by joe eskenazi
staff writer
First off, Adi Farjon likes it here. The Bay Area is a fun place to live. She gets it.
But if you ever wanted to pack up and move half a world away — she’s the woman to talk to.
Farjon, who works out of the Israel Center of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation on Steuart Street, is the Bay Area’s first aliyah shlichach (emissary) in several years. Around 85 locals have made the move to Israel in each of the past two years, but the Jewish Agency for Israel is betting that the presence of a full-time shlichach will augment that total in ’08.
That’s not to say Farjon will be knocking on doors and selling the merits of a life in the Jewish state as if Israel were a set of encyclopedias or a magazine subscription. Her goal is simply to let people know she’s around and ready to answer their questions.
“I never go to a family and say, ‘So, what do you think about making aliyah?’ They are coming to me,” said the 29-year-old, who grew up in Rehovot, just south of Tel Aviv.
“And people are calling. There is a lot of interest in the area and it’s much easier when I sit here and tell people all the options they have in Israel.”
Farjon’s presence for the last three months of 2007 won’t make much of a dent in the final tally of Bay Area residents who make aliyah this year. But a closer examination of the numbers is more revealing: Farjon inherited a filing cabinet’s worth of “slipping files” — cases that had been allowed to stagnate. While the day-to-day staff didn’t have the time to follow up, a full-time devotee to aliyah like Farjon did. A handful of those individuals will be among the 15 locals heading to Israel at the end of the month.
Those are the kinds of things Farjon hopes will show up in her 2008 ledger sheet. Currently, she has 30 open files.
Much of her work, however, involves not pawing through office paperwork but getting out and pressing the flesh. She’s often talking with students on college campuses — ranging from the University of Washington to U.C. Santa Cruz and many schools in-between.
She’ll also be reaching out to the frequently insular community of Silicon Valley Israelis.
“A lot of them are young, 18 years old, and want to come back and serve in the army. And for them, it’s very easy. They know the language; they have family in Israel; and their studies are free,” she said.
“So a lot of young Israelis decide to come back and study in Hebrew. And in many cases, their parents come back after them.”
But even with the children of Israelis, Farjon employs the soft sell.
“I don’t want people to come to Israel and think they’re going to the land of milk and honey. I want them to know the real Israel,” she said.
“I explain that it will not be easy. But the Jewish Agency will do everything to help them.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California