Uri Steinberg New Israel Tourism Commissioner, North America

Jerusalem-born Uri Steinberg has been appointed the State of Israel’s new Tourism Commissioner, North America, effective this month.

He succeeds Haim Gutin, who has returned to the Ministry’s Jerusalem head office, after a five-year stint in New York.

With experience in promoting tourism to Israel from the United States, Scandinavia and Holland, Steinberg oversaw the Ministry of Tourism’s North American tourism marketing department in Jerusalem prior to his move to New York.

Raised in the village of Neve Ilan in the Jerusalem Hills, Steinberg has a Bachelor of Arts’ degree in Journalism and Geography from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is completing his Masters’ degree work in Public Policy at Tel Aviv University. His university studies followed the mandatory three years’ service in the Israel Defense Forces.

Before joining the Israel Ministry of Tourism in 2005, Steinberg served four years as the senior assistant to the spokesperson of the Israel Ministry of Justice and Israel’s Attorney General.

In 2005, he was accepted to the highly respected Cadets Program of the Israel Ministry of Tourism, and from 2007 to 2011, headed the Ministry’s Israel Government Tourist Office in Chicago, with responsibility for promoting tourism to Israel from 13 states.