I wrote the book as a lesson and result of the time I served as the consul of Israel in Boston. New England is among the most enjoyable service posts for an Israeli diplomat. Beautiful landscapes, great weather for those who come from deserts and tropical weather and don't mind three month a year covered with snow, and most pleasant- sometimes weird people.
The liberal open atmosphere attracts people from all over the world to special communities mainly in New Hampshire and Vermont that were in the Consulate territory. Dreamers, prophets, world fixers, and some lunatics. A number of them would visit the Consulate every now and then. Being the Israeli Consul, the official representative of the state and the President, takes a lot of sensitivity and sometimes wisdom from you. Not to offend anyone, but not to fall, you and your country, for false stories. I knew how to handle those visitors.
My most remarkable case was that young lady who entered the Consulate on false claim- asking to see me for special visa extension request- and then refused to leave. It was a few years after an Israeli diplomatic crate, on its way to Israel, was mistakenly opened in the airport of Rome in Italy, and a cuffed man was found inside. That young woman begged and insisted that she should be shipped to Israel in such diplomatic crate.
According to her story, she was a part of an Israeli student union In MIT- perhaps the most prestigious Ivy League university in our area. The student union was managed by two famous Israeli students, sons of well-known right wing families in Israel. Now, she said the union is blamed for spying in the U.S., and it's our duty to smuggle her out of the country. The procedure on such cases is clear and sharp- we are not allowed to deal with it. I however couldn't resist calling one of these students. He clearly said that not only she is not part of the union, but as a matter of fact, he never heard her name before.
The desperate woman, a little more relaxed, asked to get out to buy some cigarettes. She left the Consulate and never came back.
Years later, that MIT student leader became a senior minister in the Government. The next time I heard the young woman's name, was when her appointment as the head of that Minister's office was announced.
In my book I tried to understand what could have been the true story behind that incident, or perhaps behind few other stories of this nature that you may have heard.