Shay HaLevi has held many different roles, from Israeli national police sergeant to director of security for Washington, D.C.-area synagogues.
The Damascus, Maryland, resident uses those skills as the deputy director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington’s security division, JShield. He runs community awareness personal safety trainings for area synagogues and works with various Jewish and Israeli organizations to ensure their security.
HaLevi was raised in a “very traditional Jewish home” in Rosh HaAyin, Israel. Both sets of his grandparents had emigrated from Yemen to Israel in the early 1950s.
“My upbringing was very, very connected to the state of Israel [and] to Jewish identity,” HaLevi said, adding that he had an affinity for art.
After high school, HaLevi was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces, where he served in the land mines and explosive unit. He then progressed to the rank of lieutenant, then officer.
His military service gave him the opportunity to travel to Poland and learn from Holocaust survivors. At Auschwitz, one survivor led HaLevi and the group into a hut and pointed out the bed that had been hers.
“[That] blew my mind because to that point, [the] Holocaust and World War II [are] things you see in a museum or watch in a movie, and if you see documentaries, it’s in black and white,” HaLevi said. “But here that woman was and that was her bed and it made it very, very real.”
The experience was a turning point for HaLevi: “At that moment, I understood that role of serving my community, to make sure that we can do everything we can to alleviate concerns, to work on making people more comfortable and feel that they can be openly Jewish and not be afraid.”
Although it may not be possible to eradicate antisemitism, HaLevi believes in the power of informing one another and training together to become a “more resilient community.”
He joined Birthright Israel as a representative during his military service.
“It really opened my eyes,” HaLevi said. “It was just a lot of fun touring [my] own country from the eyes of a tourist.”
After his service, HaLevi was called in for an interview that he knew little about.
“One of the first questions is, how fast do I run a two-kilometer run?” he recalled.
That interview turned out to be for HaLevi to become an undercover detective for the special unit Lahav 433, which he did for several years. There, he learned tips on recognizing behavioral indicators that someone is planning to commit a crime. He passes these tools on to the Greater Washington synagogues and schools that he trains.
“Connecting the things that I was trained on from a professional space and bringing that to our community here in the United States is one of the best opportunities that I had after the police,” HaLevi said.
Before moving to the U.S., HaLevi earned his bachelor’s degree in social sciences and criminology from Bar-Ilan University. He worked a stint as a program manager for the Jewish Agency for Israel, leading Birthright trips, and with Masa Israel Journey.
He made the move from Tel Aviv to Gaithersburg to be closer to his wife’s family.
“When I got my work visa, the first places I looked to work were actually synagogues because I thought working for a synagogue would be a softer landing,” he said.
HaLevi worked for Montgomery County-area synagogues starting in 2018, supporting Jewish engagement, balancing books, handling payments and helping build websites, “but nothing about safety and security.”
Then the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting happened that October.
HaLevi asked his rabbi if he could see the synagogue’s emergency procedures, to which the rabbi responded, “We don’t really have anything.”
HaLevi created emergency procedures and gathered members to join him for training sessions that he led on Sundays on his own time.
“Soon enough, over 250 members of the synagogue came to do situational awareness trainings and krav maga, making them feel like, ‘I can throw a punch if I need to,’” he said. “‘But before we go into throwing a punch, what should I be looking for?’”
He also discusses what to do in case of a fire, or if a religious school student is missing or needs first aid: “That was a big success.”
After working as a security director for Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, HaLevi took on his current role with JShield, coordinating with local Jewish schools, synagogues, community centers, kosher supermarkets and the Israeli Embassy. He oversees the sharing of information about possible security concerns or community recommendations and relays this to the community.
For now, the job keeps him busy.
“My schedule is packed with assessments, with trainings, sometimes going all the way to 9 p.m.,” HaLevi said.
The DMV region is “very different” from Israel, but HaLevi seems to have found his place in the Greater Washington area.
“My experiences with individuals are just very welcoming and warm and I feel like there’s a lot to learn from them, so that’s what I love,” HaLevi said.
