Alex Rayter credits his mother for kickstarting his interest in Judaism and the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation.
When asked how he came to immerse himself in the Bay Area Jewish community, this year’s recipient of the federation’s Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Young Leadership said it all began with a 2009 email his mother sent him about an upcoming trip to Israel for young adult Jews from the former Soviet Union.
“I had missed the opportunity to go on Birthright,” said Rayter, 38, “and though I had a grandfather who was pretty religious, I was very disconnected from Jewish life in my teens.”
That S.F.-based JCF-sponsored trip to Israel six years ago proved transformative, allowing Rayter to acquire a profound sense of identity. “I always wanted to belong to a community I really admire,” said the San Francisco resident.
As a youngster in Lvov, Rayter said, he felt neither Russian nor Ukrainian, and “we didn’t feel that Jewish either.” He moved to San Francisco with his family in the fall of 1987.
Now Rayter, who is one of the youngest members of the federation’s board of directors — a post he assumed last year — said he can never work hard enough on behalf of the Bay Area Jewish community. “It’s a hobby and a duty,” he said.
And clearly a passion.
A high-energy high-tech entrepreneur who says he has no time for TV and frivolous pastimes, Rayter is a member of the federation’s Business Leadership Council programming and steering committees and participates in its Pro Bono Consulting Practice for nonprofits requiring technology assistance. He also has taken part in two rounds of the federation’s Russian Engagement Impact Grants Initiative, served as a member of its board of governors, and sat on Super Sunday recruitment committees and on the Big Mitzvah committee.
One of his greatest joys in working on behalf of federation, Rayter said, is assuming a leadership role in MishMash, the Russian Jewish Community Steering Committee, of which he is chair. Through MishMash, he has succeeded in bringing into federation the support and engagement of many other 20-, 30- and 40-something Jewish émigrés.
“Alex has done a great job of building bridges among Russian-speaking Jews, young adults and business leadership,” said Alia Gorkin, the federation’s director of Young Adult Engagement.
Gorkin’s federation colleague Katherine Tick, the director of Leadership Development, agreed. Rayter demonstrates an insatiable curiosity and deep love for all things Jewish, she said. “Working with him is empowering to me.”
The managing principal of Phoenix 2.0, Inc., an IT consulting firm, and founder of the company’s managed services division, Rayter recently helped a close friend establish an initiative called JS Dance Reach, which provides ballroom and classical dance instruction to youth from underserved Bay Area communities. It is part of a wider initiative of a federation donor-advised fund he created in the memory of his cousin, Jason Shmelnik, who died at age 23 in a car crash three years ago.
The S.F.-based JCF’s Dinkelspiel Award, established in 1961, is annually bestowed on a federation leader 40 years old or younger. The selection committee is composed of former award recipients, many of whom have gone on to other major roles in the federation, including president.
“Getting the award is adding fuel to the fire,” Rayter said. It motivates him to work even harder and to inspire more people to become involved in the organization.
The award comes only weeks before another significant event in Rayter’s life: his Nov. 21 wedding to his longtime girlfriend.