Eytan Schwartz doesn’t watch “Survivor.” He doesn’t watch “The Apprentice.” He doesn’t watch “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette.” In fact, he despises the whole reality show genre.
“I think it’s really stupid,” he said, during a recent visit to San Francisco.
Funny then, that Schwartz competed in the most popular reality program in Israel, “The Ambassador,” and won.
“I knew I had to be in this show, because sometimes I sense adventure, and I just go with my heart,” he said. ” And this seemed like I’d be able to combine so many things I love, especially my love for my country.”
The 30-year-old Schwartz sounds much more like the fast-talking New Yorker he was born than the Israeli he is now. Born and raised in Manhattan, Schwartz was a childhood actor. His family made aliyah when he was 7, and after serving as an entertainment reporter in the Israel Defense Forces, he came back to the United States to attend Columbia University.
“The Ambassador” (“Ha Shagrir” in Hebrew) offered a prize of a one-year job with the New York-based Israel at Heart, an organization which sends young Israelis to universities and synagogues to talk about their lives.
Schwartz felt that with his background in entertainment and media, he’d be a perfect fit.
“We turn on the news in Israel, and see how Israel is portrayed so miserably,” he said. “Sometimes Israeli officials do such a terrible job advocating for Israel. We’re not always proud to say that in public, but who are these people?”
On a show that very much resembled Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice,” “The Ambassador” contestants were divided into two teams. On each episode, they went to a different European city, where they were given a variety of tasks to promote Israel. A member of the losing team was cut from the program each episode.
In one, Schwartz’s team produced a tongue-in-cheek commercial about Israel (featuring a red bikini-clad blonde) that was shown 60 times on MTV Europe. The commercial was widely forwarded on the Internet.
One of the hardest tasks, Schwartz said, was convincing passers-by on the Champs Elysees to buy a six-night Club Med vacation to Eilat. The trips were offered at a discount, but buyers had to pay on the spot. And, they had to be non-Jews who had never been to Israel.
Schwartz was the only contestant who could speak French, but his team came up with an ingenious plan: On what might have been one of the coldest days of the Parisian winter, one team member stood in the middle of the Champs Elysees, with little else but a snorkeling mask, snorkel and flippers.
Schwartz was dubbed “Bibi with spikes” by the Israeli press, because of the slickness with which he could state Israel’s case — as compared to former Israeli prime minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu — and also because of his spiky hair.
The finalists met New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and were trailed by CNN. The show was so popular in Israel, that an estimated one-third of the country watched the final episode. Schwartz told of how on the very same day that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signed the disengagement order from the Gaza Strip, the second most prominent news story was that he was named the ambassador.
Throughout the interview, Schwartz repeatedly spoke of how Tel Aviv’s beaches and nightclubs — and the hot men and women — are the real Israel. A line he’s often used in talking to students is, “When I was 13, I went to a left-wing rally because that’s where the good-looking girls were.”
By speaking this way, he believes, people get to see the real Israel.
He said, “Time and time again, humor, the personal approach and emotion always work better over facts.”