The Israeli official at Walmart who fled Syria at the age of 10: "Hope to return to visit there"

February 26, 2019 was a holiday for Ezra Daya (44). On the same day, Walmart, the American retail giant, acquired the Israeli start-up it founded, Aspectiva, an artificial intelligence-based system that analyzes user reviews of products and generates insights and buying recommendations.

For the high-tech community this was a surprise, as up to that point the name of Aspectiva and the name of Daya were not familiar to the captains and senior executives of the field. Then, in the wake of the signing, which took place after a stubborn negotiation of several months, the name Aspectiva began to roll on the tongues, and surely it bought its name and world, by an estimated tens of millions of dollars. At the same time, Aspectiva continues to work on its products for Walmart.If there were eight employees in Israel at the time of the acquisition, it is currently employed 30. Two years after the acquisition, looking back with satisfaction and pride, Daya shares his extraordinary life story and path to success.

He was born, raised and educated in Aleppo, Syria, a member of a well-known and wealthy family. His father, Dr. Haim Daya, was a family physician, whose professional as well as human name preceded him, which brought him senior patients in the Syrian army and government. But the years did not go well with the Jewish community in Aleppo. Israel, got worse and worse, and they began to leave the hostile country. A minority immigrated to Israel, most of them emigrated to other parts of the world, and among the few families left in Aleppo was the Daya family.

Until 1987. Then, one night, the family got up and left the house, the city, the country, and did not return there. Daya, who was 10 years old at the time, still remembers in great detail that escape night, and he says he will not forget it either. “I was born into the reality of a small Jewish community,” he says. “We were a religious family and we grew up well. My mother’s family members immigrated to Panama and my father’s family members were scattered among different places in the world, some in the United States. Slowly most of the Jews fled from Syria, mostly through Lebanon. We stayed. “

As a child, did you understand the distress and the solution?

“It was not easy to grow up in Aleppo at that time. I remember the fear that accompanied my childhood. As an example, it was forbidden to say that you were a Jew, the signs had to be hidden, and I was often beaten. We were all pretty clear about borrowed time in Syria, They did not talk about it, certainly not about the escape. Until then, although we left the Syrian border, because the authorities in Aleppo knew and respected my father, but always remained ‘hostages’, because the Syrian police would investigate the issue. “To visit her family in Panama, my father stays in Syria, and vice versa.”

How did the idea of escape embroider skin and tendons?

“One day an Arab patient appeared in my father’s clinic. Only when he entered the treatment room did it become clear that he was not a real patient, but a collaborator of the institution in Israel, sent by the institution to advise my father, who had fled Syria, and was beautiful one hour earlier. He explained to him that the escape would be done with the help of local workers, who cooperated with the institution. My parents were given a week to think and make a decision. The patient showed up at the clinic on Wednesday, the Wednesday after which we fled. ”

What do you remember from the day of the escape?

“I knew we were leaving the house only two hours before the escape. That morning I went to school as usual, because they had to drive as usual since he was following us as Jews. I did not have time to say goodbye to any friend, my parents did not part with their acquaintances. The book my father asked me to go to bed. Why do you suddenly ask a 10-year-old boy to go to bed at noon? I did not ask anything, and I did as he asked. When I woke up, I was told. Ours, and we started driving, when I did not know where. It was afternoon, we did not want to arouse suspicion. We only took drinks and some food with us, in fact we left everything behind, we left with nothing. I remember that a short time before that I had received from my uncle from Panama a suitcase full of toys, which I did not have time to play with. Just before leaving the room, I arranged them so that they would wait for me when I returned to the room. See, it’s a waking and burning memory of a little boy, “his voice broke and choked.

Tell about the escape route.
“At a certain point we left our vehicle, and moved to another vehicle, where the smugglers were waiting for us. We started a journey of crossing vehicles, with the destination being the border with Turkey. We passed through villages, then it got dark. “And they drank until they reached the border, where we went down, said goodbye to the escorts and got new escorts, with whom we continued on foot towards Turkey. We walked all night, a very difficult walk.”

“My father was equipped in advance with anesthetic injections but my baby brother continued to cry even after the injection. The smugglers informed my father that if he continued to cry, he must be abandoned in the fields, because otherwise we would be caught, and they would be the first to be executed.”

How do you get along with a one-year-old baby and a 5-year-old child?

My 5-year-old brother knew he had to shut up, and kept quiet. The problem was with my baby brother, who did not understand what it was not to cry. To abandon him in the fields, for otherwise they would catch us, and they would be the first to be executed. To my delight, after another dose of anesthesia, he fell asleep. That baby is now a doctor. Lee: “See? That’s where we need to go.” “After a full day at a police station, we stayed in Turkey for another 40 days, until everything was arranged for immigration to Israel. During the whole period, we hid, because there were Syrians in the area, who were looking for my father.”

Leaving 10 years behind you: home, school, friends. Did you miss Still miss? Is there a connection with friends from the past, for example, on social networks?
“There is not a day that the subject does not pass through my mind, this experience is etched in my memory, and it can not be blurred. Sometimes I see some of my friends since Facebook, or Arab neighbors we have been in touch with. I look, but there is no direct connection, must be careful. “There were passages of indirect contact, through people who know us and know senior officials in Syria, and I heard that they miss my father. Even after 30 years, he is talked about as the best doctor he was at that time.”

Do you aspire to return there one day?
“Certainly. I’m interested to see what’s left there from the house I grew up in, from the neighborhood, from the Jewish institutions, from the whole childhood experience. Although we lived there in the shadow of fear, I hope to return to visit there one day.”

How does a 10-year-old boy feel when he lands in Israel?
“That he’s in a dream. Feels he’s finally got to his place.”

And this place was Holon, where the Daya family connected with another part of the family, who already lived in Israel. The boy Daya joined the religious education system, and after graduating from the Zeitlin religious high school in Tel Aviv, enlisted and served in the 8200 intelligence unit. Although he refuses to expand on the subject, he does not deny the fact that His father. After completing his military service and university studies, he worked as the head of the NLP group at NICE, then decided to leave and founded Aspectiva.

Why? What did he not provide in Nice?
“The idea for the perspective came up while I was still working at Nice. It’s the background and the technology, it’s my desire and hobby to gather and get information on everything. Working too hard to exhaust the piles of information on the net about different products, before making purchases I wanted to make. For all end consumers like me, get quality and concise information about each product, hence the analysis of consumers’ sentiment on every aspect of the product, as they express in the reviews they write. Voting is based on an automatic analysis of the opinion. ”

How can I be calm, that the criticism is not biased or bought?
“Basically, any wise purchase should start with a review of customer reviews of the product on sites. Today almost every site offers a scoring method on its products, as well as reviews. I agree that sometimes reviews can be biased or fake. Therefore, in my opinion, more weight should be given to what is said. “Negative reviews and make sure that negative aspects of the product are indeed problematic from the buyer’s point of view, because usually implanted or fake reviews will be positive. It is also important to read up-to-date reviews.”

Do you wake up the morning after the purchase, pinching yourself and believing in the definition that you are, in fact, Walmart’s first legal entity in the country?

“That’s about how I felt,” he laughs. “The negotiation period was an unbelievable period in terms of experience, a challenging period until the moment of signing. Throughout the period, I understood and knew that we had a good Israeli start-up in hand. So I acted wisely, as much as I could, between the two potential buyers, with whom we negotiated: “Amazon and Wollmart.”

It is to choose between good and good. What decided in favor of Walmart?
“The potential for broad implementation of the unique technology developed by Aspectiva to improve the online shopping experience is greater at Walmart than at Amazon, and also the centrality of Aspectiva as Walmart’s first innovation and development center in the country, while Amazon already had a development body in Israel, albeit in other areas.”

“By the way,” he adds, “we founded the company in 2013, and it started out in the JVP media incubator in Jerusalem. Until the acquisition, we raised $ 4 million, and also participated in the startup incubator The Bridge in which Walmart invests. At that time I did not even dare to think “And they will buy us. And it happened. Today Aspectiva is part of Walmart’s technology body in the US under my leadership, with our job being to develop advanced NLP and artificial intelligence solutions, and embed them on Walmart’s online site.”

A year after the purchase the corona broke out. “The corona did not hit us,” Daya says. “Carefully say, it even did us better. Remote work takes place anyway, and that too was a period of rejuvenation for sites, in the purchase of consumer goods and clothing. For example, many more people bought clothes for the upper parts of the body, because of the zoom.”

It seems that with the food, Walmart’s appetite has reached. Last May, the company also acquired the Israeli start-up Zekit (Zeekit), which developed a virtual measuring booth for clothing shopping sites. Does the perspective have a part in connecting and selling?
“The acquisition was led by the relevant product group at Walmart USA. Because Chameleon is an Israeli company, the purchase was actually made by us. Chameleon is currently defined as our subsidiary, although there is no business or technological connection between the two companies.”

A 44-year-old guy, who has seen a lot in his life and reached a professional peak, and you are also a rich man now, presumably. Are you resting on laurels or already deep inside the sequel?
“First of all, I see the here and now. First, there is a lot of work, and I have a heavy responsibility, being Walmert’s most senior employee in Israel. There is still a lot of work in e-commerce, purchases and more. “Also for the family. I have no doubt that without the support of my wife, Miriam, the start-up would not have been possible and the exit would not have come. Therefore, for example, about three weeks ago, we returned from a family vacation in Dubai.”

Dubai in particular? Did you return to an Arab country as an Arabic speaker?
“I was really excited, because this was the first time I was in an Arab country since we left Syria, and I did not know how I would feel and what would happen. I was also a little apprehensive. In the end, Dubai is not really an Arab country, nor did I speak almost Arabic. We enjoyed every moment. “One for his job and the normal pace of life. And by the way, my wife, to my delight, my exit allowed her to fulfill a professional dream, to become a marriage and family counselor.”

What are your insights from your story?
“As a religious person, of course faith has an important part in success, and I have seen it at different points in my life, personal and professional. At the same time, part of faith is the knowledge that ‘when the time comes – the time comes’. When the time comes, something has come out of the plan, or a dream comes true – the time comes. “

The Israeli official at Walmart who fled Syria at the age of 10: “Hope to return to visit there”

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