Assistant Majority Leader Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) leaves Chicago today with Governor Pat Quinn’s delegation to Israel on a goodwill and trade mission. Illinois has long maintained a high-performing trade office in Israel.

“There is already a strong connection between the high tech, biotech and agriculture sectors of Illinois’s economy and that of Israel,” Schoenberg said. “With this delegation headed up by Gov. Quinn,  the push now will be to grow that research and economic partnership even further.”

According to the Governor’s office, the group’s itinerary will include visiting a facility of Schaumburg-based Motorola Solutions, which makes police radios, bar code scanners and other products for corporate and government entities. They will also visit Better Place, an innovative Israel-based enterprise seeking to build a nationwide network of charging stations for electric cars.

In addition, Governor Quinn’s office reports he will sign a “sister lakes” agreement between Lake Michigan and Lake Kinneret, also known as the Sea of Galilee, and will attend a ceremony at Ben Gurion University of the Negev for an agreement between the University of Illinois-Chicago and Ben Gurion University to promote exchanging faculty, research and other partnership opportunities.

The delegation is also scheduled to meet with a series of high-ranking government officials during their stay in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Sen. Schoenberg previously participated in a 2006 state Homeland Security sector trade mission to Israel, where he met with officials from Motorola and Teva Pharmaceuticals and addressed a meeting of 65 Israeli entrepreneurs and investors in Hebrew.

The Governor’s delegation is being coordinated by the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago.