good morning. and welcome to mosaic. i'm rabbi eric white. we're excited to have with us the joe general to join us for the entire program. welcome, andy. >> thank you very much. >> what is a conlate general. >> he's a representative his nation, representing that nation if a certain geographic area. and my area is the pacific northwest. and what is the difference for folks that are used for an ambassador of a country or a consulate? >> first representative of the country will be an ambassador. and a country that is it

usually large like the united states that is not enough. so they send more of us. so the other heads of mission will be consule generals. >> and the other ac bass door is stationed where in. >> washington d.c., head of the embassy there. >> how many are there in the united states? >> we have nine consulates and nine jobs. >> so they represent different geographic areas of the country. >> reporter: we do not report to the ambassador. >> what is the headquarters, the foreign ministry? >> yes, and jerusalem. >> and so you report to the same governmental department as the ambassador does. >> we report to the same department and we coordinate our work and we meet from time to time either in israel or in the united states. but he is not giving us orders.

>> and so how does one become a con. ule consule general. >> you go to school for it and if you work your way up and you can become one in san francisco, i guess. >> and you're part of the diplomatic core? >> yes, i am. >> how did you come to this? >> it started and i passed the test for the cadet course and the diplomatic community. and thought, let's take that and see who passes. fortunately or unfortunately, i passed the tests and i became curious about the career and i started it and 15 years later, here i am. >> so 15 years ago, were you out of college and looking for

a career. >> people are watching this program. i was a dentist. not a typical career path for a diplomat. but one other thing happened beyond that dare and silly game between friends, when i had to make a decision, do i want to take the career or continue with my previous one?, another thing that was on my mind was the fact that the prime minister at that time was assassinated. it was heartbreaking. and that influenced me a lot. and i thought maybe i should take a public service career do maybe good for more people at the same time instead of one person at a time like you can do for a dentist.

>> in the pacific northwest, they are stimulated by people's personal stories when it comes to issues of doing good in the world and being part of public service and doing something that takes you beyond who you are just as one individual person. i'm wondering what more was it like being i den sift and seeing people individually and then a leap into the greater society if i can use that terminology. >> i was working in private practice and i was teaching at the university. so i had seen that i enjoyed more the interaction with the students with the faculty and the research part. i enjoyed it more than just the

daily private practice where you see a patient. and that made me think. what may be to my character and something that is more of a team work and more with large groups and more with the outside world than more of the inside world of a dentist that is in his clinic, maybe that could be more suitable to me. but i think there was some feeling inside that since all my loved ones lived in israel and we want to make israel the best place we can, maybe i need to contribute my effort to that. and that seemed like an interesting way to do it i did not choose when i made the change, did not choose a career for the next four years. i decided i'm going to give is a chance. and if it doesn't work for me, i can always be a dentist. and yes, 15 years later, i'm still somehow thinking, if it

doesn't work for me, maybe i can go back to being a dentist, but not really. i'm there. >> it's wonderful. we'll take a quick break and come back in a moment on mosaic. police join us back here on mosaic.

welcome back. and i'm honored to be your host this morning. we're in the middle of a wonderful conversation. for some folks that don't know some of the basics of israel as a country, how big is it and what is the population and the economy? >> we're a free market economy and similar to the united states. we're a democratic country like

the united states. we are very small, not like the united states. we are the size of new jersey, perhaps, very small and we have about 8 million people living in israel. so thing that we're very small but we sometimes make a difference in the world. >> and what is the economics or business thrust of the country, a diversified, agriculture or what? >> it started our independence and our 65th independence. with the years, with the fact that we don't have any natural resources and we did not from any energy, gold, uranium, nothing, so all we had is up

here. so agriculture became more and more sophisticated and it turned to be more of business. and from there, the leak to high tech to more sophisticated technologies was very short. so today i would say most of our economy is based on technology, medical device, clean tech and maybe 2% is agriculture still. >> and when you describe the population of israel, i think a lot of people don't know that the real racial cultural religious and in some cases class diversity exists in the country. >> that is a lecture by itself, but i will try to summarize it. in israel, it is a center for

three imagine religions, islam, judaism and christian at this time. and there are many jews, muslims and christians in israel. when it comes to the jewish population it's also very diversified. israel has jews of that lived there for 2,000 years and never left but also have a lot of immigrants. my wife's family, they are there from the 1880s. so my wife was an eighth generation and those are the first generation like myself. my family, my own family, they i am grated to israel when i was -- i am went to israel when i was three years old. we comes from countries if around the world, from europe and from the east and north africa and from the middle

east, of course. there are so many lanes spoken from africa. so there are people of color in israel, different colors and languages, different flavors. and i think that we're all united with one thing, our belief that is israel our home. >> israel has a government, i think of it as a way that great britain functions. it's a system so people vote for a party, not necessarily and individual but people know who is on a party list. so the party that gets the most votes gets to run the government and they become the prime minister, the number one on the list? >> that is usually the case. we have a parliament system

similar to the british model and they vote for a party and idea. and sometimes that that appear will become the prime minister if he's able to form a coalition. in order to form a coalition or in order to is a government in place, since we have 120 seats, he needs 61, a majority of 61. usually the parties don't get over 60. they get less. so they cannot form a government by himself. so he has to partner with other parties in order to get that majority. so the reality is that usually after elections we do manage to form coalition and have a government. but at the same time we're impatient democracy. we usually don't give our leaders the four year that they're entitled and we go to election before that according

to the situation. >> thank you very much. we'll be back in a moment here on mosaic.

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distinct between those quick image media stimulation and and what is the reality behind it? >> i think in order to answer that, i will say that if you have to describe san francisco to israelis, what would it be? what is the description? it's the same way. we all try to think in kind of a formats, thing thats that we're quick to grasp. and israel is always been seen at every conflict. it doesn't matter who is right or wrong. that's one very narrow dimension of the israel. you could be on this side of the spectrum or this side and there's a feeling that there's

a diversity when it comes to the opinion of israel. but that opinion is on a narrow access what makes us happy and sad? i would say that israel, first of all, is an unexpected place. 99 out of a hundred people that go to visit israel come back and say well. i didn't expect this or that. when you go to israel, expect to see the unexpectd when it comes to religion and culture and sports and nature, environment, architecture, i diversity of the people. a lot of people, they don't expect israelis to look like they do physically because of the diversity. you find jews that work in high tech companies and you find secular jews that define themselves as secular but they

study torah. it makes it and amazing place. and one of the fascinating things about the diversity is that the diversity is not just a way of building awareness. diversity functions in israel from my experience from the viewpoint of inclusion so that everybody is included in the society and even though israel has made and economic transition what people thought of a socialist to more of a free market capitalist economy that there's and current current in his takes everybody's diversity matters and you're included in the greater societial interaction. and what are some of the elements that makes diversity in israel and inclusive experience? >> i would say inclusion includes so many walks of life and so many groups that exist

in israel. if it is issues of gender and issues of belief and the community. for years an israeli army was okay to -- you can be a member of any preference, personal preference. so everything is possible in israel in a way. when it comes to minorities, ethnic minorities, no mads that live in the south part, they can serve in our military. and some of them have served here in the bay area as diplomats. if i look at the ministry of foreign affairs, we have jews, air jews, people of different

orientations. it's makes it more fun. and we want to keep it that way. >> through the world, issues around the military function is a vast conversation, but in israel, the military is mandatory. does that end up being one of the funnel into a broader israeli equality among people? is that one of the functions? >> i would say for years israel was designed in a similar term to the united states that israel is a melting pot. i think with the years, maybe matured a little bit and now we look at ourselves more as a

salad bowl. together we equate this if it is the military, since it's mandatory, when i was 18, i met a lot of people, different people than where i grew up. and we wear the same uniform. but under the uniform, we're different people and this makes us so special. >> and i think our military is a volunteer military in this country -- is a volunteer military. do you see that if your country? >> we may have it some day. but right now it creates a lot of equality and friendship and it also helps our economy.

some of those friendships that tend spirit that is created there, the networking that comes out of it is very supportive of that. >> thank you very much. we'll come back in a moment and continue our conversation. join us back here on mosaic in a moment.

for nor information about the israel conflict in the pacific northwest, you can good to israeliconsulate.org or give them a call. welcome back to mosaic. we're in the middle of a great conversation. so what are some of the local program that's the general gets involved with in the bay area?

>>i say that what concerns me most is how can we give back to americans that live here. we're -- our independence day is approaching. one of the things that we're planning to do is bring an artist or musician, a special one who can play about a hundred different tools and we're going to bring it into some of the hospitals to children's hospitals and children's wards to a library in china town to other communities here. we just want to do a series of events instead of doing one big reception like traditionally consult lates are expected to do. we do a lot of programming when it comes to business networking and cultural events and networking events with different communities, interfaith. so we're involved with a lot of things. >> and we have in the jewish

community coming up, even as a jewish community event at large, the general is involved in that as well? >> yes. this is something that will be the first time. and i look forward to that i hear it's a wonderful event, thousands of people come. and there is a lot of israeli flavor to that event. if it is a cultural show or party the night before, booths in the gardens, a lot of things happening there. so i'm looking forward to being there. so as we finish our conversation together, relationships between countries around the world, whatever the framework or what the countries are layered and i think in the diplomatic core on the ground and there are different ways in which relationships between countries is articulated in relationships in policy, in

maybe even local events and so i'm wondering what your read is on relationships between israel and the u.s. israel is the homeland of the jewish people so i think that is the foundations of it. and the american -- we have moved to outer layers. the fact that we are strong

stage quick strategic ally of the united states. where else can he go now in the middle east? >> that is an amazing place to go. we have to put a comma in the conversation to say good-bye and say thank you very much for being here with us on mosaic.

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welcome back to bay sunday. great to have you with us. and we begin with our weekly pitch. if you've got a show idea, we would like to hear from you. hopefully we can hook up. our first guest is a woman raised in the bay area, you may have heard her singing a little backup with josh grow bin. welcome to nona brown. >> thank you very much. >> i went to high school with your sister sandy. so great to have you