Gov. Martin O’Malley heads to Israel on Tuesday for a weeklong trip with a heavy emphasis on economic development for Maryland as well as meetings with government leaders during the 60th anniversary of Israel’s founding.

O’Malley previewed the trip in his keynote address to the annual meeting of the Baltimore Jewish Council on Thursday, and won praise there for his support of a new law that requires Maryland’s pension system to sell its investments in companies doing business with Iran.

“We’ve always had a good relationship with Governor O’Malley from his days as mayor,” said Jon Laria, the council’s incoming president, who accompanied O’Malley on his first trip to Israel in 2005 and will also go along next week. “Our No. 1 legislative priority this year was the Iran divestment bill.”

O’Malley said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told him such divestment was important to Israel’s security. O’Malley met Olmert when he was mayor of Jerusalem, and the governor hosted him for lunch during the November Mideast peace conference in Annapolis.

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Next week, O’Malley will speak at the annual Israel Biomed Conference, touting Maryland as a location for life sciences companies to a symposium that attracts more than 5,000 people from 40 countries.

Barry Bogage, executive director of the Maryland/Israel Development Center, has been putting together the program for the trip.

O’Malley will meet with companies the state has been courting, Bogage said.

There are already 30 Israeli companies with operations in Maryland, many of them in biomedicine, an important part of Israel’s export trade.

“Hopefully, he’ll seal the deal” with some of the hottest prospects as he hosts events and meets with Israeli executives, Bogage said.

O’Malley also will meet with executives from Teva Pharmaceuticals, which recently acquired Rockville-based CoGenesys for $400 million.

He is also scheduled to meet with Olmert as well as the trade minister.

Next Friday and Saturday, O’Malley will lay a wreath at Yad Vashem, the Israeli national memorial to Holocaust victims. On Saturday, he will travel to the desert fortress of Masada, ruins of an ancient site of resistance to the Roman occupiers, an important symbol of independence for the Jewish state.

 llazarick@baltimoreexaminer.com