In a farewell speech to the community’s senior shaliach of three years, Zina Segal used the format of the song “Dayenu” — Hebrew for “it would have been enough.”
“Sometimes, even one act of kindness or courage would have been enough,” Segal said at the July 29 farewell party. “But Dean, you just kept giving more.”
Segal, the Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia’s senior director of community impact and engagement, has served as Dean Bagdadi’s supervisor for two of his three years in the states.
She listed off the ways Bagdadi, an Israeli emissary, went above and beyond in his role — connecting the Pozez JCC community with Israel — despite unexpected challenges.
“[Bagdadi’s] shlichut was pretty crazy and unparallel to what we had before because he started in the end of the pandemic when some participants were still not comfortable joining in-person events and [the] JCC was coming out of financial challenges due to COVID,” Segal said.
Bagdadi and his newlywed wife relocated from their hometown of Be’er-Sheva, Israel, for Vienna, Virginia, in September 2022. Five months into his role, his supervisor retired and Bagdadi was left without a supervisor for nearly half a year until Segal joined the team.
A couple of months later, Bagdadi was on vacation when news broke of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. He wasted no time, organizing a community gathering at the JCC within 36 hours and planned a “massive” vigil of northern Virginians four days later.
“It’s been quite a challenge, and at the same time, very, very meaningful,” Bagdadi said of navigating his role in the wake of Oct. 7.
‘A Great Match’
In 2022, Bagdadi decided to leave Be’er-Sheva for northern Virginia out of “pure interest.”
“I wanted to learn what Jewish life looks like outside of Israel,” he said.
The northern Virginia community turned out to be perfectly suited for Bagdadi, who was placed at the Pozez JCC through the Jewish Agency of Israel.
“Coming from a mixed background myself, of Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, secular, religious and [from] somewhere in the periphery and not the center of Israel, meeting a community that is also very, very diverse [was fitting],” he said. “And at the JCC in a pivotal point in time where there’s this big shift of Jewish families and the Jewish community in Virginia growing sparked such an interest.”
Bagdadi added that prior to becoming a shaliach, he was tapped into the political world as he worked for the nonprofit Movement for Quality Government in Israel. So, the political engagement of the DMV region caught his eye.
He liked that working at a JCC was a “sweet spot” between working behind the scenes on projects and being in a synagogue for every Shabbat: “Somewhere in between of doing both, there’s both this broader view of the community — working with multiple organizations — and at the same time, meeting with people where they are.”
While Bagdadi often travels around northern Virginia in his role, he also spent time with community members at the Pozez JCC and “became part of a physical community.”
“Everybody here at the JCC feels like family,” Bagdadi said.
He is particularly proud of the hundreds of programs he organized there that “brought the community closer to Israel,” including weekly news discussions, Israeli cultural gatherings, film screenings and panel events.
Bagdadi also met with local community members, Jewish professionals and people from other organizations to form connections and see if there was anything he could provide them, such as Israel-related resources or education.
Those sometimes difficult conversations brought the community together, according to Segal.
“Before Dean, most organizations were not talking to each other much,” she said. “Partly because of Oct. 7 — but mostly because we had Dean here with his amazing personality — he was able to build a few groups of professionals who are now meeting regularly, talking regularly and acting as a community, not as separate organizations.”
Segal spoke to Bagdadi’s personable nature.
“Dean [brought] the best possible combination of good stereotypes about Israelis with an amazing and pretty dark sense of humor, [a] ‘get done’ attitude, being able to negotiate and build a relationship with virtually anybody and being warm and welcoming,” Segal said.
In turn, the community received Bagdadi with open arms, something he said was fundamental for him to excel in his role.
“A shlichut project can be meaningful only if the community embraces it, and I feel like that was the case with the [Pozez] JCC and with all of the other Jewish organizations in Virginia and with the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington,” he said, noting that those organizations provided him with housing, a car, a supportive community, a supervisor, and time and space.
“It’s the entire environment that is willing to do something special together,” Bagdadi said. “It takes a lot of trust and I’m very grateful for the ability to have that.”
When Segal sent out information about Bagdadi’s farewell party, she recalled that 100 community members “instantly” signed up to attend.
“That’s who Dean was,” she said. “Everybody wanted to come and hug him and wish him and Rotem, [his wife], well.”
Bagdadi influenced everyone he spoke with, whether as a person, educator, community builder or professional, Segal said. Community members had the opportunity to celebrate Bagdadi’s lasting impact through speeches, a brief video, a gift on behalf of the Pozez JCC and a Cats’ Aliyah Fund to help Bagdadi fly his beloved pets home.
“As much as it’s hard to see Dean go back [to Israel], we got so much from him and from Rotem, the relationship has been built and they will be always with us,” Segal said.
