Israel trains 2 San Franciscans as diaspora diplomats

The Bay Area has two new diplomats fresh from intensive training in Israel.

San Francisco residents Paul Volfovski and Julie Brandt were just ordinary citizens when Israel's Foreign Ministry called them up for service last month.

Stepping up to take an active role in fostering diaspora relations with Israel, the ministry for the first time put together a month-long educational program for a select group of 35 young Jewish leaders in the diaspora.

"We are now unofficial ambassadors of Israel," said Volfovski, 23, in a phone interview last week from Israel, where he is living temporarily.

It's not that Israel needed to convert the group to become hard-core Zionists -- most of the 35 already knew they loved Israel.

Instead, the group received an in-depth sense of what contemporary Israelis deal with on a day-to-day basis. So in addition to meeting politicians, the group attended plays, toured high-tech industries, and heard from poets and professors.

"The [American] perception of Israel is as an underdeveloped country that only focuses on the military,'' said Brandt, 30, who works in the San Francisco mayor's Office of Economic Development.

"But Israel has a wealth of culture. Israel can offer as much to the diaspora as the diaspora can to Israel. For a long time, it has been one way."

Daniel Shek, Israel's consul general in San Francisco, pushed for the program from the beginning.

"Israel should have a growing role in the struggle for the continuity and identity of Jews in the diaspora," Shek said.

At first, the ministry hesitated to start the project, unsure of the role it should take in reaching out to the diaspora. But Shek said the ministry was determined to get involved and a leadership program seemed a good place to start.

"Ultimately we'd like everyone to make aliyah. Short of that, it's in the interests of Israel to see the strength of the Jewish community grow abroad," Shek said.

Applicants were chosen based on Jewish involvement, an essay and interview. The Israeli government paid all expenses.

Volfovski, who emigrated from St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1991, volunteers for the Hebrew Free Loan Association in San Francisco. This was his first trip to Israel.

Brandt -- whose brother Elliot Brandt is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's regional director in San Francisco -- has been to Israel twice before. She is on the board of AIPAC. She also has served on the boards of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council and the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation's Young Adults Division.

Although Israel's Foreign Ministry is just getting its feet wet in starting creative diaspora relations programs, the positive response from Brandt and Volfovski seems to indicate the government is heading in the right direction.

"We got to the bottom of things. It was life," Volfovski said.

One of the prominent leaders the group encountered was Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel.

Volfovski wanted to ask about pluralism but said Lau dodged the questions. Still, the rabbi offered some surprising advice, Volfovski recalled.

"He talked about Shabbat and said you could do what you want. The most important thing, he said, is to marry Jewish people and have Jewish babies. I was happy to hear that."

The group also crossed paths with Ezer Weizman, Israel's president. Ever the passionate Zionist, Weizman told the group that the only purpose of a Jew is to move to Israel.

Brandt joked about Weizman's hard-line stance, saying that "if I want to be friends with him, I need to start packing now."

A slew of university professors and Israeli diplomats also gave an up-to-the-minute analysis of the peace process. Brandt came away with the perception that most agreed "peace was right around the corner."

But what kind of peace? "Egypt has a cold peace with Israel," Brandt said. "Is that what we want to model peace with Syria on? Is that what we consider a victory?"

The ministry isn't requiring anything in return from the group, but Brandt and Volfovski are already thinking of ways to apply what they've learned.

Volfovski likes to work with children and is pursuing an undergraduate degree in business at U.C. Santa Cruz. "If I can tie [those interests] all together into one that will be great. In the U.S., just 5 percent of Jewish kids visit Israel," he said.

Brandt is also interested in encouraging young people to step into the Jewish state. And she believes one of the best ways to connect to Israel from the diaspora is to learn Hebrew.

"It should be central that we encourage Jewish kids to connect to Israel. More and more, Jews are being raised with out a sense of where they come from."

Such enthusiasm for Israel, based on reality rather than romanticism, will bring progress in diaspora relations, Shek said.

"We looked for people who are potential multiplicators, who can share what they learned with the community. We hope the consulate and the community can use them as resources."