Vardi is not worried. Like so many secular Israelis, he's more concerned about the growing power of the Orthodox parties than about whether the Internet will make Israel like everyplace else. He dismisses English and other such influences as a useful veneer beneath which Israel will always remain Israel. But at R U Sure, where his middle son, Oded, labors with other young people to conquer online comparison-shopping, the question of how the Internet will affect Israel prompts a serious discussion. Oded notes that the computer-programming languages used in Israel are in English, and Ori Hadar says the same is true of technical books. Eli Ventura, a founder of R U Sure, predicts that his 5-year-old son will speak a lot more English than he and have access to 1,000 channels of television, all of them from elsewhere. His son's commitment to the Jewish state, he says, won't equal his own.

"It's inevitable," says Hadar, nodding in agreement.

"Maybe," says Erlich, who is philosophical about this. "The religious people will not change. The others have already changed."

Away from R U Sure, Neil Cohen, an Oxford-educated Englishman who is Medved's Israel Seed partner, insists "Israel is becoming a less Jewish state regardless of these forces." Like Medved, Cohen says he came to Israel "to fulfill the Zionist dream." And while Medved calls Vardi "a real patriot," Cohen can't help but see the Vardi social phenomenon as evidence of how Israel is changing.

"Why is Yossi Vardi a hero?" he asks. We are on a street corner in Jerusalem's fashionable German Colony, and Cohen is about to rush off so he can resume the frantic round of phone calls, e-mail and meetings in which venture capitalists engage to make money on the Internet. Before he goes, he answers his own question. Vardi is a hero to Israelis, Cohen says, "because he made 80 million bucks."