The Jewish community welcomed Noa Dovrat to Kansas City in September, as she began her time as the newest Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) community shalicha (Israeli emissary).
Dovrat joins the Jewish Experiences team, a collaboration of Jewish Federation and The J, and will work closely with Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, KU Hillel and many other Jewish organizations and synagogues in the Kansas City area. She will also help engage the Israeli community locally while cultivating relationships with the entire community on the topic of Israel.
“We are excited about having Noa in our community to further connect us with the Jewish homeland and its culture,” said Derek Gale, Jewish Federation vice president and chief operating officer. “While Zoom helped us keep in touch these past couple of years, there is no doubt we’ve missed both an Israel emissary presence and gathering in person as a community for Jewish and Israel-related programs, learning and celebrations. We are thrilled to invest anew in further building and deepening the connection between Kansas City and Israel, especially for our young adults.”
Even before arriving in Kansas City, Dovrat began making connections with youth in the community, visiting with KU Hillel on a trip to Israel this past summer.
“We are thrilled that Noa will be a part of the KU Hillel professional team,” said Suzy Sostrin, executive director of KU Hillel. “She has already made a huge impact on our student community by joining KU Hillel on our Birthright Israel trip this summer and at our Israel Shabbat, which started Hillel's strong Israel-related programming this semester.”
Noa will be working with KU Hillel’s senior Jewish educator, Avi Blitz, to create programs about modern and historic Israel. “We cannot wait to have her join us weekly on and off-campus to meet our students,” Sostrin said.
Ethan Helfand, director of Jewish Experiences, explained a few of the important reasons why the community will benefit from having a shalicha.
“First and foremost, Noa provides an opportunity for our community to see, learn and experience Israel through the eyes of an actual Israeli,” he said. “She also provides an opportunity for conversation — we recognize that Israel can be a complicated topic, and while our job as a community is not necessarily to tell people how to feel, it creates opportunities to engage in conversation, think about how we program, and talk about Israel’s role in our community and in our own lives.
“Finally, Noa has the opportunity to educate people who don’t have any previous experience or relationships with Israel. She can build relationships through helping others learn about Israel’s culture, food, music, history, literature, travel — while she is not responsible for representing the totality of Israel, she absolutely can help find ways to engage people through her own lived experiences.”
Having recently finished her army service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Dovrat, 22, comes from a military family.
“My dad was a pilot, my mom was an officer in the paratroopers,” she said. “My eldest sister was an officer in the [Israeli] Air Force, and my other sister is a pilot, which is considered to be a very high position for a woman.”
When it came time for her to enlist though, Dovrat wanted to set her own path.
“I didn’t want to go into the Air Force,” she said. “I didn’t want to be someone’s daughter or sister. I wanted to make my own way, so I went into combat engineering.” Her position was as an explosives instructor in charge of educating 200 soldiers. Dovrat signed on for an extra one-and-a-half years to become an officer in the IDF operational headquarters.
“I had a very big job considering my age and experience, and it was the best time of my life,” she said. “I loved every minute of it.”
A military conflict with Gaza during her service was a turning point in her consideration for applying for the JAFI program, whose mission is, in part, to secure a vibrant Jewish future for generations to come. During the conflict, she recalled seeing others try to explain the conflict but watching as social media was inundated with misinformation.
“I remember thinking, ‘why do I work so hard to make things right, and this is what we get?’” Dovrat said. “That was when I decided I had to do something about it. I remembered reading about this program and thinking, ‘I can’t fix the news, but I know what I can do, and that is share my experience and personal story with the Jewish community in the United States, a community that has suffered a lot of antisemitism in the last year. I could explain the narrative and give them a reason to support Israel. Not necessarily love it, or agree with it, but to have the knowledge to know that sometimes the news is misguided.”
The rigorous, year-long application, training and interview process helped prepare Dovrat for her arrival in the United States.
“When I started doing the training program, it became a much bigger deal to me to connect [with the community I moved to],” Dovrat said, “and not just explain and be political, but to really make a connection with the Jewish community in America — and Kansas City, specifically — to Israel and to me and my personal story.”
Community professionals and leaders came together to think about what they were looking for when bringing someone back into the community through the program.
“The Kansas City Jewish community hasn’t had a shalicha since May of 2020, and when we discussed what was important to us, we built a profile based on what we felt the community could most benefit from,” Helfand said.
When the time came to look at communities to work in, Dovrat immediately connected with Kansas City on a personal level, and she was drawn to the needs the community identified in having a presence of a shalicha.
“I read the profile, and I remember connecting to (Kansas City) the most,” she said. “First of all because of the variety of the programs available. In this community, there are a huge variety of places [and] ages, and I remember wanting that exactly because I think every group wants, needs and deserves a different thing. I love the focus they have on impacting the young adult community, which is the one I feel suffers the most from antisemitism and has the most questions. And on top of all that, I am a Chiefs fan and have been for a long time — pre-Super Bowl.”
Helfand recalled Dovrat’s interview experience and how unique it was compared to others he had been part of in the past.
“Noa asked questions about what it means to live here, to be a member of this community — and she reconfirmed her Chiefs fandom,” Helfand said. “I’ve never had someone articulate to me that they ‘truly want to be in this specific community.’
“Not only did Kansas City choose her, she chose Kansas City. Right off the bat, that was a starting point that makes the integration into any community so much easier.”
As Dovrat continues to integrate into Kansas City, community members are encouraged to say hello. Outside of work, Noa is an avid dancer, reader and former competitive swimmer. She also says she has “three obsessions in life — Marvel, Harry Potter and Disney.”
The one thing she misses most beyond her family is her dog.
“I have a puppy at home who I miss dearly,” she said. “I am a dog person. I’ve wanted to be a vet for years, and I am still debating that.”
