David Saranga

Who is David Saranga?

David Saranga is an Israeli diplomat and former Consul for Media and Public Affairs of Israel in the United States. Saranga was responsible for Israel’s image in the United States and was the liaison person of Israel to the American media. The Jewish Chronicle described him as “The man whose campaigns are rebranding Israel." Saranga’s initiative to invite Maxim magazine to Israel generated debate about the definition of public diplomacy. Prof. John H. Brown of Georgetown University described this initiative as the first event in a new branch of Public Diplomacy. Saranga was the first diplomat who implemented Web 2.0 governmental initiatives, including the first official blog of a country, a MySpace page, YouTube channel, Facebook page and a political blog.

Saranga fielded questions on behalf of Israel in what was the first government worldwide press conference via Twitter to take questions from the public about the December 2008 war with Hamas.

In March 2008, former Time Out Tel Aviv editor David Kaufman wrote a feature story about Israel’s branding project, where he profiled the wide range of initiatives Saranga launched during his tenure in New York.