In a certain sense, it was a black Labrador named Granola that led Lisa Baron Haet full circle to her career in international relations at the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind.
For 13 years, Granola was the guide dog of Baron Haet’s father, Donald Melvin Haet, an attorney who’d been legally blind since birth. Granola was trained at Guide Dogs for the Blind in California, where Haet senior served on the board of directors. Growing up in San Francisco in the groovy 1960s and ’70s, however, Baron Haet didn’t foresee Israel waiting for her at the end of that circle. 
Her family of six were “culinary Jews” whose lives revolved around horseback riding, dancing, and the beach. They spoke Spanish at home because her parents had met, married, and lived for four years in Mexico City. Her father had worked there for the United States government, and her Canadian mother was a dancer with the American Ballet Theater.
However, Baron Haet had friends who’d spent time in Israel during high school. Thus, in 1978, when she decided to drop out of her freshman year of university, a newspaper ad for a kibbutz program caught her interest.
She ended up spending four years in Israel, bouncing around among several kibbutzim, a moshav in the Sinai, and a preparatory program at Tel Aviv University.
“I went back to America in 1983 and went to San Francisco State University. Even then, the campus was terribly anti-Israel. But this is where I met all my good friends, got involved in Jewish campus life and pro-Israel activism, became more observant, and went on to work in the San Francisco Hillel. So it worked out for the best,” said Baron Haet, who earned a BA in recreation therapy and dance.
While in Israel, she’d met Meir Shetrit, son of the chief rabbi of Afula. Despite the culture clash – he was from an Orthodox Moroccan Israeli background, and she hailed from an unaffiliated American background – they fell in love. Baron Haet was warmly accepted by Shetrit’s “extremely open-minded, extremely religious” parents, for whom she had great respect and admiration.
The couple got engaged in Israel in 1987 when Baron Haet was there on a United Jewish Appeal (UJA) mission. She went through an Orthodox conversion, since her mother’s conversion was not considered halachic.
For nearly 20 years following their marriage, they lived near her parents in San Francisco. They had a daughter, Sarah Jean. Shetrit built a successful electrical contracting business.
“And then my husband’s parents died, and he felt that he really wanted to go back home to Israel,” Baron Haet recalled. “We were more observant than our family and friends, and he was afraid our daughter would become assimilated and marry a non-Jew.”
Although Baron Haet was an ardent Zionist and spoke Hebrew well, it was difficult for her to make aliyah because her parents were upset about the move.
“They supported Israel, but they never went to Israel, and they didn’t want us to leave. It was very, very hard.”
Making matters worse, her oldest sister died a month before their planned aliyah, and then her father took ill. Two weeks after the family of three arrived in 2004, Baron Haet returned to stay with her parents for a while to help them through this difficult time.
Settling down in Modi'in
She and her husband bought a house in Modi’in, but settling in was rough because eight-year-old Sarah was frequently sick during that first year, and Shetrit was commuting to San Francisco to run his business. Baron Haet appreciated the emotional support she got from her husband’s large Moroccan family, but she had no relatives of her own in Israel, and those days were hard.
“And it was harder in many ways for my husband because the Israel we came to was different than [the one he knew] when he grew up.”
Baron Haet struggled to find her place professionally.
“I had been a recreational and dance therapist for the mentally ill. I thought I would work in that field in Israel, but I didn’t feel confident enough with my Hebrew to do that,” she said.
HERE’S WHERE the circle started heading back 360 degrees. Their daughter, Sarah, greatly missed Granola, and in 2008 she persuaded her parents to become puppy raisers for the Israel Guide Dog Center in honor of her grandfather.
Israel Guide Dog Center puppy raisers spend about a year teaching the dogs to respond to Hebrew commands (they can also learn Arabic, Russian, French, Spanish, or English), walk on the left on a short leash, never jump on furniture, and only take food from their handler, among other essential lessons.
Then the dog returns to the center in Beit Oved for evaluation and further training if it is deemed suitable for partnering with a blind person. If not, the dog may become a service dog for an IDF vet with PTSD or an emotional support dog for a child on the autism spectrum.
If none of these options works, the dog is offered for adoption first to the puppy raisers, who are often university students, and becomes a Guide Dog Center “ambassador.”
When Sarah’s puppy went back to Beit Oved in 2009, Baron Haet landed a job at the center’s resource development department, headed by fellow San Francisco native Dennis Alon.
Shetrit closed his business that year, ending his long commute. Over the next 17 years, the family took in 17 different dogs for short periods of time. Today, Sarah and her husband live in Ramat Gan with their Jack Russell terrier.
AT THE Guide Dog Center, Baron Haet coordinates visits from donors, writes reports and grant applications, edits newsletters, and raises awareness about the center’s work through overseas Friends of the Israel Guide Dog Center organizations. She interviews each client and translates their stories into English, to share with donors abroad.
She notes that the center’s breeding dogs (which live off-premises with families) produce about 130 puppies every year. This number is currently increasing to meet additional needs.
“We follow all our dogs for a lifetime to make sure they are in good health and treated properly,” Baron Haet emphasized.
She flew to San Francisco three times in the past year to tend to her mother, who passed away several months ago.
“America is less and less where I belong,” she observed. “Men are not wearing kippot in San Francisco. They have no minyanim [prayer quorums] at our old synagogue. The lack of Jewish identity is so sad.
“At the airport waiting to go back, I’d see people with kippot davening [praying], and it made me feel comfortable and ‘at home’. Even the jostling of getting on the plane didn’t bother me because I knew I was getting closer to Israel.” ■
Lisa Baron Haet, 65: From San Francisco to Modi’in, 2004