The winner of a hit reality TV show in Israel knows something about self-promotion, and even more about promoting the country he calls home.

The best advocate for Israel "is not the person who knows the most facts and the most figures," Eytan Schwartz told an audience in Livingston last week. "It's the person that appeals to your heart, it's the person that touches you and has a good sense of humor, the one you want to take home for a beer or to take home for dinner."

It was all these qualities that made Schwartz a winner of The Ambassador, the Israeli series that set out to pick a person who could best promote Israel to audiences abroad. Schwartz, a native New Yorker who made aliya as a child with his family, outpaced 1,000 applicants and 14 finalists in 2005 to earn a one-year job with Israel at Heart, a New York-based advocacy group founded by Joey Low.

Speaking to members of the Ben-Gurion Society of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ's Young Leadership Division — made up of those who have given more than $1,000 to the UJA annual campaign — on Oct. 2 at Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston, Schwartz said the best way to improve Israel's public image is to concentrate more on its deep cultural riches and less on political strife.

Schwartz, 33, said Israel faced a constant battle to dispel the notion that it is a dangerous, backward nation. By comparison, he said, Brazil had three times more violent crime per capita than Israel but was cast in a more favorable light because that government was smart enough to highlight the country's music and culture and play down the negative aspects.

"You never get to see Israel in a funny light..." Schwartz said. "It's always miserable, it's always sad, it's always about terrorism. Something silly and stupid and funny that makes you laugh — you never see."

Schwartz, who worked in the entertainment industry before trying out for the highly rated program, showed clips of some of the tasks he and his fellow contestants had to perform. They included creating a television commercial, getting people in France to sign up for trips to Israel, and giving a speech to students at Cambridge University in England.

Contestants also met with key political leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres, who praised the show for its intelligence and ambitious purpose.

Prior to the UJC MetroWest program, Schwartz told NJ Jewish News he was thrilled with his prize.

"I was given the mandate to go wherever I wanted, to do whatever programming I wanted," he said. He believed his background as an "everyman" helped make him more credible with the people he met. "I didn't come in as a governmental official or as a politician or a general in the IDF.... I was a regular guy speaking about Israel. That was...my shtick."

He said he normally did not speak about "the political stuff," unless audience members want to hear about such matters.

Most college students in the United States and abroad — even those who are Jewish — are not interested in hearing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.

"They're tired of hearing about [it]. It's a nuisance. It's like a fly that's been buzzing around your ears for 18 years," Schwartz said. "Ten percent of the students hate Israel and 10 percent love it; you're not going to get [either group] to change their minds."

Instead, he said, the focus should be on the 80 percent who are indifferent. Rather than inundate them with rhetoric, Schwartz suggested accentuating the positive, such as Israel's open and accepting culture, "things they can relate to."

He praised programs like Birthright Israel, which often give young Jews their first taste of the country. "Ten days in Israel, having fun, that's all it takes," he said.

Schwartz, who continues to serve as a consultant for pro-Israel organizations and political figures on advocacy and media performance, pointed out that The Ambassador's three finalists — a woman from Ethiopia, a British-born man, and himself — were non-native-born Israelis.

"Maybe the 'real' Israelis aren't the best ones to be speaking about Israel," he said; some groups are "psychologically" put off by their accents. "Audiences hear different things when we say them."

Schwartz urged the young leaders to "do something different, because the old stuff doesn't work."

The group of about 50 at Beth Shalom included Schwartz's wife, Reyut, his father, an aunt, and several cousins, including Claude and Elana Szyfer, event cochairs with Geoffrey Silverstein.

"The last time I spoke to so many of my family members, it was at my bar mitzva," Schwartz said.