Hava Leipzig Holzhauer

President & CEO

Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona

By Jay Gonzales

As a professional who had spent her career in some of the larger cities on the East Coast, Tucson was a change of scenery for Hava Leipzig Holzhauer, both in its physical landscape as well as the work she was about to embark on.

Holzhauer arrived in December 2023 to take the job of president and CEO of Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona. The Jewish community around the world was in the midst of a crisis from the October attack on Israel by Hamas. It was also a time when there was a leadership gap locally, said Jeff Artzi, chair of the board of JPSA.

“She came in ready to go,” Artzi said. “She immediately exhibited the kind of leadership that our organization needed. She very quickly learned who the stakeholders were in our community.”

JPSA is a merger of the Tucson community’s two leading Jewish philanthropic organizations, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Jewish Community Foundation. The two merged in 2022.

While Tucson has its unique qualities as the so-called big city with a small-town feel, it wasn’t as though Holzhauer was coming to a place where her experience as a community leader wasn’t relevant. Her background includes prosecuting hate crimes as an assistant state attorney, running non-governmental organizations including other federations and anti-defamation leagues, and a run for Congress in Florida in 2022.

“Leadership means a lot of different things to different people,” she said. “Leadership is when we’re working towards something that’s greater than ourselves, to be looking through the lens of the people that we live and work with.”

Her approach to leadership shows in how Holzhauer goes about her work, Artzi said.

“She’s very smart. She’s very intuitive. She can read the room,” Artzi said. “Anybody who’s got the grit to run for Congress, and the aspiration to do so, has got a certain level of moxie and intelligence and an ability to work really hard towards a goal.”

Arriving shortly after the October Hamas attack, Holzhauer immediately jumped on the task of helping to stabilize concerns for the community and establishing an avenue to work through them.

Within a year after Holzhauer’s arrival, the JPSA launched the Center for Jewish Resilience with a focus on working with law enforcement and government on security strategies, on educating about and responding to contemporary anti-semitism, and on strengthening relationships in the broader community.

“This is the first of its kind in U.S. Jewish federations,” said Lisa Lovallo, a JPSA board member and retired Tucson corporate executive. “Its impact has already helped teachers, public safety officers, elected officials and citizens understand the complexities of antisemitism and how to combat it.”