Avi Levi

Avi Levi was born in 1954 in Morocco

Avraham (Avi) Levi was born in Morocco on November 20, 1954, the eldest of 10 children. His father, Rabbi Yehonatan, was a Chabad Hasid who taught at the Chabad yeshiva in Sefrou. At 6 he moved with his family to Israel, where they lived in a transit camp in Kiryat HaYovel, Jerusalem.

He attended a Chabad elementary school and the Marom Zion high school yeshiva. In 1973 he received a science teaching certificate from the Lifshitz teachers seminary. He later earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, with graduate research on water and salt balance in ostriches.

He served in the IDF Artillery Corps. In 1975 he married and moved to Netivot, where he taught science. From 1978 to 1994 he was deputy head of the Azata teachers seminary, and in 1984 the couple helped found Neve Dekalim.

In 1994, at the request of the Sdot Negev regional council head, he founded Hemdat HaDarom College and led it as president until his retirement. He received the rank of senior lecturer in 2001 and professor in 2012. He also served on many Ministry of Education committees.

From 2016 he researched medical uses of cannabis at the Katif Center and lectured at Shaanan College. At the end of 2020 he was elected president of Shaanan. He is married to Simcha, has 8 children and lives in Nitzan.