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Friday September 5, 2008

New consul general in search of the ‘next great Jewish idea’

by dan pine
staff writer

Akiva Tor left his native Ohio to make aliyah in 1985. Now, after 20 years as an Israeli foreign ministry official, he’s back in the United States.

Or is he?

“I don’t feel I’m back,” says Israel’s new S.F.-based consul general for the Pacific Northwest region. “I’m here as an Israeli for a finite period of time, though I do feel very acculturated.”

Acculturated enough to berate the S.F. Giants for stranding three base runners in the third (with nobody out) in the team’s loss on Jewish Heritage Night Aug. 25.

Tor takes up the post left by David Akov. Like his predecessor, Tor moved here with his family to represent Israel in the Bay Area for the next four years.

Of course he will oversee normal consular duties, from issuing visas to promoting Israeli business and cultural interests. He hopes to work closely with local federations, schools and synagogues, as well as serve the Israeli expatriate community, which has, as he puts it, “one foot in Israel, one in the Bay Area.”

Beyond that, Tor wants to get the lay of the land before committing to a specific list of goals. But he says emphatically, “When you come to a job like this, if you don’t want to make a difference, you shouldn’t do this.”

He’s also looking for the “next great Jewish idea.” He doesn’t know what it will be, but he thinks it just might originate in the Bay Area.

“Birthright was an ingenious idea,” he says, referring to the popular program that sends Jewish young adults on a free first-time trip to Israel. “So what’s the next Birthright? It would be natural to come from the Jewish community in the Bay Area.”

No one had to train him to talk up Israel. The kippah-wearing Tor is mitzvah-observant. He’s been passionate about the Jewish state ever since spending his freshman year of high school living on his own in a yeshiva outside Netanya.

“My parents were very Zionistic,” he says. “I felt very connected to Israel and Israelis, and I promised myself I’d come back.”

After graduating from Columbia University with a degree in philosophy, Tor moved to Israel permanently, spending two years as a paratrooper with the Israel Defense Forces before joining the foreign ministry.

He’s had his share of exotic postings, from Holland to Taiwan, where he arranged the island nation’s first-ever klezmer concert. Tor spent a year at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government as a Wexner fellow. He also served as world Jewish affairs adviser to Israel’s president and as deputy director for Palestinian affairs, working on the peace process during the period he describes as “late Oslo.”

“It was a very auspicious moment,” he says of that time early in the present decade. “My job was to develop a structure of compensation to resolve the Palestinian refugee issue and the claims of Jews from Arab lands.”

He teamed up with Palestinian negotiators back then, but all those connections — and all their joint work — came to naught. Nevertheless, Tor hasn’t given up hope of peace someday between Israel and its neighbors.

Already settled in the East Bay (where he will attend Orthodox synagogue), Tor has enrolled his three children in local Jewish day schools. His wife, Naomi, ran nonprofit agencies in Israel, but for now she will refrain from serving in an official capacity.

Meanwhile, Tor looks forward to getting to know the Bay Area, its Jewish community and the broader community as well.

But his central aim is to spread the good word about Israel, even in a region that has produced its share of detractors.

“Israel’s case is persuasive,” Tor says. “If people would listen to our story, they would change their minds. This is not a difficult time to be an Israeli diplomat.”

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