Nehemiah Levanon

Israeli diplomat

Nehemiah Levanon (; March 23, 1915 – September 2, 2003) was an Israeli intelligence agent, diplomat, head of the aliyah program Nativ, and a founder of kibbutz Kfar Blum. Originally a native of Latvia, he immigrated to the Mandatory Palestine in 1938. After Israel's independence in 1948, Levanon served in a variety of roles to encourage the well being and emigration of Soviet Jewry. Due to the covert nature of his work, Levanon's decades of service were largely unknown until after his retirement, during the last days of the Soviet Union.

Niuma Levitan was born in 1915 in Rujiena, Latvia, to Yosef and Bertha Ilion Levitan. Yosef, a candy factory manager, was a native of Šiauliai, Lithuania and a communist revolutionary who fled to Russia during the Russian Revolution; he died during the course of the Russian Civil War. In response to the invasion of Latvia by Germany during World War I, Niuma's sister, mother, grandmother, and other relatives moved to Perm, Russia, and later to Petrograd. They relocated in 1922 to Tallinn, Estonia (where one of Levitan's aunts lived) with assistance from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, while his grandmother was arranged to sail to America. At the time of his posting, the Soviet Union had broken off diplomatic relations (in response to the 1953 bombing of the Soviet embassy in Tel Aviv). Levanon therefore worked in Sweden until ties were re established later that year. Levanon and his family then moved to Moscow, where he disguised his covert activities by working as an agricultural attaché in the Israeli embassy. He told friend Richard Perle in 1970, "The Soviets thought I was interested in raising potatoes. I was interested in raising Jews." For two years, he met with Soviet Jews to pass along information, prayer books, and pictures of Israel. After Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, the apparent desire of the Soviet government to improve its image in the West allowed Bar and Nativ to more aggressively press the cause of Soviet Jews. From 1956 to 1965, Levanon alternated his Bar activities with his administrative duties at Kfar Blum; he served three stints as the economic administrator of the kibbutz. In 1965, Levanon was appointed to serve at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D. C., as a representative of Bar. There, he worked with American Jewish organizations to lobby public officials over the issue of Soviet Jews. He also met with officials at the U. S. State Department and with members of the U. S. Congress to keep them apprised of recent events. He immigrated to Israel under the Hebraicized name Yaakov Kedmi, later becoming director of Nativ from 1992 to 1999.

In January 1970, Prime Minister Golda Meir appointed Levanon to serve as the head of Nativ. Levanon's appointment came at a pivotal time in the cause of Soviet Jewry: public campaigns were being organized across the Jewish world in protest of the Soviet government's treatment of several dozen Zionist activists who were accused of planning a hijacking. Levanon and Nativ responded by organizing the first World Conference of Jewish Communities for Soviet Jewry in Belgium the following year. Levanon intentionally downplayed Israel's involvement with the conference so as to leave the impression that other, more powerful countries (particularly the United States) were especially interested in the issue. The conference was marred by the arrival of controversial rabbi Meir Kahane, who the day before had been convicted in New York of disorderly conduct for his actions at a 1969 protest. After he was denied the opportunity to address the delegates, Kahane denounced the conference as undemocratic and timid. His arrest by Belgian police and dramatic press conference upon his return to the U. S. somewhat overshadowed the gathering in Brussels. Levanon allied with Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson to pass a law denying most favored nation trade status to countries that restricted the free emigration of its citizens. According to Levanon, there was an expectation among the political elite that his alignment with Israel's left wing establishment would cost him his job under right wing premier Menachem Begin, who was elected in 1977. Begin, however, asked Levanon to stay at his post. Because Nativ's name was never released to the public, nor was any other official name, Soviet Jews had come to know the organization as "Nehemiah's Office." By the late 1970s, Israeli officials and American grassroots groups were clashing over the direction and purpose of the Soviet Jewry movement. A large number of Soviet emigrants were "dropping out"—abandoning their exit visas intended for Israel and seeking refuge in the United States instead. Levanon and the Israelis were alarmed by this trend and decided that urgent action needed to be taken to reverse it. Levanon, working with the Jewish Agency and philanthropist Max Fisher, tried to have European offices of American Jewish aid groups (particularly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) shut down. Fierce opposition among the American Jewish community scuttled the plan, signaling a decline in Nativ's influence in the U. S. Levanon later reflected, "It was a very bitter and sad period I realize that none of us was a hundred percent right; it was a very difficult issue." Levanon died in Kfar Blum on September 2, 2003.