Sitting in Beit Halochem, the Tel Aviv headquarters of the Zahal (IDF) Disabled Veterans Organization (Irgun Nechei Zahal), Sam Zussman is a coiled spring of energy, impatient and anxious to communicate the critical message of the organization that he now represents.
Tall and rangy and with a youthful appearance, Zussman is the CEO of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and leads the overall business strategy for BSE Global, the parent company of the Nets, the WNBA’s New York Liberty, and their home arena, Barclays Center, as well as the Long Island Nets of the NBA G League.
More germane to this visit is the fact that Zussman is the chairman of the Board of Directors of the US-based Friends of Irgun Nechei Zahal. Zussman, who grew up in Tel Aviv, served in the IDF and studied law and economics at Tel Aviv University before moving to the US, receiving his MBA degree from Stanford University. In 2006, Zussman joined IMG, the sports and entertainment company, and has been affiliated with BSE Global since 2022.
On October 7, 2023, Zussman was in his Central Park South home in New York when he learned of the Hamas attacks on Israel. “When your heart is here in Israel, but you’re there,” he says, “you feel utterly helpless.” A week later, Zussman boarded a plane to Israel and spent two weeks traveling throughout the country, raising $6 million for displaced families, food stamps, and mental health programs, as well as what Zussman terms “one-off” situations of individuals whose needs had fallen between the cracks of existing aid organizations.
Upon returning to the US, Zussman told his associates that he would not request further assistance. “I said, this is a one-time thing. I’m never going to ask you for money again. My intention is not to start a foundation. My intention was to come to you during wartime for a very specific need.” He chuckles, saying, “I only sort of kept my promise, right?”
Zussman’s involvement in helping the victims of October 7 led indirectly to his assuming the role of chairman of the Board of Directors of the Friends of Irgun Nechei Zahal. In late 2024, Zussman learned that the leaders of the organization had decided to bring wounded IDF warriors to an NBA game in the US. Advocate Edan Kleiman, chairman of the organization, reached out to Zussman for assistance.
Zussman was eager to help and invited a group of 45 people from the organization, including 21 wounded IDF soldiers, to a Brooklyn Nets NBA game, as well as to a closed Nets practice session. He also arranged for the group to meet with Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations at the time, and invited a group of 40 members from the Jewish community for a dinner with the IDF warriors.
“I wanted to give them two experiences,” says Zussman. “One, to show them that there’s life outside their hospital room –to come out of Gaza, leave the hospital, and find yourself in Central Park, and to see people running and to hear music and to see life go on. The second piece was to give them a feeling that there is a Jewish community outside of Israel that cares about them. I think we achieved that.”
Zussman’s encounter with the wounded IDF soldiers opened his eyes to the valuable work that the organization does. “I absolutely fell in love with all the wounded warriors that came,” he shares. “I had a front row seat witnessing how the generation previously looked down at as the Tik-Tok generation demonstrated the greatest courage and became one of the greatest generations of heroes that this country has ever been blessed to have.
Nechai Zahal should raise a lot more money in the US than it currently does. We need to raise awareness for it and build the support for it, which at the time was not commensurate with the kind of work that it did and the needs that it is about to have.”
IRGUN NECHEI Zahal creates a supportive environment for disabled IDF veterans, enabling them to resume their normal lives as quickly as possible, and promotes the full reintegration of veterans into society through its sports and rehabilitation centers. By setting challenges and daily targets – both physical and mental –it aims to restore a better quality of life. Finally, the organization safeguards the legal rights of disabled IDF warriors and promotes their interests through legislation, economic, and social measures.
Zussman assumed the chairmanship of the Board of Directors of the Friends of Irgun Nechei Zahal in early 2025. Since his appointment, he has recruited new board members for the national board and plans to establish local boards for the organization in Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami. Zussman has set a goal of raising $100 million over the next several years.
There are other organizations in the US that support Israel’s wounded warriors, he notes, but Nechai Zahal is the largest. “If you have a 20% or more disability awarded to you by the Ministry of Defense, you are automatically eligible to be a member. We don’t discriminate. We don’t ask questions. We are the established, large institutional player, and we touch more wounded warriors than anyone else.”
Zussman says that increasing awareness of the organization is key in the United States. “While everybody in Israel knows who Nechai Zahal is and it is part of the fabric of society in Israel, it is not the case in the US.” Friends of Irgun Nechei Zahal will focus on building awareness one person at a time, says Zussman. “I believe that this is about human beings standing side by side with other human beings who have sacrificed for the rights, freedom, independence, safety, and well-being of others, and having made that sacrifice, are now going to face a lifelong battle with the consequences. The most appropriate way to do this is to connect them at eye level, through one-on-one conversations, or through small parlor meetings in people’s homes.”
Recently, Zussman went to visit a wounded IDF warrior who was raised in a Haredi family. The boy had left the Haredi lifestyle and joined the army. He suffered a traumatic brain injury in the war and was bedridden in the hospital. “His family no longer embraces him, and he never lived in secular society even as a healthy person,” says
Zussman. “He’s entirely on his own, ill-equipped, emotionally, socially, and professionally. Avi, the Nechai Zahal volunteer, sees him not as a number, but as a human being, and he connected him with a mentor who has literally taken him into his house. These people would be lost if it weren’t for Nechai Zahal and the people within it.”
Zussman shares that Friends of Irgun Nechei Zahal has already conducted a few small events, bringing two or three wounded IDF warriors to speak to small groups of twenty people. “When people like me, who are privileged in their day-to-day lives, hear from someone who, in very plain terms, tells a story of what happened to them, that is unfathomable to a normal human being not living in a war zone, it changes them. You can cut the silence with a knife, and when you create that connection, you capture their hearts and minds. My mission is to create these real moments of connection.”
Zussman says that he prefers to create long-term connections with donors who will provide for the wounded IDF veterans regularly. “I want them to donate every year for the rest of their lives. I want them to realize that they’re donating to somebody who was wounded at 20 and is going to live to 120 and that they need support for the next 100 years,” he says, with the passion evident in his voice. “When I meet wounded IDF warriors,” says Zussman, “I feel humbled, and it only reinforces my commitment.”
Having sprung into action shortly after October 7 to help Israel recover on his lightning fundraising journey, Zussman says that the positive response shown by the worldwide Jewish community to the crisis was significant. “The silver lining in this horrible situation,” says Zussman, “is that it has become clear to most Jews living in the Diaspora that the faith of the state of Israel and the faith of the Jewish people is intertwined. A positive example of that has been Israel being supported by a strong Jewish Diaspora, on many levels.”
Zussman concedes that while the increase in antisemitism in the United States can make fundraising for wounded IDF veterans somewhat difficult, he remains undaunted. “I am 100% convinced that the people on the ground will do anything humanly possible to support one another, and I am optimistic that our efforts in the US to raise awareness are going to be successful. I am confident that with awareness, support will come, because the need, the story, the human connection, and the mental connection are all unmistakable and unshakable.”
This article was written in cooperation with the Zahal (IDF) Disabled Veterans Organization (Irgun Nechei Zahal).