“Energy” will probably be the first word that pops into peoples’ minds when they meet Rakefet Ginsberg, 36, Milwaukee’s new emissary from Israel and director of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Center.
In an interview in her office last week, two days after she officially started work on Aug. 16, Ginsberg spoke very rapidly and displayed a mind that travels as fast as her words.
And that was when she was speaking English. She joked that it would be “impossible” for a reporter to take notes of her words when she was speaking Hebrew.
Apparently, these qualities were among the reasons that the Milwaukee Jewish Federation chose Ginsberg to follow Alon Galron, who returned to Israel a few weeks ago.
“Her charm and sparkle were absolutely captivating,” said Moshe Katz, chair of the MJF Israel and Overseas Committee, who with MJF executive vice president Richard H. Meyer interviewed Ginsberg in Israel in February.
Katz added that Ginsberg has “a background in community work” in which she “pioneered several different ideas.”
And when Katz and Meyer visited Ginsberg’s family — husband Ariel and three boys — “that’s when the decision was finalized,” Katz said. “Her husband has a warm, receptive, vibrant personality,” and their children are “as cuddly and charming as you’d ever want to meet.”
Ginsberg said that because she is “very involved in Israeli society,” in many different areas — cultural, feminist, social, educational — “I want to bring this kind of perspective, this kind of sense, to the Milwaukee community.” She especially wants as much as possible to promote awareness of “the things Israel deals with when it is not at war.”
This is one of the goals that the federation wants as well, according to Katz. “We hope her shlichut [term as emissary] will deal with not just the horrors of Israel, but also the beauty of Israel,” he said.
Ginsberg, nee Gottlieb, was born and raised in Petach Tikvah, a suburb of Tel Aviv. After her military service, she earned a degree in social work from Tel Aviv University and then returned to the Israel Defense Force as a civilian employee.
After obtaining a master’s degree in social work, Ginsberg left the army to work for the Counseling Center for Women. Among her projects there, she was coordinator of a program to offer emotional support and assistance to women soldiers who had to help forcibly relocate Jewish settler families from the Gaza Strip.
She also did volunteer work for the Israel Women’s Network. And she was one of two co-chairs of an organization called Movement for a New Masculinity, which tries to show Israeli men that principles and policies of feminism have benefits for men also.
Ginsberg said that a friend of hers in the Jewish Agency for Israel, which helps pay for Israel emissaries to diaspora communities like Milwaukee, suggested that Ginsberg might find it interesting to become an emissary.
Moreover, her husband, himself an immigrant to Israel from Argentina, told her that “it is different to be Jewish outside of Israel,” which piqued her curiosity.
She took many tests for this position, always expecting to fail them, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that she passed, she said.
She and her husband decided that Milwaukee was the place they wanted to go because “we wanted a community small in feeling … we did not want to be alone in a big city.”
It was also important to them that the community “wants connection with Israel and wants to enrich its connection with Israel,” she said. Milwaukee, it seems, has a reputation in that regard in Israel. “A lot of people told us that Milwaukee is one of the most warm communities,” she said.
Her husband is a statistical researcher, but he doesn’t have a job in Milwaukee as yet. Ginsberg said he will “take the kids at first,” and will later look for work, either paid or volunteer, or for further educational opportunities.
The community’s Israel emissary (in Hebrew shaliach for men, shlichah for women) serves as a cultural, informational and advocacy liaison between Milwaukee Jewry and the people of Israel.
The Israel Center, which the emissary directs, disseminates information about Israel, helps link community members to educational programs in Israel, and provides assistance for community members seeking to emigrate there.
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