Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)
Meet Moran Birman: Israel’s New Deputy Consul General for the Mid-Atlantic Region: Guest Post
Eight hours into his first trip to Ohio, Israel’s new deputy consul general for the mid-Atlantic region, Moran Birman, met with members of Cincinnati’s Jewish community to introduce himself. The meeting took the form of a breakfast at Rockdale Temple, sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council, on Monday, October 12. Birman was joined by Representatives Denise Driehaus and Timothy Derickson, who gave briefings about their recent agricultural trade mission to Israel.
Birman, who replaces Elad Strohmeyer at the consulate in Philadelphia, has a background in law, but decided to join Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to, as he put it, “do something that has meaning, not only in people’s lives in Israel, but also on how other people outside Israel see the country.” His appointment in Philadelphia is his first with the Ministry.
“It’s a lot of new experiences, new beginnings, new country, new city, new position,” Birman said. “There are a lot of people to meet and things to see here in Cincinnati.”
Birman was born on a kibbutz in northern Israel, but he lived in Jerusalem while he was earning his law degree at Hebrew University. Before coming to Philadelphia, he spent eight years living in Tel Aviv. He and his wife, Dana, were married in May and have been living in Philadelphia for about six weeks.
While Birman is settling into life as a diplomat, his wife is working to earn her Master of Laws degree at Drexel University. “We still haven’t had a chance to go on our honeymoon. But we’ll find time,” Birman said. His wife has family in Arizona and California, which is “far from Philadelphia, but if you compare it to being in Israel, it’s pretty close,” Birman said with a smile.
Birman came to Cincinnati to attend the Cincinnati-Israel Business Summit, hosted by the Regional Economic Development Initiative of Greater Cincinnati (REDI), which he sees as an ideal opportunity to strengthen business ties and relations between Israel and the Cincinnati region. He will return to Ohio next month with a visit to Cleveland.
