The situation for California Jews that Modi Ephraim found when he began a month ago as Israeli consul general to the Pacific Southwest reminded him of his stint, from 2022 to 2025, as Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, during which Jews were targeted in riots in Amsterdam in November 2024 when the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team was playing in town.
Those days were “some of the toughest days in my career,” Ephraim told JNS in an interview at his office in the Consulate General of Israel Los Angeles.
In July, the attorney general of California released a report revealing that nearly three-quarters of religion-based hate crimes in the state targeted Jews in 2025.
That statistic is “pretty much similar” to the Netherlands, Ephraim told JNS.
“I think it all starts in education,” he said. “This is the most important field. We have to educate a young generation.”
Back in 2024, the Israeli embassy in The Hague opened an operations room and was in “constant contact” with authorities, including the Amsterdam mayor, to locate Israelis and bring them to airports.
“We also had special flights from Israel to evacuate them,” Ephraim told JNS. “I think it was quite a bad day for the Netherlands, for the Dutch society. They were all ashamed about what happened. We got apologies from everywhere.”
“There is still an ongoing investigation on the case,” he said. “It was part of the incitement, the atmosphere against Israel, against the Jewish community in Amsterdam.”
The relatively small Jewish community in the country is still “under the trauma of the Second World War,” according to the Israeli diplomat.
“The situation now in Europe makes the life of the Jewish communities very tough, so I was working together, especially after Oct. 7, with the community to basically try to combat antisemitism and doing many programs between the Jewish community and Israel,” he said.
In Los Angeles, Ephraim has already been impressed with the “power” of what he has seen, including at a memorial marking the third anniversary of Oct. 7 in Beverly Hills, at which he spoke.
There was an “impressive presence and support of solidarity, not just from the Jewish community but so many of my colleagues that were there and some other elected officials,” he told JNS. He came away from the event convinced that Israel has partners in the city.
“I can work here,” he told JNS. “We can do a lot here.”
His portfolio at the consulate covers Arizona, Southern California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.
In his first “quite an intense month,” the envoy has seen “a lot of passion in the Jewish community to Israel” in Los Angeles and a “very powerful, very supportive community.”
He thinks the state and the Jewish state can partner more in areas like “cyber and medical and agro-tech and of course, an entertainment sector that is growing.”
He noted that California has the second most Jews in the country after New York. “At the end of the day, it’s people-to-people. It’s not just government-to-government,” he said. “The potential is enormous.”
“We should continue together to improve life there, to improve Jewish life here and for a better future for a young generation,” he told JNS.
Having seen University of Amsterdam students “think twice” before going to the campus, he opted to visit the University of California, Los Angeles early in his tenure in his new role.
He thinks that the chancellor of UCLA, which signed two agreements with Hebrew University of Jerusalem last month, “understands the importance that all students feel safe and secure when they come to campus.”
“It’s important, because there is a growing call of collaboration between the universities,” he told JNS.
‘Israel is too small’
The envoy comes from a family impacted by the Holocaust. His grandfather was murdered in Romania, and his mother and grandmother “escaped from place to place in Romania” and reached Israel.
His father, who is from Bulgaria, fought in Israel’s 1948 War for Independence.
Before joining the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Ephraim was a lawyer and a senior political adviser to the late Israeli President Shimon Peres.
In the past 30 years, he has served as Israeli ambassador to Peru and as Israeli consul in Houston, in addition to being envoy in the Netherlands.
“I always felt that I should be committed to the mission of not just promoting Israel but also the relation between Israel and the entire international community,” he told JNS.
“Israel is too small, and unfortunately we’re still facing a hostile environment,” he said. “Contact with the world is extremely important.”
Ephraim told JNS that, like his father’s family but not his mother’s, he isn’t Orthodox in his religious practice. He keeps the “tradition of Shabbat” and observes the High Holidays.
“Faith is something personal that you feel,” he told JNS. “You don’t necessarily need to have the full package.”
He has already met local rabbis. It’s important to “unite the forces and to work together,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Orthodox, Conservative or Reform.”
He also plans to contact important figures in the film industry to bring them on trips to Israel. A year ago, more than 5,000 members of the international film industry said that they won’t work with Israeli film institutions “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
Ephraim thinks that there is a “silent majority” in the industry that isn’t anti-Israel.
“We would like them to be more active, more understanding, more convincing and explaining to their colleagues what Israel is about,” he told JNS.
He also aims to “show Israel beyond the conflict, especially with the entertainment sector here.”
“More artists, more productions, joint productions with the Israeli industry and not just here in California, but in the seven states that I’m responsible for,” Ephraim told JNS.
