Paz Goldschmidt, Milwaukee’s new Israel emissary, got excited about Jewish education during a summer internship. As a college student beginning in 1994, she worked for the “Israel Experience” department of the Jewish Agency for Israel, connecting American, British and Israeli teens.
“This is when my romance with Jewish education and the Jewish world started.
“Before working for the Jewish Agency, I never thought of the Jews who live outside of Israel and our connection…. I realized I have a strong Jewish connection to people I never thought about and it was very exciting for me,” said Goldschmidt, who lives in the Moledet, a moshav in the Jezreel Valley.
Her role as Milwaukee’s Israel emissary and director of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Center will involve forging more connections as the cultural, informational and advocacy liaison between Milwaukee Jewry and the people of Israel.
She will disseminate information about Israel, help link community members to educational programs in Israel and assist with aliyah.
Goldschmidt started work in mid-August and has high hopes for her work here She replaces Rakefet Ginsberg, who left in July after serving the community for three years.
“I hope I will be able to give some of my passion for Israel and to help [people] understand some of the complexities we have here. I hope that together we can create a meaningful connection full of life and love between Jews around the world and specifically between the Jewish community of Milwaukee and Israeli Jews,” she said.
She will assess the area’s needs to determine whether to develop a specific focus for her term, possibly “green” or ecological business.
Nancy Barnett, chair of the federation’s Shlichut Committee, predicts that 36-year-old Goldschmidt will form good relationships with people of various generations.
During a visit in spring, “she worked well with people in their 20s all the way to 70s,” Barnett said.
Like all emissaries, Goldschmidt passed a rigorous process of applications and interviews before being selected.
Goldschmidt grew up in Ra’anana, a city of 73,000 near Tel Aviv that is billed as the “Jewel of the Sharon.”
Her non-religious family went to synagogue only on Yom Kippur and other major holidays. She describes them as very Zionist. Her approach to religion is nuanced:
“I don’t keep the ceremony but I do feel the Bible is part of who I am. I preserve Shabbat in a way I feel is good for me,” she said, noting that she feels a deep connection to Jewish tradition and tells her children Bible stories.
As a child, she was most interested in hiking, performing and dancing. Part of the youth group of Sde Boker field school, she met with other young people to “travel the desert, gaining values through our legs.”
Goldschmidt holds three bachelor’s degrees from three different schools. First, she earned a degree in psychology from Hebrew University and another degree in movement from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance (also called the Rubin Academy). She later returned to school and graduated in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in social work.
In the realm of social work, she worked for five years with young people in the eating disorder clinic of the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. More recently, she spent three years serving as a social worker in the welfare department and in a mental health unit near her home.
But Jewish education has remained her passion. In the mid-1990s, she worked for Melitz, an organization devoted to informal Jewish education among Israelis and Diaspora Jews. In that position, she led Canadian youth on a March of the Living program and spent a follow-up week with them in Israel.
“It was a meaningful, strong experience,” she said.
She’s looking forward to living in Milwaukee. “It is very pretty, very clean, an aesthetic city,” she said, adding that she’s considering developing “American” driving habits.
“In Israel, people view the time in the car as useless and they drive like maniacs…. Here, people have their time in their car and that’s OK,” she said.
She and her husband, Amir, have two sons, Ido, 4, and Noam, 1. Amir owns Goldistica, a company involved in plastic recycling. In Milwaukee, he will continue to oversee his business and hopes to get involved with the local business community.
Jill Rothenbueler Maher is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer.
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