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By Marcia Tatz Wollner
 SAN DIEGO—Shahar Azani, Israel’s consul for public affairs, told 150 grandparents and friends at San Diego Jewish Academy on Friday, October 9, an ironic truth: We were all so eager to leave school- but then readily come back to school to share special occasions, like breakfast in a sukkah, with our children and grandchildren. Education, he said, is a foundation of our belief system and represents our true self.
Azani described education as “the oil well of the state of Israel.”
He said Israel, as a Jewish state, is based on core values that are embedded in Jewish tradition. Just as during Sukkot we enjoy the fruits of the harvest, we need to remember the essentials- we need to be joyful and thankful. We must strive for peace, prosperity, and security while humbly serving as a lighthouse for the nations, he said.
In 1959, while Israel was still a fledgling country, then foreign minister Golda Meir reached out to new countries of Africa through the establishment of Mashav, the Israel Center for International Cooperation, Azani recalled. Israel trained African farmers on how to be self sustainable. In the words of the adage, rather than giving them fish, Israel gave them tools to fish.
Azani who recently moved to Los Angeles from a 3-year stint in Nairobi, said it is a joy, a gift, to have Jewish day school education. Noting that his children went to a British school during his Nairobi assignment, he warned against taking the benefits of Jewish education for granted.
Jewish education is the best gift that we can give to our children now and for their future, he said. His hope is that when the SDJA is 70, those who are students today will be welcoming their grandchildren at a similar event.
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Education is a foundation, a torch for the future, Azani stressed at a subsequent meeting with members of the media.
Prior to Azani’s speech, SDJA’s Executive Director Larry Acheatel thanked Gloria and Rod Stone for their support of the SDJA for the past twenty years, and introduced two other generations of the Stone family, Ryan and Ashley and their children, Anisa and Zakai.
In a large sukkah, guests enjoyed a breakfast of pastries donated by the kosher section of Ralph's La Jolla, and then proceeded to an assembly hall where they were entertained by the Golda Meir Lower School choir, led by Elisheva Edelson. Grandparents and special friends kvelled as they listened to the children sang “Heiveinu Shalom Aleichem” and a Yiddish song in which the most common word was “oy!”
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