Both Quit Tech Jobs? Shlomo Ashkanazy & Ami Yunger on Leaving Stable Careers to Serve the Jewish People

What happens when you have a good job, mentors you trust, and a clear path forward — and you walk away anyway?

Shlomo Ashkanazy (Co-Director, WashU JLIC) and Ami Yunger (COO, Mizrachi Canada) both built careers in the Israeli tech world before pressing pause to go on shlichut in North America. Neither choice was obvious. Neither was painless. And neither of them regrets it — mostly.

In this conversation, they unpack the real calculus behind leaving stability for something harder to define. From their shared roots at Yeshivat HaKotel and OurCrowd, to navigating anti-Semitism on a college campus and in Toronto's streets, to Shlomo's gut-wrenching decision on Simchat Torah 2023 about whether to board a plane back to Israel — this episode doesn't stay on the surface.

What we talk about:

• Why both of them credit OurCrowd — and its mission-driven culture — as the bridge between tech and shlichut
• The nonlinear career path: real talk about professional anxiety, histadlus, and bitachon
• Ami on being COO of a Jewish nonprofit and why "COO" isn't just a fancy title for a shaliach
• Shlomo on starting WashU JLIC from scratch — and what happened when 50 students showed up to his empty house on October 9th, 2023
• The anti-Semitism reality in Canada: bullets through shul windows, hiding event locations until 10 minutes before showtime, and how you maintain Zionist pride when it's being weaponized against you

• Shlomo's still-unresolved guilt about not getting on a plane after October 7th
• The 40-year test: how do you make a decision when the downside isn't catastrophic, but the stakes feel enormous?

Guests:Shlomo Ashkanazy is Co-Director of JLIC at Washington University in St. Louis, which he and his wife founded as the inaugural couple. Ami Yunger is COO of Mizrachi Canada, where he supports the organization's growth across programming, operations, and community.