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Memoir Recalls Israeli Diplomat's Rise from Bedouin Village to San Francisco
(San Francisco Jewish Weekly) Stacey Palevsky - Ishmael Khaldi started his adventures 38 years ago in a two-room tent in a small Bedouin village with no running water or electricity. "Growing up in a tent doesn't mean you can't reach San Francisco and be a diplomat - it means the sky's the limit," said Khaldi, who served more than two years in San Francisco as the vice consul general. His new memoir is called A Shepherd's Journey: The Story of Israel's First Bedouin Diplomat. "Being a spokesman for Israel is simply another way of defending my country, which is the mission and pleasure of my life," he writes in his memoir. "Do Israel's Arab citizens suffer from disadvantages? Yes they do," he writes. "Do African Americans and other minorities living 10 minutes from the Berkeley campus suffer from disadvantages? The answer is also an emphatic, 'yes.' So should we launch a Berkeley Apartheid Week? Or should we seek real ways to better our societies and make opportunities available to more people?"