Richard Greenberg
Associate Editor
Like many others who view Israel only from a distance, Pablo Molina was convinced that the Jewish state is the bully in its longstanding conflict with the Palestinians.
"There was no question about it," said Molina, whose perspective has been altered, however, after visiting Israel for the first time. "My mind is changing, but I need to read and study more." A senior administrator at Georgetown University in the District, Molina said the little he knew about Israel was delivered almost exclusively by the mainstream U.S. media.
"But it's very clear to me now that the media is not doing the conflict justice," he added last week, speaking on a cell phone from the outskirts of Jerusalem. "There are complexities that are not reported. You can't understand it by just reading newspaper headlines."
Molina gained his firsthand knowledge of Israel through an outreach program organized by the American Jewish Congress that melds entrepreneurialism, grassroots public relations and niche marketing.
The initiative (which ran Sunday through Friday of last week) seeks to cultivate goodwill ambassadors for Israel from among members of America's biggest, fastest-growing minority group, Latinos.
But not just any Latinos. The mission targets Latino high-tech executives who have an added incentive for visiting the Holy Land: They are interested in forging mutually beneficial business relationships with high-tech-oriented Israelis.
"We've already had missions for religious leaders and politicians, so I was looking for another niche," said Mark Paredes, director of Latino outreach at the AJCongress. "There are practical benefits. If you take religious leaders over, it's hard to measure results. But if contracts are signed, that's concrete."
Due to their potentially vast public relations reach ----and their rapidly growing political clout -- Latinos have for several years been a logical focus of coalition-building efforts by Jewish organizations seeking a powerful ally, according to Paredes and others.
The two groups already share some common ground, not all of it desirable. For example, many Jews hold relatively liberal views on immigration, a position that tends to resonate with Latinos, noted David Twersky, senior adviser for international affairs for the AJCongress.
On the other hand, a 2007 survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that 29 percent of foreign-born Latinos living in the United States harbor anti-Semitic views. Meanwhile, only 15 percent of U.S.-born Latinos have those views, which is the same as for the U.S. population as a whole.
An "indirect goal" of the AJCongress project is to counteract some of those views, according to Paredes, a non-Jew, who said the only stereotype he encountered on the mission is that Jews are uncommonly studious and well-informed. "I think that's been confirmed on the trip," he said.
Spanish-born Molina, 40, who has been living in the United States for 15 years, is the associate vice president of information technology at Georgetown as well as the chief information officer for the school's Law Center Campus.
He said most of the Jews he knew prior to the mission were academics who came across as generic Americans rather than members of distinct ethnic or religious group. Most had never been to Israel.
Molina said his "general impression" was that Israelis would be "very grave and solemn," given the long history of strife in the region.
"This is not at all the case," he said. "They are full of life and warmth and they are passionate about many things, even driving." He quickly interjected with a chuckle: "Being on the roads in Israel will make you a more religious person because it leads you to pray more."
Molina, who described himself as a "Catholic who doesn't practice as much as I should," said the trip as a whole was highly illuminating, "like an X-ray that helped me understand much more about the Jewish community and its nuances."
The group's business-related itinerary included visits to the Knesset, a business incubator in Tel Aviv and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.
In addition, the contingent met with venture capitalists in Tel Aviv, high-tech businesspeople in the Jerusalem area, the CEO of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and members of the Knesset, who demonstrated, Molina said, "that political life is complicated everywhere, in particular in Israel."
During his tour, Molina said he also "came to understand" the compelling need for the security barrier separating Israel proper from the territories. "That was another eye-opener for me," he added. The itinerary did not include visits with Palestinians, although such meetings could have been scheduled if the participants had requested them, Molina said.
Among the other sites the group visited was Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, which was "emotionally draining," Molina said. Another stop: Jerusalem's Western Wall, the Kotel. "We gasped when we saw it," Molina said. "It was a very emotional moment."
Paredes said no business deals were inked during the trip, "but several strong contacts were made, and we hope to follow up on them." Similar trips are anticipated in the future, he added.
Molina said he established several promising leads focusing on joint development of information technology related to education. In the process, he said, he discovered that Israel is a place of "great entrepreneurship and innovation" ----in short, "a wonderful place to do business" and develop products "that can be marketed to the U.S. Latino community and then perhaps the entire world."
Gary P. Ratner
Executive Director, Western Region
American Jewish Congress
520 Broadway, Suite 350
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310-496-4280
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