Despite the markedly different responsibilities, Levine is as enthusiastic as ever about the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.
“I don’t know if there’s any single institution I have a stronger feeling for,” he said last week, sipping tea at the JCC’s Nosh City Cafe.
Levine is arriving at a crucial juncture. On one hand, the center is still recovering from the financial collapse it suffered two years ago. On the other hand, the center is poised to either massively renovate or raze and rebuild on its current site at 3200 California St.
Center leaders are hoping that the 44-year-old Los Angeles native will be one of the keys to the JCC’s success.
“He has a tremendous amount to do,” Gale Mondry, JCC board president, said. “I do feel lucky to have him.”
Since his humble start at the JCC, the personable Levine has rapidly moved up the ranks of the nonprofit and fund-raising world.
Since leaving San Francisco’s JCC in 1980, he has worked as director of adult services and physical education at the Peninsula JCC in Belmont and as the executive director of the Berkeley-Richmond JCC.
In 1984, he joined the staff of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation. He eventually became its associate executive director and chief operating officer.
Three years ago, he left Jewish communal work to “broaden my experience.” He was hired as development director at the Stanford University Law School. In that capacity, he has raised more than $60 million for the school.
The Redwood City resident wasn’t actively looking for a new job but got interested this summer when the center’s leaders approached, asking him to apply. He was one of three finalists interviewed for the position.
Levine’s combination of familiarity with JCCs, with the Bay Area and with fund-raising strategies were all factors that led to his hiring.
“A number of people mentioned him as the perfect fit,” Mondry said.
“He can hit the ground running. He knows the community’s needs and its desires…He is very smart. He works well with a variety of people…He’s been effective in every job he has had.”
Levine, who declined to disclose his salary, will start work in late October. He will replace Zev Hymowitz, a former national JCC consultant who was hired as a short-term director two years ago.
Some may wonder why Levine would want to take over the JCC, which occupies an old, rundown structure and continues to struggle with a sizable deficit.
The center’s problems reached the public eye in spring 1995. With a deficit topping $1.5 million, the center laid off staff, cut its hours and eventually closed its fitness club and pool.
That summer, the JCC hired Hymowitz. Since then, the center has slowly reintroduced programming. It also turned over fitness club operations to a private company and knocked down its deficit to around $300,000.
But the center still has a long way to go before it could be considered a flourishing community organization.
“I’m fully aware of the problems,” Levine said. “But that’s not what I think of when I think of the JCC.”
Instead, he thinks of its legacy as a hub of San Francisco Jewish life and describes a place where “people’s lives are changed constantly.”
His attachment to San Francisco’s JCC began nearly 20 years ago. Fresh out of Cornell University with a master’s degree in biophysics and a background in sports medicine, Levine was looking to start a rehab program for heart patients outside a hospital setting.
He made a cold call to the JCC and got offered an entry-level job as towel boy and afternoon sports coach. He soon found himself deeply committed to working for the Jewish community.
“I got hooked on the spirit,” he said. “It was invigorating, exhilarating.”
While working as executive director at the Berkeley Richmond JCC, Levine himself found something special: Charlene Akers, his wife of 12 years and an author.
Levine isn’t prepared to offer specifics about his plans for transforming the JCC yet or to say whether he favors renovation over razing. He is first waiting for the results of a market analysis currently under way.
Whatever the future, Levine believes local Jews will respond when asked for support.
Before he interviewed for the job, Levine asked a number of friends about their impressions of the center’s past and future. If their response had been lukewarm, Levine said, he probably wouldn’t have considered the job. Instead, he encountered an enthusiasm similar to his own.
“There’s a reservoir of good will,” he said. “I was really buoyed.”