By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Life will get a bit simpler for the 7,000-plus Israelis who live in the greater Seattle area when the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest takes up temporary offices at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle from Nov. 2 through 4 to provide consular services.
Consulate staff members will be in Seattle for the entire week, including Akiva Tor, consul general for the Pacific Northwest region. They will hold community briefings on Israeli issues and politics, meet with business leaders, and host Israeli cultural events.
Although the consulate’s Pacific Northwest region includes Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, this trip to Seattle will be the first time an Israeli consulate in the U.S. has relocated to another region.
“After the Bay Area, Seattle is really our most important region,” Tor told JTNews. “Seattle is a wonderful Jewish community and we have a lot of economic work up in that area. We’re trying to deepen our presence and connection.”
Appointments for many of the most requested services such as notarization, the issuing or extending of travel documents, the registration of a child born abroad to Israeli citizens, and aliyah visas, are filling up fast.
Already they are nearly full, according to Deputy Consul General Gideon Lustig.
“We’re only going to be there for three days and we’re already getting calls for more than we can handle,” said Lustig. “It’s an upgrade in our service. We’re getting called about everything.”
Much of the work has to do with notarization and, for new parents, ensuring their newborns have passports and citizenship registration.
“These are the main things that need to be done in person and cannot be done by mail,” Lustig said.
The consulate expects that some of the 2,000 Israelis who live in Portland will also take advantage of the opportunity to travel two-and-a-half hours on the interstate rather than fly to San Francisco. If this service is well-received, the consulate may consider coming to the Northwest next year or even more often, Lustig said.
Since taking over consular duties two years ago, Tor has visited Seattle several times to meet with the business community and government officials.
In addition to business, community and political meetings, Tor and Lustig will speak at several synagogues in the Seattle area, including Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation, Congregation Beth Shalom, Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle, Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath, Temple Beth Am, and Temple B’nai Torah. Tor will also visit Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia.
“First of all, it’s always important to speak about the portion of the week,” said Tor. “We also need to share Israel’s viewpoint on negotiations with the Palestinians, and some of the strategic threats we’re facing from Iran.”
Tor said Iran “continues to be the major strategic issue” for Israel, and that an Iran with nuclear weapons is not only a threat to Israel, but to the world.
“We believe that it’s very important for economic sanctions against Iran to be deepened and continue to deepen, which is happening under current U.S. leadership,” said Tor, “but even more will be required if Iran is to desist from its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Our position is to intensify them.”
Tor will also discuss the status of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which appear, to many observers, to be at a standstill. However, according to Tor, both parties have showed determination and goodwill.
“I think that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been very clear in his desire to achieve a peace agreement with the Palestinian people, which will result in the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and we mean it very seriously,” Tor said.
Final border and security discussions still need to take place, Tor said. Currently the big point of disagreement is over preconditions to the negotiations.
“Our view is that both sides are serious,” Tor added. “We don’t agree on a lot, right now we don’t agree on a lot of the conditions for the talks, but these are things that we have to overcome and I believe that we will overcome them.”
Tor and Lustig will make several other public presentations while here as well. Tor is scheduled to speak about “Silicon Wadi, Energy Independence, and the Future of Israeli Innovation” at an event scheduled for Wed., Nov. 3 at the Stroum Jewish Community Center on Mercer Island.
Lustig will speak on Nov. 4 at the Rotary Club of Tacoma on “Efforts for Peace in a Changing Middle East.”
On the Israeli economy, Tor said the shekel is very strong, and that in general, Israel has not felt the effects of the global economic downturn.
“Unemployment is low,” he said, “and one of the reasons for it is that Israeli banks were not exposed to bad mortgages. High tech has been affected by the economic downturn, but less so than other sectors.”
Other events related to the visit include a one-man play, My First Sony, presented in Hebrew at the Mercer Island JCC and in English at Hillel at the University of Washington, and Gulgulnoa, an interactive children’s movie in Hebrew that will also be shown at the SJCC. There will also be a screening of the film Lebanon at Pacific Place Cinema in downtown Seattle in conjunction with the American Jewish Committee.
The public is also invited to attend a talk by Tor titled “Making Peace in the Middle East, the Iranian Nuclear Crisis and U.S.-Israel Relations” sponsored by the World Affairs Council at Seattle University’s Bannan Auditorium.