by Jill Huber
NJJN Bureau Chief/Monmouth

January 20, 2009

Evan Levitt, the new financial resource development director of the Jewish Federation of Monmouth County, plans to bring a thorough knowledge of Jewish communal service to his federation job.

Levitt, a Baltimore native who began working for the federation on Jan. 1, will confer closely with the staff and board of directors to develop a campaign plan that will raise awareness of the organization’s community initiatives and lead to an increase in campaign revenue.

“I think we need a team effort to solicit donors,” Levitt told NJ Jewish News. “Part of the process will be to show how federation programs allow donors to have an impact on both local and overseas priorities.”

Levitt, who lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Risa, graduated from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut in 1998 and earned a graduate degree in Jewish community service with a focus on nonprofits from Gratz College in 2001.

After his graduation from Quinnipiac, Levitt went to Israel as a fellow of Project OTZMA, a United Jewish Communities fellowship program through which young Jewish leaders go to Israel for 10 months. He worked on a kibbutz and in a plastics factory in the country’s southern region, taught English to students in northern Israel, and assisted Serbian and Ethiopian immigrants during their absorption process in Ra’anana, located in central Israel.

“Many of the Ethiopians arrived with only the clothes on their backs,” said Levitt, who has visited the Jewish state 12 times. “They had to learn how to use all the things — such as indoor plumbing and electricity — that are basics of 20th- and 21st-century society.”

He became increasingly familiar with UJC’s overseas programs.

“My programs in Israel were funded by UJC and federation dollars,” said Levitt. “This set me on my career path.”

‘Perform a mitzva’

In 2002, Levitt became a development associate, and then the senior major gifts officer, for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. His responsibilities included fund-raising, community building, and Super Sunday planning. After five years with the Philadelphia federation, Levitt went to work for the city’s branch of the Jewish National Fund, where he organized a community campaign to raise money for a memorial in Israel in honor of Michael Levin, a former city resident who died in 2006 while serving as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces.

Levitt also developed and launched JNF’s one-time Common Ground program, which sent a group of 41 teens — 17 Jews, 17 Christians, and seven Muslims — to Israel for a 10-day period.

“They learned about the possibilities for coexistence and the challenges that face people of different faiths,” he said. “When the teens returned home, they spoke about the trip at synagogues, churches, and mosques. The non-Jewish kids said they had a great time in Israel, even if they didn’t agree with Israeli politics. It was very significant to hear the Christian and Muslim teens communicate this, and it shows the importance of the U.S.-Israel connection.

“They saw firsthand that Israel is an open place that welcomes people of all faiths,” he continued. “The Muslim teens were able to pray in a mosque in a Jewish country. Instead of focusing on their differences, this helped everyone who took the trip recognize the things they have in common.”

The teens also learned that some aspects of life in Israel are subject to interpretation. For example, Israeli Jews may regard security fences as signs of safety, while Muslims may regard them as emblems of repression, Levitt said.

The teens, said Levitt, “were able to talk about tough topics, and they established a rapport with one another. They learned that having different points of view does not make someone a bad person.”

Now that he’s working for the Monmouth County federation, Levitt said, he hopes to implement fund-raising tactics that have been successful elsewhere, and plans to further engage the organization’s beneficiary agencies in raising money that will create more bold initiatives.

“The donors have a lot of impact, and the federation can encourage this through philanthropy,” he said. “We need to demonstrate to the donors that they can perform a mitzva by making a gift that affects something they care about in the Jewish community.”

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