‘Influencer’ reflects on volunteer tour in Israel

When Emily Austin, a 22-year-old Israeli-American social-media influencer and sports broadcaster, viewed humanitarian work underway in the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer last month, lots of people heard about it.

Austin, who began modeling and working in broadcast news at 18, has a vast social-media following with more than 500,000 on TikTok and 1.2 million on Instagram. She aims to visit Israel at least annually and thinks it is “important to remind myself and everyone else of my Israeli roots,” she told JNS.

“Israel is always taking heat for a lot of false narratives that are out there,” she told JNS. “I am one of the many proofs that this is a thriving and democratic country.”

Austin hopes that her visits to Israel, which she discusses on her social-media handles, will encourage US athletes to see for themselves that Israel is neither a war zone nor an “apartheid” state, an accusation that has been increasingly pointed towards the country.

She doubled down on the need to correct the false narratives about Israel, telling JNS that “the only way we can do that is through connecting people on a personal level.” She added that sports are one of the best ways “to build these bridges organically.”

Her redcent trip included meetings with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his wife, Michal Herzog, at their Jerusalem home; visits to the Kotel and its tunnels; and a meeting with Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, chairman of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. And, of course, she spent a lot of time at the medical center, which sponsored her trip.

Herzog was “very genuine,” she reported, and she and he and his wife discussed medical innovations at the hospital as well as the importance of Israeli unity. The Israeli president thanked her for her social-media activism on behalf of the Jewish state, she told JNS.

At the Sheba Medical Center, Austin learned about advances it has made in the medical field in recent years, including a field hospital that reportedly was the first to set down in Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February 2022. 

During the trip, Austin also met with Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz and attended the medical center’s annual gala on June 5, where she met US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides and Israeli pop star Shiri Maimon.

At a campus of the Shalva Center, which works with people with disabilities and their families, Austin learned about a soccer and basketball camp, whose coaches include former Israeli-American professional basketball player and current coach Tamir Goodman and retired Israeli Olympic judoka Ori Sasson.

She also found time on the trip to visit with family, including her great-grandmother and cousins who live in Tel Aviv.

Born in Brooklyn to Israeli parents who immigrated to the United States, Austin got her big break when an MTV producer saw an Instagram-live show that she produced, called “Daily Vibes with Emily Austin.” The producer asked her to audition for the MTV show “Music Lives On.” She did and was part of the show for one year.

She has served as an unpaid media consultant to Israel’s permanent mission to the United Nations since September 2022 and was a judge of the 71st “Miss Universe” pageant earlier this year.