In his 23 years as executive director of the America-Israel Friendship League’s North Pacific region, George Karonsky tried to emphasize one thing: “the importance of interethnic, interreligious activity for youth.”
It’s a subject on which Karonsky, who recently retired from his post at AIFL, is passionate.
“We’ve sent African-American, Asian and Latino students over to Israel, and the positive effects on them are unbelievable,” he said recently. “I think the elders could learn something from this.”
Fittingly, at a recent brunch to honor Karonsky’s service to the agency, a high school student who’d just returned from an AIFL visit talked about how the trip to Israel dispelled her previous views.
“I imagined constant warfare, and this is just not the case,” said Maria Borja, a senior at Balboa High School in San Francisco. Borja, who is Filipina, went on to say that, “the people [there] are warm…I know I have made lifelong friends.”
As Borja spoke of her visit to Yad Vashem, said Karonsky, “she was in tears, and they were realistic tears about what happened. She’ll never forget her experience there.”
That kind of experience is common, he said, among students who visit the Jewish state.
“Usually, they’ve only heard about Israel through newspaper reports about shootings and problems. When they see it first-hand…they feel that the media coverage is very shallow.”
Karonsky, 75, who was honored at the brunch with a diploma from Mayor Willie Brown, has dedicated his career to youth education.
He also served the San Francisco Unified School District for 38 years, as a teacher, principal, consultant and coordinator.
While working for the school district, he was asked to consult for the AIFL, then a fledgling organization. Within a few years, the AIFL decided to open a regional office in San Francisco and Karonsky became its executive director.
“This program would not be the success it is without his guidance and leadership,” said Bernard Reiner, who founded the regional office.
In addition to its youth ambassador program, the AIFL sponsors visits to Israel by politicians and prominent community leaders. Its board is “fully interethnic,” said Karonsky, and over the years such luminaries as President Gerald Ford and the late Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill have been involved in the organization’s work.
“The highlight of my career has been working with these people, as well as the students,” said Karonsky. “For an educator, this is something you dream about.”
In 1989, Karonsky was joined at AIFL by his wife, Marie, who’d just retired from an administrative job at UCSF Medical Center. She became the organization’s secretary and bookkeeper. More than administrators, however, the Karonskys were constantly in contact with both Israeli and American students in the program.
Over the years their San Francisco home became the welcoming stage and a hospitality house for Israeli exchange students arriving in the Bay Area, who would gather there with their local exchange partners.
“They’d come here for breakfast; they knew they were welcome here any time,” said Karonsky. Marie Karonsky added that “when you saw the kids at events together, you never knew who were the Israelis and who were the Americans. They always hit it off as kids beautifully, and that made the whole thing worthwhile.”
Founded in 1971, the America-Israel Friendship League has sent 1,200 American youth ambassadors to Israel and has received 1,900 Israeli students in the United States. Around 200 students from the Bay Area have participated in the program.
Although he is retiring, Karonsky intends to stay involved in youth issues. He plans to spend time working with disabled students in residential homes and consulting for the local school district.
“When you see youngsters’ lives changing for the better, it’s wonderful,” he said.
“I’m a firm believer in youth and the involvement of students.”