Ten questions with Jeffrey Savit

Jeffrey SavitEditor’s Note: Are there people in our community whom you see or hear from often but you really don’t know? Have you wondered what makes them tick? Why do they choose to do the job that they do; what is their family like; what do they read?
That’s the motivation behind our new feature. Once a month in The Voice, we’ll help you get to know an interesting person in our community by asking him or her a few questions. Let us know if there’s someone you’d like to see here, and we’ll add that person to our list.
For our debut feature, we sat down with Jeffrey Savit, president and CEO of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, publisher of The Voice.
Savit came to the Alliance in 2011, a few months after the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island, the Jewish Community Center and the Bureau of Jewish Education merged into one organization. The New Bedford native has a law degree and a master’s degree in social work.
In a career that’s included more than 25 years with nonprofits, he’s been on the boards of directors of Jewish Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Massachusetts, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Boston and Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. He and his wife, Lori Barnet, have been married for 23 years; they have two daughters. Mollie, a sophomore in college and Chloe, a junior in high school. And, he adds, they have two dogs.
Savit describes himself as a “tenacious, extroverted consensus maker who bleeds for the good of my family and the welfare of the members of our community, especially those less fortunate than I.”

Why do you like what you are doing?
I consider myself blessed to be the CEO of the Alliance. I am able to not only effect change in our Jewish community, but also to help others so directly and impactfully on both an individual and a macro basis. How lucky am I?

What are the three most important lessons you’ve learned in life?
Good health buys much more happiness than dollars do; follow your own internal compass and not anyone else’s; complacency leads to discontentedness.

What would you like to be your greatest achievement in life?
That my daughters live happy, healthy and fulfilled lives.

What could you tell me about yourself that would surprise people?
That Fred Astaire was my childhood idol, and I only wish that I could have followed his lead and become a great tap dancer. But I found my Ginger Rodgers in Lori so I suppose I did.
What’s the most important thing on your desk right now?
The picture of my father and me hugging one another from my bar mitzvah.

If you could send a message to the community, what would it be?
We are too small of a Jewish community to not collaborate with one another. We should attend and advocate for all of our agencies’ and synagogues’ programs and services. None of our institutions need be in competition with one another. We have accomplished so much during the past several years … the fundraising for and ongoing renovation of the Dwares JCC, the launching and implementation of the Living on the Edge Initiative for our community’s vulnerable, the heightened stature of our Community Relations Council, the late summer opening of our RI Holocaust Memorial.
But so much more could be achieved moving forward if together we all partner with one another. It goes without saying that there is such strength in the collective.
One decade ago we had 3,600 donors making gifts to our annual campaign to the tune of roughly $4.2 million. Today we have 2,000 donors who made gifts exceeding $3.2 million.  The problem is that we have roughly 18,000 Jewish community members, and that the $3.2 million raised does not come close to meeting the needs of the  local and international Jewish communities we support.  Hence these numbers are beyond distressing. We need our 2,000 loyal community members to continue to make gifts to our FYE 16 Annual Campaign. And we ask those who are not contributing to start doing so to ensure the success, cohesion and future viability of our Rhode Island Jewish community. Who should  we depend upon if not for ourselves?

What are your favorite books and why?
“Exodus” by Leon Uris formulated my lifelong commitment and unwavering feeling toward Israel as our land of milk and honey. “Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance” by Herman Wouk framed the Holocaust and World War II in such hauntingly and unflinchingly human terms for me that I will never ever take for granted how lucky all of us are to be alive today.

In what ways do you consider yourself a Rhode Islander?
That I now speak of what used to be and who used to live where even though I have only been here for four years; that I take great pride in our Jewish community and our accomplishments; and that I proudly proclaim that Massachusetts restaurants don’t hold a candle to those in Rhode Island!

In all of history who would you most like to meet?
Justice Louis D. Brandeis. I admire him so and could have learned so much from him were we contemporaries.

Kugel or knish?
Knish. Always reliable and never need a fork to eat one.

FRAN OSTENDORF is editor of The Jewish Voice.