Naples builder creates safe haven for Israeli children

By Cami Fussey

Neil Braverman is a builder. He has built a family, successful businesses and charitable ventures. Now, in his ninth decade, Neil builds through gifts to Jewish National Fund-USA’s Halutza Communities initiative, establishing lasting community and safety resources in Eretz Yisrael

“I don’t try and hide my Judaism,” said Braverman, 84. Brought up Reform, he experienced traditional Jewish milestones. He attended Hebrew school and became bar mitzvah, and always had a passion for Israel. As an adult, he built factories and businesses in Southeast Asia — a wig manufactory, a glove business and real estate.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Braverman became involved in an Israeli government public affairs initiative partnering a Jew and an Arab in business. Though that project didn’t materialize, it led to a lasting relationship with Israel. With his wife, Jeanne, Braverman raised his sons David (president of Jewish National Fund-USA in Naples, Florida) and Steven to be pillars of the Jewish community.

Neil Braverman (left) with sons Steven and David

Neil Braverman at Halutza

Halutza is a remote town bordering Egypt and Gaza in the Northwest Negev, an oasis community of 500+ families. “It’s amazing what these people have done,” remarked Braverman. “They took a desert where nothing would ever grow,” he said, marveling at how a town, farms, research and agricultural facilities grew from empty desert. His first gift to Halutza built a park in memory of his friend Arthur Jacobs (z”l).

Braverman’s most recent donation will build a state-of-the-art early child care center in Halutza, serving 90 local children. “It’s a real revolution for us, moving from (a) temporary site to a beautiful, brand-new bomb-proof day care center,” said Yedidya Harush, the Jewish National Fund-USA liaison to Halutza. Without a safe facility, teachers often had to leave children behind in an emergency, scrambling to get whoever they could into a bomb shelter in the seconds between alarm and explosion.

“It’s a real life-saving act to build such a building knowing that the parents who go to work…have quiet minds when they travel, knowing that their kids are safe.”

In 2022, the Bravermans visited to lay the cornerstone for the center, and to dedicate a gymnasium sponsored by his niece, Mara Mades of Miami, Florida.

The Halutza projects were not Braverman’s first in Israel. He previously gave to the Red Mountain Therapeutic Riding Center (RMTRC), which offers equine therapy to the special needs populations of Eilat and the Arava.

“Giving is what I call ‘a payback’ for all the things that happened to me that make me so successful,” Braverman asserted. Through the Braverman Family Foundation, a fund at Jewish National Fund-USA, he has established a lasting legacy of giving in Israel. “I’m fortunate enough to be able to give to places like Jewish National Fund-USA…and to get my next generation involved.”

Neil instilled the moral imperative of Jewish giving in his sons and ensured “that they too should pass that torch down to my grandchildren — and that’s where we continue the support, the love of Israel, and of the Jewish religion.”

About one thing, Neil is especially clear: “If we don’t do it, who else is gonna do it?”