When Marie Shek arrived in San Francisco three years ago, she set several goals for herself as Israeli cultural attaché. One of the foremost was to see Israel’s Itim Ensemble perform “Va Yomer. Va Yelech,” an avant-garde theatrical interpretation of the Bible, on a Bay Area stage.
So it was with great pride and excitement that she sat in the audience at the city’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts last week, less than two weeks before returning home at the end of her post.
“You could listen to the silence last night,” she said, in an interview the morning after the show opened to a sold-out audience. “This was my biggest effort, truly my greatest pride. It took three years of pushing, like a car.”
Shek, who is a curator of visual arts, said she’s fulfilled her goal of bringing the highest quality of Israeli culture — whether it be art, movies, theater, music or authors — to the Bay Area.
And even after she’s gone, two large shows are in the works, with six prominent San Francisco galleries showcasing the works of Israeli artists in 2001, and an exhibit from the Israel Museum on its way to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in 2002.
“Maybe it sounds snobbish, but I think it’s better to bring the best, or bring nothing” she said.
Shek said most Bay Area residents are more likely to be interested in cultures closer to home, like Native American, Latino or Asian. Which made it more of a challenge to get people interested in the unique culture the Holy Land has to offer.
“I wanted to open windows,” she said, “and to know that 10 non-Jewish people came to see Israeli culture.”
And in the future, she said, she hopes Americans — non-Jews especially — will come to Israeli cultural events not because they are specifically Israeli, but because they are good.
Shek spoke of the importance of cooperation, and talked of her close relationship with the cultural attachés of Italy, Germany and France. Because Israel is home to only 5 million people, she feels this was a real accomplishment.
When Shek returns home, she’ll be working as an art adviser for Ben-Gurion University in the Negev Desert.
“This combines art, peace, education, high-tech, the future and Zionism,” she said.
As much as she exported Israeli culture to the Bay Area, Shek now hopes she can do the reverse: help import different cultures to Israel.
“Bringing the international to Israel is being a human being,” she said. “Jerusalem is an international town.”
“You have to know how to stir interest in the ‘other,’ not in a pushy way but in a mysterious way.”
Artists are leading the way at home, she said, with Israeli and Palestinian artists among the first to break old taboos and start a dialogue.
“My big dream in life is that we will have a place to bring Palestinian art to Tel Aviv, and show Israeli art in Jordan. If the artists begin the dialogue, the people will follow.”
With only the kindest words for the Bay Area Jewish community, Shek said she was so grateful for the warmth she and her husband, Consul General Daniel Shek, received from the moment they arrived.
“The local community has given me the strength to do what I did,” she said. “I’m so appreciative and thankful. You can bring art, but it means nothing if there’s no crowd to see it. They were the crowd.”
Describing Bay Area Jewry as “a remarkable community, with so much faith, optimism and good will,” Shek said her entire family had mixed feelings about returning home, her two sons included.
Saying leaving San Francisco was akin to leaving paradise, she said, “It’s difficult to separate yourselves from such a great experience,” adding that each family member had developed tremendously as a person by being here.
She thought Israel could learn from San Franciscans, who she said are so giving and receiving because they are so content with themselves.
“My dream is that Israeli society could become like this, but we’re not there yet.”
Shek said she had made so many friends here, whom she’s looking forward to seeing in Israel next year.
Her last words as cultural attaché, after thanking everyone for making her stay so memorable and fulfilling?
“If you see Israeli things, just go.”