First Full Day of Lion Conference

Yesterday was our first full day at Lion Conference. In the morning I worked on Faye’s closing night speech with her for two hours—she needed to put it in her own words vs what we wrote for her. The end product was much better. I had to convince her that Barack Obama and John McCain have speechwriters, and it is OK for her to have them as well.

We set up in the ballroom area of the Tel Aviv Intercontinental. The ILOJC staff gave us a fantastic location and we put the mini-exhibit of her images around the room. The 1,100 attendees gathered in the room for a pre-dinner mixer before the opening plenary and dinner in the same area. We met a lot of supporters of JPEF there including Rick and Claudia Felson, Diane Wohl, and Ann Bear. Rick, who’s dad was a partisan took a special liking to Faye (and she to him). Rick tried to convince her to come to San Francisco when we open her exhibit at Berkeley Hillel/Lerhaus in March --I think he might have been successful!

By the end of the evening, there was a line of 15 people by our table, all wanting autographed Faye posters and to talk with her. We made great connections with people from at least 15 different communities across the country who are very eager to bring the exhibit and JPEF to their community including Phoenix, St. Paul, Orange County, Palm Beach, Albuquerque, Chicago, and Houston. We did not leave the hotel until 10:30pm. Faye had a long day and we decided she would take the next day off –especially as it started at 8 am for her back in the same ballrooms.

Faye was impressed by the lack of security on the conference until I showed her the many men with ear pieces around the hotel. They were thrilled to meet her and hear of her experiences. Faye wanted a photo with them.
























Here are a few more photos for yesterday as well. The one with the stage and lights was the opening ceremony which incredible production values -- Israeli singers and dancers with explosions of confetti. Faye also saw that many of the speakers were reading from prepared remarks like she will on Saturday night, making her feel much better about the process.

In Israel with Faye Schulman

It was a incredibly short trip from SFO to Tel Aviv, with a stop in New York to "unload" my wonderful four year old daughter with her grandparents for 10 days, as my wife Maggie has to work a major event AND watch our 18 month old son.

Arrived and the weather was gorgeous as is the country. My wool overcoat from New York was quickly set aside as I gathered a box with 8 large of Faye Schulman's photographs, two heavy bags of JPEF literature and headed to the hotel.

Traffic from airport to hotel was very slow. Felt like a commute from Berkeley to San Francisco on a bad traffic day. Too bad the country is getting so crowded here. Got to hotel across from beautiful Mediterranean and beach and none of that mattered.

Did walk through with International Lion of Judah staff, Jan Greenfield from JPEF, and Faye. Faye continues to be so enthusiastic about being in Israel--the first time in 15 years and the fisrt time since her husband passed away.

In afternoon went to Jewish Partisan Organization in Tel Aviv and met with their ED, Baruch Shub who is a former partisan and is helping us bring women partisans to the Lion closing ceremony Saturday night where Tzipi Livni and Faye Schulman are both addressing the crowd of 1,400. Baruch and his staff use our website all the time and were also impressed with Defiance website and trailer (they did not yet hear of film).

Have meet many people VERY interested in bring Faye from places including Texas and Massachusetts. Going to explore the Tel Aviv evening as a nap I took during the day has rendered me pretty much awake at 9:40 pm Israel time.

More later and photos as I experiment with my first blog.

-M