Introducing Daniel Lubetzky, a 38-year-old Mexican Jew who has already lived several lives and who is destined to live several more before he’s done with this world—a world that he is determined to change by resolving conflict, dispelling stereotypes, and bringing peace to a region that has known little of it.
His passion for bringing people together comes from his love of different cultures. Growing up in Mexico City, Lubetzky learned Hebrew, English, Spanish and Yiddish. When he moved to San Antonio as a teenager, he learned French. Years later, while working in Tokyo, he started the process of learning Japanese. [Read more →]

Farrah Sarafa

On the tumultuous terrain of politically rivaled and culturally distraught Israel and Palestine, PeaceWorks attempts to make peace through work in the name of all natural, snack bars, salsa, spreads, tapenade and spices.
Bombs, raids and cries echo throughout the otherwise deserted streets of Palestine, disrupting the Jewish Oasis in Palestine-Israel. Heightened security and checkpoints leave Palestinians waiting endlessly to cross into towns across the border, providing the Israelis with a false sense of separation and security.
Could buying and consuming a jar of pesto possibly help mediate this current conflict? PeaceWorks, a not-only-for-profit food company based in Manhattan, promotes peace in the Middle East by fostering collaboration between workers on both sides of the still ambiguous Palestinian-Israeli border. The company also donates 5% of its revenue to OneVoice, a grassroots non-profit that moderates violent extremism in the region.
Both PeaceWorks and OneVoice were founded by Daniel Lubetzky, who was so impressed by a sun-dried tomato paste he tasted on a professional trip to Israel that he bought up the producer of the spread, Oliva. He proceeded to gather a team of Palestinian agricultural distributors and Israeli manufacturers to help bring about his vision: a harmonious working environment—and profits—for both Palestinians and Israelis. [Read more →]

How does a Mexican of Jewish heritage with a background in business and law launch PeaceWorks, an innovative food company, and the ambitious foundation OneVoice, both of which work towards towards peace in the Middle East? Daniel Lubetzky, born and raised in Mexico City, studied in the US, France and Israel, before attending Stanford Law School in California. He then had short stints at a law firm and an investment company before launching PeaceWorks in 1994 and OneVoice in 2002. We spoke last year when the Arab League had just taken a leadership role in the peace process between Israel and Palestine after the Second Intifada. [Read more →]

By HEATHER ROBINSON

Big Town Big Dreams

If people from different backgrounds can find common ground, according to Daniel Lubetzky, it’s food - and the desire to prosper.

The founder of PeaceWorks, a food and condiment company, Lubetzky, 38, has promoted over the past decade economic cooperation among people on  opposing sides of various world conflicts.

At the busy Chelsea headquarters of PeaceWorks - and OneVoice, a nonprofit organization he established “to amplify the voices of moderates” in the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict - Lubetzky flips open his laptop to share a video showing young activists recruiting members to OneVoice. [Read more →]

Ruben Navarrette Jr., San Diego Union-Tribune

The worlds of Latin America and the Middle East come together as one for Daniel Lubetsky, a 38-year-old Mexican Jew and successful businessman with a passion for trying to resolve conflicts. Lubetsky is the founder of PeaceWorks, a gourmet and healthy food product company that channels some of its profits to fund peace efforts around the world.

Lubetsky - who is based in New York but jokes that he lives on airplanes - is attempting to tackle what often seems to be the most intractable conflict in the world: the one between Israelis and Palestinians. His vehicle is the OneVoice Movement, which he founded five years ago to strengthen the role of moderates in the Middle East. The organization now has more than 500,000 members - with nearly equal shares of Israelis and Palestinians. The group had organized a pair of peace concerts in Israel that were to take place this month but were called off because of security concerns and threats made by extremists. Lubetsky says the concerts were merely postponed and insists the show will go on. [Read more →]

(New York - WABC, September 8, 2006) (WABC) — Diplomacy is one approach for creating peace and food may be another. For one New Yorker, the problems in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world may have a chance at getting solved in the kitchen.

The concept is to get people from opposing sides to create a food product. In the process they make money, and in the end they create something that tastes good and that may help bring them together. It’s the brainchild of a New York man who’s voracious for peace.

Daniel Lubetzky is far from the turmoil in the Middle East, but it’s clear from the quotations on his walls in his Manhattan office that he strives for peace in that region.

“I’ve always been very passionate about trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I’ve always been very passionate about business,” he said.

So 12 years ago he married his passions and started Peaceworks Foods. [Read more →]

By Erin Pineda, 23 August 2007

NEW YORK - Simply stated, the “peace dividend” theory holds that in times of peace, budgets and resources normally allocated for defense can be used to invest internally in housing, education, and other initiatives which improve a society and bolster an economy. In other words: in the long term, peace is more profitable than war.
But in the post-Cold War world, regional conflicts and international terrorism have proliferated, and peace has proven an elusive concept. Having thus far failed to make peace in our time, the economic gains of the “peace dividend” have largely remained in the realm of the theoretical. [Read more →]

FOR manufacturers, the Web can be a hazardous place. Consumers expect these companies to sell their products directly online, but retailers have other thoughts.

How, then, to satisfy all parties?

You don’t, e-commerce executives and analysts said. Manufacturers have realized that they can sell more aggressively to consumers online, which puts them in stronger financial positions and also allows them to serve consumers more effectively.

And retailers are not balking too much at manufacturers who sell online because, analysts said, Web sales are not high enough for retailers to fear that a vendor will steal a lot of business.

“Retailers aren’t necessarily feeling the pinch from their suppliers’ online sales efforts,” said Dan Stanek, an analyst with TNS Retail Forward, a consulting firm. “So it’s not been as big of an issue as in the past.” [Read more →]

Many of the companies we write about routinely give to good causes. Check out what we’ve found recently.

Peace
Meditalia’s tapenades are made through cooperation between Palestinian olive growers and Israeli manufacturers. 5% of profits go towards fostering peace in the Middle East. $4/6.35 oz.; peaceworks.com

KIND Fruit + Nut bars from PeaceWorks Inc. are like chunks of fruit and nuts barely held together by a lightly sweet, slightly sticky syrup. Every bit is identifiable — unlike some bars that look like the ingredients have been put through a blender and reformed. With these bars, it’s all about what they don’t contain: no sulphur dioxide, no gluten, no trans-fat. Some varieties are wheat and/or dairy free. Find them at Central Market and Whole Foods Market.