Daniel Lubetzky

VIDEO-2019-06-24-08-54-09

Two years ago, we announced the launch of Feed the Truth, an independent organization with a mission to improve public health by making truth, transparency and integrity the foremost values in today’s food system. To uphold the organization’s autonomy, I have not been involved in Feed the Truth’s strategic planning since pledging the initial funds. However, I’m pleased to see that they are making progress by convening an esteemed board of directors and kicking off the process to recruit an Executive Director. Special interests continue to plague society by pursuing profit at the expense of public health – directly through lobbying and indirectly through campaigns that mislead consumers. My hope is that Feed the Truth will play a role in ensuring that science and facts counteract their undue influence. Wishing best of luck to the board on their endeavors!

I appreciate the notes of concern from friends and team members who were hurt by a recent article written by Forbes about me and KIND.  Our record stands on its own.  But this incident does provide me an opportunity to reflect on – and reaffirm – what drives me.  Throughout my life, my purpose has been to make this a better world, with a particular emphasis on building bridges among people so that what happened to my Dad will not happen again to others.  Anyone who knows me would be able to confirm this.

I don’t like to discuss my personal philanthropy – much of it is anonymous, particularly when it comes to helping vulnerable individuals or groups.  While the latter half of the Forbes article reports on my journey accurately, the first half is mean spirited, cynical and filled with demonstrably false statements and thus I feel compelled to correct the record:

• KIND stands out as a socially responsible company in every regard:

• To Our Consumers, we provide products that all lead with nutritionally rich ingredients recommended for daily consumption – indeed, we are the only company at our scale that can say that 100% of all the snacks in our portfolio meet this KIND Promise;

• As a result, we have support from thousands of health and wellness experts who proudly recommend KIND, including the more than 5,000 Registered Dieticians in our Nutrition Collective;
• We know millions of people choose KIND every day to help them lead healthy lifestyles – many of whom often reach out to share touching testimonials about why they count on KIND.
• Our leading KIND bar has only 5 gr of total sugar, which is about 2X-7X less than the sugar in every one of our leading competitors’ products.

• To Our Communities, we recognize your partnership in helping us elevate kindness and foster empathy every day:

• In partnership with our community, KIND has inspired and celebrated over 11 million acts of kindness, from building mobile showers for the homeless, to providing care kits to foster children, or flying families to visit their wounded veterans;
• Between KIND and The KIND Foundation we have donated tens of millions of dollars to charitable causes, averaging about 1% of our net revenues and 5% of our profits each year;
• Most recently, we made our biggest commitment yet with a $20M investment in Empatico through The KIND Foundation to connect kids across the world to help them recognize each other’s shared humanity and develop empathy and kindness.

• To Our Team, we know your true spirit and commitment to each other and our communities:

• We see it in how you treat one another at work every day, as well as through the thousands of volunteer hours we log together every year, whether serving meals at a soup kitchen, packing holiday gifts for kids, or counseling disadvantaged groups to get back into the work force;

• In addition to KIND, I have founded the following business and philanthropic platforms:

• PeaceWorks Foundation’s OneVoice Movement, which for 16 years now has worked to amplify the voice of moderation and bridge relations between Arabs and Israelis;

• Using Business to Achieve Social Impact: I created PeaceWorks Foods 25 years ago to deploy market forces in a way that helps neighbors in conflict regions shatter stereotypes and develop vested interests in preserving relations; most recently, we also launched PeaceCrops in Jordan, a pilot project employing Jordanian Bedouins and Syrian Refugees and relying on Israeli agricultural drip technology to make the desert bloom;

• Feed the Truth: I also seeded Feed the Truth with a $25mm commitment over 10 years to protect the public from undue influence by special interest in the food and nutrition arena;

I recognize this is just the beginning. Our most recent strategic partnership with MARS will enable us to provide healthful snacking solutions to tens of millions more people across the globe.  It will also provide me, through the recently created Lubetzky Family Foundation, a lot more tools to accelerate and deepen the commitments I have to overcome hatred with empathy, to replace racism with respect, to fight cynicism with determination and action.  As our world faces rising totalitarianism, threats against democracy, and a dark cloud of division and misunderstanding, I will never give up my quest to make the world a little kinder.

Aristotle once wrote, “there is only one way to avoid criticism. Do nothing. Say nothing. And be nothing.”

I choose the other path.

MLK’s words continue to resonate in new ways year after year. This MLKDay, I’m sharing a quote that provides a much needed reminder of our shared humanity, and thus, our shared fate.

Best Halloween Costume goes to the team at Backman Elementary of Salt Lake City School District. They dressed up as KIND Snacks to encourage kindness in their community. I love it! And a big shoutout to Keith McKeown for his craftsmanship.

Today was a sad day. We gathered in Mexico to mourn the passing of my uncle, Tio Muni, my dad’s younger cousin. Along with the rest of my family in Mexico, Tio Muni (who looked like Albert Einstein and is hugging my dad in the picture below) welcomed my dad after the war. My dad was 17 and Muni was 9, yet he loved playing with his cousins as if he too were a little kid, after he was robbed of a childhood because of the Holocaust. I remember Tio Muni would share how my dad would organize games for his cousins, and how it was clear that my dad was having as much fun as they were. It was in Mexico that my dad finally had a “childhood.” My dad would also teach them about classical music as he developed a love for learning and enjoying life, and would give them each a few cents if they could divine the composer of a particular song. Now Tio Muni joins my dad in heaven, and I can only imagine them hugging, singing and whistling a tune together as they divine each other’s choices. Our world has lost two teddy bears. May our heaven rejoice with their souls and sweetness.

The New York Times
Opinion Page, By Yossi Klein Halevi, senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute

Mr. Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and the author of “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.”

In 2002, when much of the international community was severely criticizing Israel for its tough military response to the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings known as the Second Intifada, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, asked with rhetorical exasperation, “Can Israel be right and the whole world wrong?”

Most Israelis would have surely answered: Of course.

After all, only two years earlier, Israel had offered to withdraw from virtually the entire West Bank and Gaza. In return, it received the worst wave of terrorism in its history. That Israeli narrative of why the peace process failed transformed Israel’s politics for a generation, leading to the near-total collapse of the left as a viable political force. Meanwhile, much of the world ignored Israel’s spurned overture and continued to fault the Jewish state for the continuing occupation it had sought to end. [Read more →]

The Jerusalem Post
BY YONAH JEREMY BOB MARCH 27, 2018

Netanyahu did not immediately respond, but a senior member of his governing coalition brushed off the censure. The six former living Mossad chiefs collectively accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of placing his need for power and money above the public interest, thereby placing the country in a critically ill state. Speaking to Yediot Aharonot on Tuesday, the six former spymasters battered Netanyahu for failed leadership and leading to a breakdown in values.

Shabtai Shavit, Mossad chief from 1989 to 1996, said: “I feel really badly about what is happening with the country today. The damage is so deep and so comprehensive. There are no redlines, no taboos and add to that the split within the nation.”

Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, who headed the spy unit from 2011 to 2016, echoed those sentiments, saying: “The problem is one of values and splits… We need leadership which can guide us through crisis to the right vision. Unfortunately, that is not what there is today.” [Read more →]

I just saw The Darkest Hour on a plane ride home and I highly recommend it. How close our civilization was back in 1940-41 to kneel in surrender to the Nazi thug Hitler. But Winston Churchill stood strong and rallied the proud British people never to give in to tyranny, even against the greatest of odds.

“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.”

- Winston Churchill

It’s rare to see these well-documented facts so plainly stated on mainstream TV.
Worth your 3 minutes: