“I hope you are not going to ask me about my plans, because I do not have any at the moment. I am still learning,” Yosef (Paul) Kedar, Israel’s new Consul General in New York, who succeeded Uri Ben-Ari, said at the beginning of an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency held at the Israeli Consulate here.
Although he is still “learning,” the 53 year-old diplomat–an articulate, easy-going man–has a clear idea of the major tasks of the Israeli Consulate in New York. “My activities will focus on three major fields,” Kedar explained. “First, dealing with the large Jewish community here; second, the issue of hasbara (public information), and third, the official contacts with the local authorities of the city and the state.”
Kedar, who until his recent appointment as Consul General was the chief curator of Beth Hatfuzoth (museum of the Jewish Diaspora) in Tel Aviv, said that as Consul he hopes to be the link between the Jewish community in New York and Israel. “The Consul here is an instrument, one of the instruments, to project Israel’s image among diaspora Jews,” he said, adding: “In a way, my task is to strengthen the sense of identity of the American Jew with the Jewish State.”
The issue of hasbara, in Kedar’s view, is of utmost importance in New York because “this city is a media center” and Israel’s cause will be enhanced when hasbara–which has been under constant criticism–is improved.
As a sabra who was born in Neveh Zedek, the first Jewish suburb of Jaffa, Kedar admitted that he has “ambivalent” feelings toward yordim, Israelis who are permanently living in the United States. But he stressed that he believes that any Israeli citizen in New York and elsewhere in the United States is entitled to all the consular services of the Israeli Consulate.
“And as a Jew he deserves the same treatment as any other Jew here,” Kedar said. He added: “I do not have a negative feeling toward Israelis here, but at the same time I do not endorse the fact that they have left Israel. I would try my best to contact them and to learn their problems, and I hope I could help some of them to return home.”
BOUND UP WITH ISRAEL’S STRUGGLE
Kedar’s life story is connected with Israel’s struggle for independence and the efforts to secure and defend the Jewish state in the last 30 years.
In the late 1920s, his family moved to France after his father, Ben-Zion Homsky, an active Revisionist, was sentenced to a prison term and then exiled. In 1940, when the Germans invaded France, Kedar escaped to Great Britain and joined the Royal Air Force in 1941. After receiving pilot training in the United States Navy in Pensacola, Florida, Kedar served the Royal Air Force both in European and Far Eastern theatres of war.
In 1946 he left the Royal Air Force and was active in the Irgun in Europe until the creation of the State of Israel, when he returned to Israel and joined the newly established Israeli Air Force. Among his numerous assignments as an officer, Kedar also served as Military Attache in Paris and Turkey. In 1965, he left the Israeli Air Force with the rank of full colonel and joined government service.
In 1970, after the Cherbourg affair, he was appointed head of the Israel Defense Mission in Europe. He returned to Israel from this assignment in 1973 and helped found Beth Hatfuzoth. Kedar is married. His wife, the former Ruth Jacobs, was born in Jerusalem. They have four children, the oldest of whom is now serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
