taken hostage by Hamas. A month later, when the computer chip he’d worked on debuted at AWS Re:Invent on a Las Vegas stage, his missing presence and plight went unannounced.

In an incident that made headlines in January, “Free Palestine Kill All Jews” was seen scribbled in Google’s office in New York City.

In late April, hours after the company signed a $1.22 billion contract to provide cloud technology to Israel, dozens of Google employees revolted and occupied their New York office.

Just last month, an Israeli working for tech giant Intel filed suit against his employer for unchecked workplace antisemitism.

“The plaintiff … was assigned to report to an Intel executive who bullied and undermined him, as well as publicly amplified social media messages celebrating the murder of Israelis,” the Anti Defamation League (ADL) wrote in its September announcement that it was joining the lawsuit. “When the plaintiff, who had outstanding performance reviews and had recently been promoted, reported the anti-Israel hostility and discriminatory workplace conduct, Intel removed him from his job and forced him into a lower-paying role.”

The latest came just two days before Yom Kippur, a little more than a year since the Oct. 7 attack, when a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS) invited people to this year’s AWS Re:Invent conference wearing a necklace with a map of the entirety of the Holy Land covered by a Palestinian flag and the words “From the River to the Sea Palestine” written in Arabic.

Similar to Jews at colleges and universities, in the year since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, hundreds of incidents—big and small—have made Jewish workers in the tech sector question their standing in the industry.

‘No Message of Support or Solidarity’

“There is a real sense among Jews in tech that people at work don’t have their back,” says Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, founder of Tech Tribe, a community for Jews in tech and an affiliate of Chabad Young Professionals. “In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks, there was a feeling that the companies did not give them time to reflect and mourn. When the immediate shock had passed, they found that their workplaces were not ready to address what, to many, has become a hostile and toxic work environment.”

While the violently antisemitic graffiti at Google back in January prompted an internal investigation, a number of employees at major tech companies reported other disturbing incidents they feel have gone on with a willingly blind eye.

From “Free Palestine” messages being left on communal message boards and stickers glorifying Hamas’s murderous attacks, to sit-ins opposing corporate ties to Israeli or Jewish companies, as well as weaponized reports from HR to Jews attempting to speak out about the Hamas atrocities, in many instances, there has been no widespread condemnation.

As one Google employee, who like many other tech workers interviewed for this article asked not to be identified by name due to professional concerns, tells Chabad.org, “At no point in the last 11 months has there been a message from anyone in my company. No message of support or solidarity, no message against antisemitism or the hostile work environment.”

He recounted an incident in November when he arrived for work and went to the kitchen to grab a snack. On a whiteboard where people had drawn flags for the countries where employees are from, the Israeli flag had been erased and replaced with a “Palestinian flag with hearts.”

Then came a protest outside Google’s London office, where a fellow Jewish staffer was shoved by a pro-Palestinian Google employee. “I was horrified,” the Jewish Google employee shares. “At that point, I was banging on the table and begging leadership to send out some kind of statement that people need to leave politics behind in the workplace.”

While no memo was issued, the Jewish employee says the man who did the shoving was fired.

Radio Silence

At Amazon, the silence has been particularly deafening as one of its employees, Sasha Trufanov, remains among the 101 people still being held hostage. Trufanov, who was seen in Hamas propaganda videos earlier this year, is employed by Annapurna Labs, an Israeli company that was acquired and is wholly owned by Amazon.

“I am not aware of any public statements about Sasha,” says a former Amazon employee “M,” who left the company earlier this year.

“I’ve spoken to Jewish colleagues and non-Jewish colleagues I know who are supportive of Israel, and there have been instances where these colleagues aren’t aware that an Amazon employee is among the hostages,” she continues.

In a Globes article in late May that criticized Amazon for its lack of visible action on behalf of Trufanov, Amazon released a statement saying, “We continue to focus all the time on all the efforts to bring Sasha back home safely and to ensure support for his family at this difficult time. Our thoughts are with them and with all those who continue to be affected by the war.”

Right before Yom Kippur this year, Amazon’s social media shared a video featuring Dr. Ruba Borno, a senior Vice President at AWS, inviting people to this year’s Re:Invent conference—the same one Sasha Trufanov was set to attend before being kidnapped—wearing a necklace featuring the map of “Palestine from the river to the sea.” Implicit in the slogan, of course, are genocidal designs against the 7.2 million Jews living in the Holy Land. The video has since been scrubbed from Amazon’s social media, without any comment.

“This was such a frustrating experience. These videos don’t just appear online, especially for AWS’s biggest event,” one Amazon insider told Chabad.org. “There are so many steps that could have flagged it. There’s such sensitivity around avoiding political statements. I simply can’t imagine them letting someone wear a yellow hostage pin. It was just a horrible way to go into Yom Kippur.”

As the world’s largest retailer, Amazon prides itself on its diversity. Its website lists 13 official “Affinity Groups”yet starkly, there is not an official company-wide Jewish affinity group.

“I was told that we couldn’t have an affinity group because they ‘don’t do religious groups.’ But that means you can’t receive funding for programs or take part in external recruitment efforts,” said Steven Phillips, a former employee who now runs Jewish ERGs, a network for employee resource and affinity group leaders in the tech sector.

What Amazon does have are Slack messaging channels and internal employee boards including Wiki pages. One of those pages was particularly worrisome in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, says M.

“They created a page titled something like ‘the situation in Palestine,’” she recalls. “It proceeded to offer commentary from Arabs at Amazon on how they were feeling about Oct. 7.” They used the Wiki page, she says, to accuse Israel of apartheid, genocide and their hope that “this may be the moment Palestinians get their freedom.”

While Amazon did do an investigation of the page, M. says the page remains up and the company’s findings were not shared with its employees.

‘That Simply is Not Enough’

A spokesperson for Amazon acknowledged to Chabad.org that “this has been a really hard time for many of our employees, which is why we’re continuing to offer support to those impacted. And during difficult times like this, it’s especially important to ensure all employees feel safe and respected at work.”
While the statement did not specifically mention antisemitism by name, it did allude to it.

“We don’t tolerate any kind of discrimination or harassment and when we learn of potentially inappropriate behavior, we investigate it with all the tools available to us and take action if we find that someone has violated our policies,” the Amazon spokesperson said.

But that simply is not enough, say Jewish tech employees.

This has led many Jewish tech workers to connections with like-minded colleagues. For example, a trip to Israel organized jointly by Tech Tribe and various companies’ Jewish Employee Resource Groups this past March proved to be particularly meaningful for participants.

“Since Oct. 7, I’ve felt this intense need to connect to other Jews in tech,” says N., an Amazon employee who went on the trip. “Having that space, that community to turn to has been so important.”

N. is not alone in her experience.

‘A Tremendous Jewish Awakening’

“There’s been a tremendous Jewish awakening,” says Lightstone. “Tech Tribe has created that space for people who work in tech to express their Jewish pride and channel it into action.”

The three-day solidarity mission included volunteering, meeting their counterparts working in the Israeli tech sector, bearing witness to the death and destruction visited on the Israeli towns along the Gaza border and visiting wounded soldiers.

Phillips, who is from London, was in Tel Aviv on Oct. 7 and recalls the sites and the sounds of that terrible day. He knew then that he and others would need to lend a hand to help Israel over the months to come.

“It was hard and emotional and intense, but for me, also healing to go back,” says Phillips.

“At the same time, it was special to be able to connect with other Jewish employees who have been experiencing difficulties in the tech sector.”

One of the other more meaningful moments was meeting Trufanov’s mother, Elena Trufanov, and his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen. They were likewise both kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists before being released during the exchanges late last year. Trufanov’s father, Vitaly, was murdered during the initial attack.

Lightstone had previously been in touch with the Trufanov family. At a Chanukah party Tech Tribe arranged for Amazon employees, Lightstone shared a special recording of Elena and her mother, Irena Tati, thanking Sasha’s colleagues for their continued support and prayers on his behalf.

Sapir Cohen has spoken since her release to bring awareness about the experience of the hostages and continued plight of hostages like Sasha and others still in Hamas captivity.

Lightstone presented Sasha’s family with a dollar from the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. The dollar, provided by Rabbi Yosef Wolvovsky, co-director of Chabad Jewish Center in Glastonbury, Conn., was something Trufanov and Cohen found to be especially meaningful. The dollar was presented with a photo of the Rebbe speaking with a wounded IDF soldier.

The visit continues to inspire those who participated.

“The trip was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life,” says N. “Since then, I’ve made an effort to be more active in the Jewish community, to make a real point of publicly signaling my Jewishness to others, in the workplace and on the street, to let them know that we’re in this together.”