Evening at the Embassy
November 19, 2008
[As Prepared]
Shalom,... Mr. Ambassador, thank you for hosting us this evening. What a tremendous honor this is to be a guest at the Embassy and to have the chance to visit with you once again. Thanks as well to Ron Glancz, Ron Halber, and everyone with the Jewish Community Relations Council who helped make this evening possible.
We’re joined tonight by Abba Polakoff and Barry Bogage, Chair and Executive Director of the Maryland Israel Development Center, a partnership between the Jewish community, the State of Israel’s Ministry of Industry and Trade, and our state government in Maryland.
One of the reasons the Center has been so effective, is that Marylanders and Israelis enjoy a unique and special relationship which dates all the way back to the early days of Israel’s modern history. As you may recall, it was from our shores in Maryland that the Exodus set sail on a mission that would touch the conscience of the world and inspire international recognition of the State of Israel.
Sixty years later, shortly after Israel celebrated her anniversary, it was my tremendous privilege as Governor to present Prime Minister Olmert with a proclamation from the people of Maryland congratulating Israel on this significant milestone.
In the intervening years, Israel and Maryland have collaborated on everything from marine bioscience and agricultural research to homeland security. In fact, Maryland was the first State to establish jointly funded research and development teams with Israel,…
And in this past legislative session, motivated by our shared concern about the threats posed by Iran, together with so many who are with us this evening, we in Maryland passed some of the strongest legislation in America promoting divestment from Iran. This had special meaning to those of us who grew up in the shadow of the Cold War, as we didn’t want our children or Israeli children to grow up in the shadow of a nuclear Iran.
Tonight, I want to talk with you about another great area of partnership between the Israeli people and the people of Maryland; a growing, cutting edge partnership which affirms the great Talmudic principle that “the highest form of wisdom is kindness.” I want to speak with you about our partnerships in biotechnology, the sciences of healing.
Our Recent Trip to Israel
This past May, we took a delegation from our Administration to Israel on a trade mission to promote these bioscience partnerships which are so central to the economic futures of both Israel and Maryland.
This was my second opportunity to visit Israel, my first having come during the years when I was blessed with the privilege of serving the people of Baltimore as their Mayor. Through both visits, I’ve been struck by all the wonderful things that make Israel, “Israel” … the tremendous beauty, the sense of history which seems to flow through the air, and the warmth, courage, and resiliency of the Israeli people.
I will never forget the beauty of Mt. Masada or awe I felt in the Old City. I will also never forget my second visit to Yad Vashem, one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. There is a room at Yad Vashem which remains emblazoned in my memory – it’s filled with children’s shoes, a haunting reminder not only of a tragic past, but of the human responsibility we share in our own here and now to prevent genocide and live by the creed of Never Again.
As we spoke with everyday Israelis throughout our visit, I think I can speak for all of us in saying that we were reminded quite vividly that Marylanders and Israelis are united by shared values: our shared belief in the dignity of every individual; our deep embrace of community and our collective responsibility to advance the common good; our shared commitment to democracy and freedom; and the desire we feel in our hearts to secure the blessings of liberty for our children so that they might inherit a safer, more peaceful world.
We’re united as well by our shared belief in the pursuit of tikkun olam, repair of the world. It is tikkun olam which underlies so much of what we’re trying to accomplish together in the biosciences.
A Partnership for Healing
President Truman predicted that Israel would have a quote “glorious future before it,” because it would be, in his words “not just another sovereign nation, but … an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.”
Through its global leadership in the life sciences, Israel truly is living up to this promise, exporting more healing on a per capita basis than any country on earth. And thus, while her enemies seek to develop weapons of mass destruction, Israel proliferates what Dr. Jeffrey Sachs calls “weapons of mass salvation” – the cures, the sciences, and the technologies of healing.
In this sense, as we’ve sought to grow our bioscience industry here in Maryland, we’ve been looking to Israel both as a partner and somewhat as a role-model.
So this is what brought us to Israel. During the course of our week in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv we attended an international bioscience conference and had the opportunity to discuss opportunities for partnership with dozens of Israeli entrepreneurs and business executives. We also had the opportunity to meet with officials both in and outside of government, including Prime Minister Olmert, Shimon Peres, and Bibi Netanyahu.
During my conversation with Bibi Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister was surprised by just how many institutions of science and discovery are located in Maryland. As I began to list them off – NIH, the FDA, etc.—he’d ask, “isn’t that in DC?” Needless to say he was impressed, and when you think about it, we in Maryland are able to boast some truly unique and valuable assets.
Maryland’s Assets
As many of you know, our State is home to all of America’s major federal research and regulatory agencies, in addition to some of the world’s leading institutions of science and discovery.
And as impressive as our institutional resources are, our greatest assets are the talents, the creativity, the skills, and the ingenuity of our people. We have, according to Forbes Magazine, one of America’s three most highly skilled workforces and that’s because we also have one of America’s three best public school systems.
When we talk with Israeli companies seeking to do business in Maryland, we are able to explain that Maryland has the highest percentage of doctoral scientists and engineers in the United States and the second highest percentage of professional and technical workers. On a per capita basis, we rank first in the nation in terms of federal research and development obligations. And we are home to 20 technology incubators.
This tremendous strength in our human capital is one of the reasons that the Milken Institute, which provides definitive state-by-state bioscience rankings, recently moved Maryland’s overall ranking from #4 in America to #2 – saying that we’re one of two states best positioned to leverage science and technology assets for growth. One of reasons they cited is that we rank #1 in America in terms of the investments we make in our human capital.
Speaking of investments, this past summer we announced a $1.3 billion investment in our State’s life science sector through an initiative we call Bio 2020. This represents the largest per capita investment any State has ever made in the biosciences, and it’s projected to leverage $6.3 billion for our State in private and federal investments.
To Israeli companies who may look at all these assets and consider doing business here in Maryland, we’re also able to offer an outstanding quality of life. I doubt I have to remind anyone here that Maryland is one of America’s most vibrant centers of Jewish life, and we have a large community of Israeli residents already working in Maryland and participating in social and business networks.
In fact, I’m told that there is an apartment complex in Rockville that is home to so many Israeli families that it’s known in Israel (as well as locally) as “the Kibbutz.”
Our Israeli residents conduct research at the National Institutes of Health, they work at the many Israeli companies currently doing business in our State, and some of Maryland’s Israeli residents even work on the staff here at the Israeli Embassy.
Current Maryland-Israeli Partnerships
Perhaps the very best advertising we are able to offer to prospective Israeli partners is that Maryland is home to nearly 30 Israeli companies, with more than 50 Israeli firms doing business in the Washington-Baltimore metro area.
We’re home, for example to Teva Pharmaceuticals, Israel’s largest bioscience company and the world’s largest manufacturer of generic drugs. Teva purchased Rockville-based CoGenesys in February, and following our meeting with company officials in Israel, they affirmed their commitment to working in Maryland this past spring.
Two other companies we met with in Israel announced new U.S. offices in Rockville around the same time; BiolineRX, one of Israel’s leading pharmaceutical development companies, and ClassifEye, which develops identity authentication solutions.
In the days and months ahead, we hope to have more news about Israeli companies opening U.S. operations in Maryland, and we’re working very hard with the Maryland Israel Development Center to make it so.
Progress Together with the Jewish Community
Before I close my remarks, I want offer a final thought. The United States and Israel are two of only a small handful of countries in this world which engage in peaceful transfers of power – and both our countries are going through this process now.
When our new President-elect visited Israel as a candidate, he reportedly asked Shimon Peres what he could do as President to help Israel. It’s been reported that Mr. Peres offered to Barack Obama the following advice: “be a great president for the United States.”
Our ability to be an attractive global partner here in Maryland relies upon our ability to remain a place where people want to live, work, and raise a family.
Thus, one of the best ways we can strengthen our special relationship with Israel, is to strengthen our priorities here in Maryland,... to continue making the most important investments of all: our investments in one another.
And so, to those of you who are with us tonight that live in Maryland, we need your help as we continue together to make progress toward the goals we all share:
- To strengthen and grow the ranks of our upwardly-mobile middle class and family owned businesses;
- To improve public safety and public education in every part of our State;
- To expand opportunity – the opportunity to learn and earn and the opportunity to enjoy the health of the people we love and the environment we love – to more Marylanders rather than fewer.
During these past two years, our Administration has worked very closely with the Jewish community on many of these important issues, including health care, housing, the environment, quality of life for our seniors, and the Iran divestment legislation I discussed at the opening of my remarks.
Working together, we’ve closed the Medicare “donut hole,” and we’ve passed the Flexible Leave Act, along with several important pieces of environmental legislation which are moving us closer to the more sustainable future all of us prefer for our State.
What’s more, together we’ve delivered key funding for Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities, refugee resettlement, and three agencies of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.
Conclusion
But our work is not done, and we need your help and assistance as we continue to pursue tikkun olam; as we continue to work to repair the world and bring about the better future all of us prefer for our children and their grandchildren.
And as we continue this strive for progress that has defined the history of both the United States and Israel, I leave you tonight with some words from President Kennedy:
“Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.”
Shalom and thank you for inviting me to join you tonight. Next year in Jerusalem.
