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Friday September 29, 2006

Israel Center’s head wants to bring local Israelis together

by joe eskenazi

When the Israel Center’s founding director, Shlomi Ravid, was searching for his successor as the center’s director, he decided he wanted either an Israeli who was very American or an American who was very Israeli.

In Neal Levy, he found both.

Levy shares what was perhaps Ravid’s core conviction: a belief in Israel’s primacy in the lives of modern American Jews. It’s certainly been that way for him.

Born and raised in Encino, Levy graduated from high school a year early and worked on a kibbutz. He returned to attend U.C. Berkeley, but abruptly quit when the Yom Kippur War broke out and was on the next plane to Israel. He served in the army from 1974 to ’77 (first as an aerial photographer, then an infantry medic) before returning to Berkeley. Instead of three weeks, this time he lasted three years, graduating with a pair of degrees.

Over the past two and a half decades he’s worked for former Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, held a number of positions in the Jerusalem Foundation and helped turn the Yitzhak Rabin Center into a reality.

He arrived in San Francisco in July and formally assumed the reins of the Israel Center of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation on Aug. 1.

He was initially reluctant to leave Israel (Ravid first floated the possibility two years ago), which could explain one of his major goals for the Israel Center: create more of a communal space for Israelis here.

“There’s a large community of Israelis, [especially] in the South Bay, and many of them are looking for a community. There’s no community they feel they belong to. The way they identify Jewishly is different. Most American Jews identify either through synagogue life or through philanthropic involvement. For Israelis, it’s much more cultural. It’s holidays and language and literature, and this is what they want to pass on to their kids,” says the soft-spoken yet fast-talking 51-year-old.

“We have to work to bring them in to a situation where they feel comfortable as a community and link it to the organized Jewish community.”

Levy isn’t sure just how to do that, but a “virtual community center” where Israelis meet for lectures in Hebrew, Hebrew reading clubs or kids programs might be a start. The sight of hundreds, if not thousands, of young Israelis bantering in Hebrew, wheeling around strollers and taking in the sights and sounds at Israel in the Gardens made a big impression on Levy.

“I could see it was a very special event for them, being together and hearing Hebrew and having Israeli culture. It was something very important to them.”

Creating more opportunities for the Bay Area’s Israelis dovetails nicely with another goal of Levy’s — establishing more of a presence in the South Bay, where a plurality of the Bay Area’s Jews now resides.

In the wake of a frightening and destructive war, Levy is hoping the flow of Jewish American tourists in Israel won’t slow to a trickle as it did back in the early days of the intifada. His overall goal is for every synagogue and Jewish institution in the Bay Area to introduce an Israel travel program, for which the Israel Center will be all too happy to work out the logistics.

And in the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” department, Levy hopes to continue two of Ravid’s major successes: bringing Israeli bands and performers to the Bay Area and implementing a formal curriculum system for Israel education in local day schools and supplemental schools. Additionally, Levy hopes every school will find an Israeli “twin,” which could even lead to travel opportunities.

Levy, who has two grown children in Israel (his daughter, coincidentally, is in the same army unit as Ravid’s daughter), says his sees Israel Center post as at least a three-year commitment.

He also hopes that the center and its work become better known in the Jewish community. He hopes the days of being perceived as “a stepchild of the federation” are over.

He’d rather the center be appreciated as “an important department of federation, perhaps even the flagship department of federation.”

Can he succeed? Levy offers a sphinx-like smile.

“Time will tell.”

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