(Jerusalem) Before entering the Knesset screening room, Vice President of the JNF, Women's Campaign, Terry Katz of Bala Cynwyd, PA., stepped away from the spread of boureka pastries to tell me why she attends Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) courses taught by Chabad representative Rabbi Shraga Sherman.

“When I went to Hebrew School, the State of Israel wasn't founded yet. I know Bible stories but Shraga's class gives me the story of Judaism to fill in gaps in my Jewish knowledge,” she said.  

In my childhood, the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael) and Chabad-Lubavitch moved along parallel orbits of my Jewish experience. A JNF blue tzedaka box had its place right by the pencil cup in my grandparent's kitchen and I received a stack of JNF certificates telling me that a tree had been planted in honor of my bat mitzvah, but these never rubbed up against the tzedaka dollars I received from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, or shared a shelf with books from Chabad publishers. When I joined the JNF biennial World Leadership Conference on their tour, I expected to meet Jews who inhabited the Zionist sphere of Jewish existence with little or no overlap in the world of Chabad.

Meeting Ms. Katz was just an introduction to how misguided I was. The account of her personal connection with the work of Chabad-Lubavitch was repeated in different words and a variety of accents by many of the 200 delegates at the conference.

The delegates came to examine the rebirth of swaths of forest destroyed by wildfire in the Carmel region, and to absorb briefings on the water-table preservation and recycling technology being funded by the 110-year-old organization, which planted some of the most breathtaking forests near my home in Israel. 

The delegates had trees, ecology and greening the land on their minds, but when they discovered a Lubavitch.com reporter in their midst, they paused on their tour of the Knesset to praise the Chabad representatives in their home communities. 

Max Federman, president of KKL-JNF Sweden, spoke to me as the group meandered along a gleaming, polished stone walkway to the Knesset parliament chamber. Chabad is appealing, he told me, because of their energy.  In his city, Rabbi Chaim and Mina Greisman present programs "nearly every two weeks.”

“They pull in the young people and focus on Jewish education." 

Marianne Prager, an Israeli-trained opera singer and host of JewishStockholm.com, feels Chabad of Stockholm, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary, fills the city's need for a charismatic Jewish leader unencumbered by the community's traditional, at times rigid, structure. 

Stella Salem, president of KKL-JNF of Greece, said the 2000 year old roots of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki, Greece, which she called "Salonika," are being strengthened by Chabad's Rabbi Yoel and Ruth Kaplan. 

"I am a very secular Jew, and he is very good about it. He suits our community and is very close to the young people."

Of the many delegates who spoke fondly of their Chabad ties, few had adopted the accessories mode of dress of Orthodox Jews. Accepting Jews as they are and encouraging them to take on one more mitzvah is an idea that Chabad has championed, suffered criticism for, and has begun to enjoy quiet emulation in other Jewish circles. 

Why?

I guess because it works. Salem spent her last Passover Seder with Chabad and 70 other Jewish Thessaloniki residents and may do so again this year. 

Chabad's popularity with the under-35 crowd was another common thread of the delegates' admiration of Chabad. Sky high rates of assimilation and intermarriage worries many delegates, who were mostly well into middle age. While Raymond Zeiger of KKL-JNF in Rio de Janeiro has yet to commit to regular synagogue attendance, his youngest son Richard, age 30, has started attending Shabbat services at Chabad. 

Zeiger attributes this to Chabad's "incredible marketing," but when he elaborates, he describes how a Chabad rabbi welcomed his son to services, helped him find a seat, showed him a place in the prayer book. It might be marketing that brought Richard and others like him through Chabad's door, but the rest sounds like good, old-fashioned "Love your fellow Jew" treatment. 

David Goodman, CEO of the JNF-KKL of the United Kingdom summed up the feelings of many. 

"Lubavitch has earned the respect of many elements of the community because they are there to embrace you.”