Two friends of mine told me, “Speak to Josh Abehsera—he has a creative mind, a real interesting story, and he is a driving force behind the Torah revolution here in Miami Beach.” They were right on all three accounts.
Josh (Yehoshua) Abehsera heads Wonderfield, a world-class branding and innovative marketing technology company. He is considered a top branding expert for high-end real estate projects across the US; he led the branding and marketing strategy for several well-known developers, including Kushner, WeWork, Extell and CIM.
From interning at age 15 to having his own company and losing it all, to restarting, being “forcibly hired” by Adam Neumann at WeWork, and then restarting again after WeWork’s downfall, Josh’s story is one of resilience, emunah and bitachon.
I had to continually steer the conversation back to the business side, as bitachon is seemingly Josh’s favorite topic. In fact, he has used this strong belief to positively influence others in his community. Josh is someone who will hopefully inspire you to keep on going.
– Nesanel
I was born in Los Angeles. I went to Yavneh for elementary school and Valley Torah for high school. My last name is an anglicized version of Abuchatzeira. My great-great-grandfather was the Abir Yaakov, Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira from Cairo.
“I grew up frum, but my parents are both baalei teshuvah. My father left Morocco for France when he was 13 years old. In France, he attended the University of Sorbonne, where he majored in English. After university, my father moved to the States. It was in LA that he met my mother, and he settled there.
“At one point, my mother was introduced to Rabbi Manis Friedman, who was mekarev her to Yiddishkeit. My father met the Lubavitcher Rebbe several times and was very influenced by him. My family was and still is very close to Chabad. My uncle was Reb Meir Abehsera, who was called “the Rebbe’s whistler” because the Rebbe would often ask him to whistle along to the singing at farbrengens. He was also known for his pioneering expertise in the field of macrobiotics.
“My father went into the field of advertising and marketing. He was part of a team that created advertising for large well-known brands such as Jet America, TWA and the Warehouse. I grew up in a home that was full of hachnasat orchim, and we had the zechut of having many tzaddikim in our home. Rav Kaduri used to stay by us, as did many other tzaddikim, including Rav Elazar Mordechai Koenig of Tzfat. My mother used to cook up a storm every Shabbat, and our house had more guests than some hotels. We were not wealthy, but we were rich. My parents had such a welcoming home that many gedolim wanted to stay with us.
“Music was always a part of my life. When I was 15 years old, I became a DJ. At first, I would be the DJ at house parties, bar mitzvahs or local weddings, but then I began to be hired for larger events. I even continued working as a DJ after I was married.
“I never went to college. When I was 19, I was hired by a company named Rogers and Cowan to work on the production for the Grammy Awards, which is a big awards show for non-Jewish music. Even though it is only one night a year, the planning for the event is a year-round affair and there are ongoing PR and marketing projects. I worked there for three years.
“I grew up in a home where marketing was often discussed, so the world of advertising and marketing always interested me. It wasn’t a far stretch when I opened my own ad agency. I also couldn’t continue to come home at 4 a.m., exhausted from a DJ job. I needed a new path. The Kaliver Rebbe once told me (without me even telling him what I did for work) that I should get out of the music industry and go into something creative that was art related.
“I started off doing fashion advertising, but then I left that world because I felt it was not the right industry for a frum person. I got into real estate advertising and branding. To me, the buildings are the ‘guf’ and the way they are brought to market through design and branding is the ‘neshamah’ that brings the projects to life.
“After extensive research, I would come up with the creative way to position the property that I was advertising. I met with the architects and interior designers and then created photorealistic renderings as well as all the collateral and materials that the brokers would need to push the property. We would take care of all aspects, from media placement to guerrilla marketing, which is on-the-ground creative deployment.
“One of the unique things we did as a real estate marketing company was to provide an interactive experience for potential buyers. I was always into interactive experiences, and I worked on developing technology that would enable potential clients to design and configure their own spaces online. I created this technology for a project called Echo Aventura, developed by Property Markets Group (PMG). They wanted buyers to be able to design their spaces, including the ability to choose their floors, countertops, wallpaper and furniture, all before moving in. I showed this technology to a number of people in the real estate industry, and they loved it. I realized I had developed something truly unique. I couldn’t have imagined yet how it would later transform my career.
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