My interview with Austria’s new ambassador in Washington
I spoke with Martin Weiss about his career, particularly his four years as ambassador in Israel, for Jewish Insider.
Martin Weiss had traveled in Israel years ago with his family, in part to visit his friend, who was then Austrian ambassador in Tel Aviv. The Weisses (spoiler: they aren’t Jewish) found the country—from its history to its culinary scene—interesting in every sense, Weiss, Austria’s new ambassador in Washington, told me in a recent interview.
Weiss was spokesman in the Austrian ministry of foreign affairs when Sebastian Kurz, then 27, became the nation’s foreign affairs minister. (Kurz, now 34, is Austrian chancellor. “He’s getting to be an old man now,” Weiss said.)
My recent photo of Ambassador Martin Weiss at the Austrian ambassadorial residence in Washington. The paintings are by his daughter, a designer now based in Vienna.
When Weiss’ term was up, Kurz asked what he wanted to do next. “If you could send me to Israel, I think that would be pretty cool,” Weiss said. Weiss told me he never brought the conversation up and did no further lobbying. When the position opened, he submitted his CV. He got a call from someone on the decision-making commission.
“He said, ‘You wanna know where you go?’ I said, ‘Tell me.’ He said, ‘You know what? The minister kind of thought it would be a good idea if you would go to Israel,’” Weiss told me. “So that was the end of the discussion in the committee.”
I talked to Weiss—whom I “met” virtually for my Washington Post Magazine article “Why the baroque politeness of diplomatic notes is what the world needs now”—for more than three hours at the Austrian ambassadorial residence in Washington. I address the main themes of our discussion in my Jewish Insider article “From Vienna to Washington by way of Tel Aviv: Meet Austria’s U.S. envoy” published today.