In the personal profile she filled out to apply to become an Israel emissary to North America, Amit Yaniv-Zehavi said doing this “would be closing a circle.”
That meant it would bring her back to the country where she spent the first 11 years of her life. “Both worlds” — the U.S. and Israel — “have always co-existed inside me,” she wrote. “I have been working on bringing these two worlds together.”
Beginning this summer, she will be doing that in Milwaukee. Yaniv-Zehavi, 46, has been appointed the next Israel emissary (shlichah in Hebrew) to head the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Center.
She will be following the husband-wife emissary team of Ro’ee Peled and Michal Makov-Peled, who have held the position since 2011.
Yaniv-Zehavi currently works for the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership2Gether program as marketing and incoming missions coordinator, according to her resume.
P2G links North American Jewish communities with Israeli regions in order to foster personal relationships between peoples of both areas. Milwaukee and Madison participate in the program, being linked to the Sovev Kinneret (around Lake Kinneret) region of Israel.
Yaniv-Zehavi’s work record for P2G shows that “she comes to us with much experience in Israel-US partnerships,” wrote Rabbi Hannah Greenstein, MJF vice president of outreach and leadership, in an email announcing the appointment.
“She also has a background in education, in particular art education using recycled materials, and micro-brewing,” Greenstein added.
Yaniv-Zehavi will be coming with her family: husband Doron Zehavi, who has worked in Israel’s high-technology industry and is a singer-guitarist; and children Yonatan, 15, Daniel, 12, and Neta, 8. They presently live on Kibbutz Tzora in central Israel.
Watch for a full profile article in a future Chronicle issue.
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