Bruce A. Arbit began his service to the Jewish people at age 11 when he collected door-to-door for the Milwaukee Jewish community campaign.
He continued it as a teenager with his own donations, and he has never stopped, doing such work in Milwaukee, nationally and internationally.
On Aug. 16, in a milestone of his Jewish communal work, Arbit was elected president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation at its annual meeting.
“I have wanted to be campaign director and president [of the federation] since I was in my late 20s,” Arbit said in an interview at the Fox Point headquarters of A.B. Data, the company that he co-founded and of which he is co-managing director.
“And I am proud to serve at the head of a community whose [volunteers and staff] are so dedicated,” Arbit said.
While Arbit said about his presidency, “there is no revolution in the offing,” he has priorities. Among them is overseeing a strengthening of the federation.
“Our community is blessed with a great, strong federation,” he said, but “we need to look to the future. I think we should plan and think very carefully about the needs of the Jewish people. While continuing to do what we do well, we also need to seek excellence and more efficient ways to serve this community.”
With the near completion of the more than $40 million federation-administered Community Capital Campaign and its resulting new and renovated buildings, Arbit said, “We are facing an enormous opportunity.”
“No other community of this size has the facilities that we do.” And the positive energy and good will that comes with that is something the federation needs to capitalize on, he said.
‘Wise and practical’
A specific priority that Arbit said he would like to address is the aging of the Jewish community population here, in terms of both the services needed and also in finding ways to moderate the decline in population.
“We need to focus on making Milwaukee a place where our children will want to return to after college,” he said.
Arbit also wants to broaden leadership training, emphasize Jewish education and increase and grow the community’s relationship with Israel and overseas Jewry.
“I have passion for what we do,” Arbit said. “We feed the hungry, clothe the naked and redeem the captive. These are the things that fulfill the mandate and mitzvah uttered by Moses when he said, “Let my people go so that they may serve’ [Exodus 7:26].”
“To serve God, to serve our community, to serve our people — this is what federation is all about,” Arbit said.
A Milwaukee native, Arbit lived in Israel for five years in Kibbutz Gesher Haziv in the north of Israel and studied at the University of Haifa.
He serves on a number of corporate boards as well as on the board of governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel and several of its committees, and the boards of United Jewish Appeal; JTA, the global news service of the Jewish people; Habonim Dror Foundation; and the Milwaukee Jewish Community Foundation. He is also a member of the Wexner Heritage Foundation.
He has previously served on the boards of many national and community organizations and as treasurer and campaign chairman of the MJF.
In 1989 he was awarded the Benjamin E. Nickoll Young Leadership Award by the MJF, the award that he is most proud of, he said, because it is the only one awarded by his peers.
“The Milwaukee Jewish Federation is blessed to have the leadership of Bruce Arbit,” said Richard H. Meyer, the MJF executive vice president. “He is a wise and practical man, but most important is his unrelenting passion for the work of the federation and the welfare of the Jewish community.
“Bruce brings a unique combination of broad vision and specific knowledge to the position of president, and I believe he will lead us to new levels of excellence in building our community, strengthening our ties with Israel and meeting the needs of those we serve,” Meyer said.
Arbit is married to Tanya and they have three adult children.
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