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It is the rare Israeli shaliach who presents you with a video about his career before you interview him. ("It's only six minutes," he said, almost apologetically). But then not many Israeli emissaries have a background like that of Doron Nesher.

And just to make absolutely clear that you know he's not your run-of-the-mill shaliach, he tells you that one of his goals during his tenure in the Bay Area is to raise money from Bay Area Jews to build a forest in Israel in memory of Allen Ginsberg — complete with a photo and his poetry.

"He was Jewish, he was Buddhist, he was homosexual, he was a poet," Nesher said. "He is a San Francisco hero. I find it a very noble idea to have a forest in Israel named after him — not after a fighter or a warrior, but a Jewish poet."

Nesher's interest in establishing a forest for Ginsberg is both personal and professional. He represents the Jewish National Fund, the agency responsible for planting forests and reclaiming land in the Jewish state.

When he talks about how he ended up in San Francisco, one gets the sense that his presence here is just the next step in the long trajectory of an extremely varied professional life.

While he studied philosophy in college, at times he has been an actor, a stand-up comedian, a talk-show host on both radio and television, a novelist, a journalist, an author of two children's books, a documentary filmmaker, a teacher, a director of television commercials and a political strategist.

He did all the radio and television campaign ads for the left-wing Meretz Party in the 1992 election, and worked closely with American political adviser Bob Shrum to get Prime Minister Ehud Barak elected in 1999 (the Barak campaign asked him back for the latest campaign, but Nesher declined).

He also wrote the screenplay for one of the best-known Israeli films of all time, "Late Summer Blues," about a group of high school students in the early '70s, the summer before the War of Attrition. (Nesher actually wrote much of one draft sitting in Caffe Trieste in North Beach, where he hoped to find his literary muse since Ginsberg, too, used to hang out there.)

"None of my career choices were planned," Nesher said.

Nesher, 46, is from Ra'anana. His Berlin-born father, who was of Polish origin, was the only one of his family to escape Germany, and his entire family was killed at Auschwitz. Nesher's mother is German, and most of her family came to the United States. His parents met in pre-state Israel.

German was spoken at home, even though when Nesher was growing up, "you couldn't speak German in Israel."

Nesher isn't sure why, but he said he grew up feeling more Jewish than your average Israeli. He also said that in some respects, he has never felt fully Israeli. Although he served in the Israel Defense Force, he has never felt comfortable with the military culture that is so pervasive in the country.

"In Israel, either you're religious or you're Israeli," he said. "That's why there is such an identity crisis among Israelis. They don't know how to approach Judaism."

Nesher, who gestures wildly with his hands as he speaks, can go on and on about Israeli identity and the state of the Jews, obviously topics of great interest to him. But he is here representing the JNF, after all. And he easily switches into JNF mode, saying that the organization that began with the "little blue boxes" is still as relevant today as when it was founded.

"Next year we are celebrating 100 years of the JNF," he said. "Israel is a fact, and that's why it's still relevant."

The JNF belongs to the Jewish people around the world, he said, "and that's what I find very noble."

He pointed to the agricultural development of the Negev Desert, all due to the work of JNF, he said. Rather than being a political organization, he said, "money goes for environmental issues; in one word, it means life."

Nesher is not above politics himself. His work on political campaigns clearly demonstrates his loyalties and he repeatedly says things like, "It's a shame how we have treated the Israeli Arabs." Nevertheless, he added, "One can be very critical of Israel, and maybe he should be, but land, trees and water is beyond that."

Here with his wife, Nili, and their two daughters, Micah, 10, and Amalia, 20 months, he is living in North Oakland. Nesher has a 16-year-old son, Matan, in Israel, from a previous marriage.

Faced with a formidable challenge, since the JNF has been all but dormant for the past few years in the Bay Area, Nesher is ready to do whatever is required of him to get out the message about the JNF.

This means doing non-shaliach-like activity, such as stand-up comedy in Hebrew for the Israeli community in Silicon Valley, as well as speaking in synagogues and JCCs, and hopefully raising money for his Allen Ginsberg memorial forest.

"Maybe we will argue about politics, but we can agree on trees," he said.