“It’s much harder to be an Israeli diplomat than to be a diplomat representing most other countries. Let’s say you’re the ambassador for Australia — what’s in the news? That there has been a slight change in their economic policy?” Tova Herzl a former member of Israel’s diplomatic corps laughs. Although she officially retired from the Foreign Ministry about a decade ago the recent publication of her memoir Madame Ambassador: Behind the Scenes with a Candid Israeli Diplomat (Rowman & Littlefield) has brought her back into the limelight and she clearly enjoys her role as raconteur. Her book as Tova readily admits is no tell-all tome about some of the world’s most powerful people. Nor does it reveal hush-hush secrets about Israel’s defense systems or clandestine relations with outwardly hostile countries. Instead she says she wants to give readers an inside look into what an ambassador actually does to go beyond the glamour and share some of the nitty-gritty behind-the-scenes details of a job that by definition takes place mostly in the public eye. First though as we sit down with tea and biscuits in Tova’s comfortable Jerusalem apartment I want to find out how one becomes an ambassador — especially a Torah-observant woman who began her diplomatic career back in the 1980s.