Daniel Shek is used to frustration. And he’s used to complaints.
During nearly three months in his new position as Israel’s consul general in the Bay Area, he has become more than accustomed to hearing — over and over again — people’s distress about stalls in the Mideast peace process and threats to religious pluralism.
“I haven’t encountered one member of the Jewish community here where these things didn’t come up,” he said.
Shek, however, welcomes the ongoing dialogue.
For one thing, the 42-year-old diplomat believes it is his duty to listen to American Jewish concerns and relay them back to the government he represents. “If you’ll allow a very cheap pun, I regard my role as a bridge,” he said.
For another thing, he finds the local Jewish community’s engagement in Israeli affairs invigorating.
“Underneath all the criticism, I detect a very strong and clear attachment to Israel,” he said. “It’s important to them and that’s why I don’t mind arguing with them.”
On this morning, as Shek sips coffee in his high-rise office overlooking San Francisco’s downtown, it’s hard to imagine the soft-spoken diplomat being too argumentative.
Then again, he is well-trained to be, well, diplomatic.
Before accepting a post as consul general for the Pacific Northwest region — which covers Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho and Alaska — he served as spokesman and director of the press department at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“It’s a very demanding job, especially in Israel where journalists feel very comfortable calling you at one o’clock in the morning because they forgot one little detail,” he said.
“But I loved it,” he added, “because it’s hectic and it changes every day and you’re involved with everything the ministry does.”
Before heading the ministry’s press office, Shek served for four years as spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Paris. Earlier in his career, he worked as an information officer for the Israeli Embassy in Brussels.
Europe is familiar terrain for Shek.
Born in Israel to a diplomat father, he spent much of his youth in England, France and Austria. As a result, he speaks French, German and “a little English,” he joked. He has, in fact, translated books and films from all three languages into Hebrew.
“Honestly, most children of diplomats have very bad memories of the careers of their parents,” he said. “That was not the case for me.”
For his part, Shek garnered a certain wide-eyed wanderlust from his early globetrotting experiences. “I have a deep respect for other cultures, a huge curiosity,” he said. “I love going to new places. It excites me.”
He hopes his own children, Yonatan, 13, and Michael, almost 9, will ultimately derive similar benefits from their experiences abroad. His wife, Marie, an art historian and curator, has already settled in to her position as the consulate’s cultural attaché.
Though fairly well ensconced himself at this point — Shek generally attends several Jewish community functions a week — the consul general still finds himself enchanted daily by the area he will call home for approximately four years.
“Every hill I cross and every turn I take, there is something that takes my breath away,” he said.
But equally as striking to Shek as the area’s beauty is its potential for receptivity to Israeli innovation, particularly in the realm of technology. Some 100 Israeli companies already have ties in Silicon Valley, he noted, with numerous companies here relying on Israeli partners for research and development.
The Pacific Northwest region, he said, “has a very good name in the foreign ministry…because of Silicon Valley, because of the quality of academic life, because it historically is a place where ideas emerge.”