My minute with Nas Daily’s radical humanity

A few years ago I saw a short movie that changed me forever. It was of an Arab/Muslim born guy who grew up in Israel talking about Israelis vs Palestinians.

Like millions of others, I too follow Nas Daily, (well, almost daily) and find his one-minute clips to be thought-provoking, emotional, and entertaining. Some 1-minute clips focus on the most important topics in the world like religion, money, marriage, and human rights. Some are mundane, yet super relatable, like losing makeup bags, good food and animals. Some are about Nas himself: his background, philosophies, and his love life. But whether it’s global, mundane or personal… there is always something special to take from his vlogs.

I have watched hundreds of these videos over the years and many times thought: I want to meet this guy! He does not have a home and travels the world with barely a backpack, but he is friends with the entire universe. He shines with a radiant light out of my computer or phone when I watch him because he gives the world and its billions of humans a chance to prove itself awesome. He combs the Earth looking for interesting people, topics, cities and phenomenons and then he takes these HUGE topics and shrinks them into an attractive, down to earth, and highly comprehensive bite-size 1-minute stories.

I feel I have traveled the world with Nas and I know why he doesn’t smoke or eat pork. I know how he feels about drinking, human trafficking, money, his lack of a flag and his outlook on extremes. I know he has more energy than anyone I have ever met … Yet I never had met him.

Until this week.

I am privileged and honored to work for United Hatzalah of Israel and this week, Nas and his team came to feature our mission on Nas Daily. After colleagues of mine told Nas about United Hatzalah at a meet and greet in Tel Aviv last week, he wanted to know more. Boom, Bam! And just like that, he arrived at our headquarters this past Monday to film.

After the initial shock of seeing him in real life and not on my phone, Eli Beer (Founder and President) and our media team at United Hatzalah gave Nas (Nuseir Yassin), his girlfriend Alyne Tamir and his co-film director (also a gem!) Agon Hare a tour and over pitta and quality hummus, we broke bread together and talked.

Nas, the pure genius that he is, absorbed an insane amount of information and then took off to the rooftop to write a script. After one hour, we discussed the ideas he wrote down and then for the next few hours we ran around filming.

So first of all, the guy is brilliant. But he also has non stop energy. That crazy love for life spirit you see on screen— it’s real! He jumped around and executed his vision with such perfect rhythm. He and Agon used their hand-held cameras and knew exactly what they wanted to do.

After running around for hours, I stopped and took in the reality of what was happening. The guy that I have been watching for years was featuring the organization that I hold close to my heart not only because it’s about saving lives, but also because it’s about uniting them. Early in Nas’s career, way back when I first found him, his topics were about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. And here we were, 996 videos later, discussing the unity between Jews and Arabs.

The video was done in less than a day. Unheard of! The quality and cinematography are so incredible and I have no idea how they produced the movie so quickly with such efficiency.

Within 12 hours, it hit 5 million views and we’re still climbing. The thousands of comments flooding in is tremendous and Nas gave us the biggest social media presence we’ve ever had.

But for one minute, pun intended, strip away the glamour and fun. And don’t even focus on the mission of United Hatzalah… just for a moment. Simply let me give you a chance to thank Nas for helping mankind. What he has been doing for 941 days is exhausting but he has been doing this for you and me. To open our eyes, to give us hope, to think for ourselves, to not be so quick to judge, to stop for a minute each day and experience other people and places vicariously through his storytelling, hand movement and passion. May he get paid back in a downpour of abundance and blessings for this video alone… not to mention all the other videos he’s made. He has installed hope and love into humanity. And the reason he could do this is because he’s so human himself. Beyond the publicity and fame, he is an incredibly magnificent person and that really was the privilege… to meet an incredible human being who makes a difference in millions of peoples lives every day for just one minute.

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