The lieutenant governor of Wisconsin looked at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and asked him the question.
It was a question she’d brought with her from America, something she knew she wanted to ask.
It was something along the lines of, “Who does radical Islam hate most? Do they hate each other the most? Do they hate Israel the most? Or do they hate the United States the most?”
Netanyahu, she remembers, had an answer: “They hate you the most.”
The exchange was just one facet of Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch’s first-ever trip to Israel in April. In a recent interview with the Chronicle, Kleefisch spoke of her impressions of the Jewish state, her second baptism there and how the trip cemented her already-strong support for Israel.
“We should be allies, firm and forever,” said Kleefisch, a Republican who survived a recall effort with Gov. Scott Walker in 2012.
Kleefisch, who is chair of the Republican Lieutenant Governors Association, led the trip for seven GOP lieutenant governors. Before her visit, Kleefisch consulted with the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, which arranged key meetings for her in Israel.
“I was shocked by the proximity of everything,” she said. People warned her it would be a surprise.
“Even with that warning I was still shocked at how close everything is. When you have a country the size of New Jersey it’s hard to fathom that the borders and the enemies at them are football fields away and not hundreds of miles away.”
She was struck by an Israeli village where there were alarms at a playground; she was told children know to move quickly if an alarm goes off. She noted how Israelis disagree over a possible two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding that “this has been a question as old as time.”
Kleefisch went to Israel on a “geopolitical and diplomatic” mission, seeking economic development opportunities for Wisconsin and a cultural education for herself.
“Israel is the Holy Land,” said Kleefisch, who attends an evangelical church. “Four of us made a confirmation of faith while we were in Israel. One had his bar mitzvah and three of us were baptized in the Jordan River.” (Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera was bar mitzvahed.)
“I have a baby baptism under my belt,” Kleefisch added. “Some sects of the Christian faith will have baby baptism but there are others who believe that you need to make a choice as an adult to follow Jesus.”
Kleefisch was fully immersed in the Jordan River for her second baptism, she said, “just like Jesus had.”
“Absolutely, a part of why I personally will always stand with Israel is I have a deep and abiding love for the country of my savior’s birth and resurrection.
“Geopolitically we can be very practical about it too and say, well of course we’re going to stand with Israel. They’re our best and most reliable ally in the Middle East.”
Asked for her thoughts on the U.S. presidential election, she said “this is a Supreme Court election.” The next president will choose one justice or more and will determine the make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court “probably for my lifetime,” she said.
“If we do not go in with the idea of choosing our Supreme Court makeup then I think we are missing the greater purpose of this particular election.”
Kleefisch had meetings in Israel related to economic development but didn’t want to go into detail until things are “fully cooked.” She said Milwaukee has a Global Water Center and Israel “made the desert bloom,” making the two areas a good match.
Kleefisch, a former television journalist, enjoyed bringing the same question she’d put to Netanyahu to others in Israel.
“All of the answers were slightly different,” she said. “It was interesting for me to hear so many perspectives on one question.
We may be a 50/50 state politically, she said, but disputes here are nothing like the dispute over there.
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