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When five members of Israel's Knesset stopped by Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Rafael last week, starstruck students were dying to know a couple of pertinent facts: Were the MKs staying at the Ritz-Carlton? Were they taking a private jet home?

Other students weren't about to let the politicians off the hook quite so easily.

"Is it really safe for me, as a Reform Jew, to go to Israel, or am I going to be under attack by Orthodox Jews?" one seventh-grader asked Labor Party members Hagai Meirom and Ran Cohen. The pair had stopped in the classroom for a lively and impressively high-level exchange on religious pluralism.

"We're on your side," Meirom reassured the student. "For us, you're all Jews."

In fact, Meirom said later, the main reason he accepted a joint invitation from the East Bay and S.F.-based Jewish federations for the six-day visit was to convey to Jews here that Israeli government officials heed diaspora voices.

Last year, the United Jewish Appeal and Council of Jewish Federations began sponsoring Knesset delegations to the United States to heighten Israeli politicians' understanding of American Jewish communities.

On their first full day in the Bay Area Wednesday of last week, the five visiting MKs got an earful on American Jewish concerns at a closed-door breakfast meeting with Northern California rabbis of all denominations.

The politicians then headed across the Golden Gate Bridge to Brandeis in a small tour bus. On a morning of rare and glorious sunshine, they stopped at two vantage points to take in sparkling views of San Francisco. Like all typical tourists to the area, they fawned over the natural beauty spread out before them.

Arriving at Brandeis, they got a welcome fit for royalty. Excited students sang "Hallelujah," "Hatikvah" and "God Bless America." They presented the MKs with red flowers for Tu B'Shevat and said in Hebrew: "Welcome Knesset members. We're glad you came to our school."

Third Way Party MK Emanuel Zisman — who celebrated his 63rd birthday the day of the tour and was treated to a Hebrew rendition of "Happy Birthday" — said the gathering of students made a "deep impression."

"To hear the kids speaking Hebrew…I was very excited."

After a tour of the Marin Jewish Community Center, during which the MKs broke into an impromptu basketball shoot-around in the gym, Zisman got a taste of just how much Hebrew the students have learned.

In one classroom, Zisman and MK David Magen of the Likud Bloc's Gesher Party, enjoyed a well-rehearsed performance of a short Hebrew play. To make sure the students understood what they were saying, Zisman asked one young girl a question in Hebrew. When she answered, he nodded his approval in a manner more reminiscent of a grandpa than a tough-nosed politician.

In another classroom, a student pulled out a medal, embossed with an image of Jerusalem, that his uncle had given him. Labor MK Saleh Tarif, the parliament's only Druze member, examined it closely, encouraging the excited student to hang on to the valuable souvenir.

After a lunch meeting with Jewish educators, the MKs climbed back onto the bus, where their fast-talking political banter sometimes resembled a spirited Knesset session.

Then it was back across the bridge — with more oohs and aahs over the view — to tour the Jewish community's Utility Workshop in San Francisco. Run by Jewish Family and Children's Services, the facility employs immigrants to hand-package products for a range of major corporate clients.

After chatting with Anita Friedman, JFCS executive director, about the social service demands shouldered by the Jewish community here, the MKs briefly toured the facility, stopping to watch workers package everything from Mashuga Nuts to toothbrushes to Joe Boxer underwear.

One MK expressed wonder not only at the ethnic diversity represented at the factory, but at the fact that there still remain places where work is done by hand.

By now, however, wonder was starting to turn to weariness for the slightly jet-lagged group. Pier 39 suddenly appeared more appealing than politicking.

So the group headed to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square for some late afternoon sightseeing, shopping, shrimp — and even some singing.

Strolling along the pier, Meirom and Tarif broke out into a rendition of a well-known Israeli folk song, "Yoshev B'San Francisco Al Ha Mayim" (Sitting in San Francisco by the Water), a musing on the beauty of the city by the bay.