Paramus–The Los Angeles-based Israeli-American Council (IAC), the preeminent Israeli-American organization in the Unites States, recently announced the opening of its newest regional office in New Jersey to serve the state’s sizable Israeli-American community. Some 30,000 Israelis are estimated to live in the Garden State.

The IAC New Jersey Regional Office will immediately begin to launch community-building initiatives in keeping with IAC’s mission of engaging and uniting the Israeli-American community. The IAC helps broaden support for Israel, bolster the Jewish and Israeli identity of the next generation, and engage in outreach to the Jewish-American community.

Shai Nemesh, of Paramus, N.J. has been named director of the New Jersey office. Before joining IAC, Nemesh spent more than 15 years working in the Jewish and Israeli communities. Nemesh served as international recruiting director and operations director as well as an alternate responsible officer (ARO) at ACAWE, recruiting and training international students participating in cultural exchange programs, including managing the company’s Israeli branch. Nemesh also served as operations director of Camp Young Judea in Sprout Lake, in upstate New York, and as a camp director for the National Federation of Temple Youth summer programs in Israel. Previously, Nemesh was part of the team coordinating more than 1,200 summer shlichim, or emissaries, of the Jewish Agency in the United States.

The New Jersey Regional Office is part of IAC’s national growth, which includes opening local offices throughout the United States to provide community and national-level structure for Israeli-Americans, working together with other organizations to offer support, and through its grant program, provide funding to Israeli-American community-building initiatives throughout the U.S. Headquartered in L.A. the IAC has already opened Regional Offices in Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, and New York.