New Sephardic Temple President Has Big Ambitions

As the first woman elected president of the Sephardic Temple, Roxana Eli may have been congratulated a little differently than a man would have been. In the days leading up to her formal inauguration on Jan. 15, “a lot of people have approached me,” quickly adding, “in a nice way.” 

“They say ‘You realize you are very young’ … You realize you have two young children’ … You work full time … Are you really ready for this?’”

Roxana (“call me Roxy”) shrugged. “One thing I can tell you about me: Becoming president does not scare me. I thrive living on the edge. After all, I am a trial attorney.”

What edge? “I work under pressure on a daily basis,” she said while standing behind the desk of her handsomely appointed Encino office.

Eli’s hearty laugh and brimming confidence are constants in her never-met-a-stranger personality. She lavished praise on her predecessor at the temple, Former President Raymond Yashouafar.

“Working alongside Raymond the last two years, being his senior vice president, he was hands-down phenomenal,” she said. “Great at everything he did. Extremely prompt in responding to everybody. He kept me in the loop on everything – that was the most important thing he did.”

Two years ago, Eli had a different attitude. “If someone had asked then, I would have been hesitant to accept the position of senior VP, which I knew led to the presidency.” 

She explained the weighty transition. As a member of the board at the Sephardic Temple, attorney Eli had become vice president of legal matters. Then “something happened that really angered me,” she said. “I had put in so much time and effort. Then this. I was frustrated. Being on the board, many things occur that get heated and passionate… In August 2020, I submitted my resignation from the board.” 

She didn’t call it a miracle, but then something unexpected happened. “Once my anger subsided,” she said with a smile, “next thing I know they are inviting me to a nomination committee meeting to decide who we are going to nominate to the new board.”

Mystified, Eli wondered why she had been invited. 

“We knew Raymond (Yashouafar) was going to be the next president. It is an unspoken thing that the senior VP becomes the next president. I said ‘let’s get down to business. Who is going to be senior VP?”

Silence. Eli asked again, “so who is the senior VP?” She laughed as she recalled the scene. They were like, ‘Well!’” 

Clearly, she was being offered the position. Eli suspected board members were joking. “Very funny,” she told them.  “We are serious,” she was told. “No thank you,” she replied. 

Eli spent the next five minutes “telling them they were nuts,” she said. “I said I had too much going on.” Finally, she partially surrendered: “In fairness, give me time to talk it over with my husband,” she told them.

It took the couple a month. 

But for three reasons, she agreed to become President Eli. “One main reason,” Eli said, “was that I would be working alongside Raymond, and we had the same vision.” The second persuader was “that if I had been so angry about certain things not changing, now I would have the potential to make those changes. I really am passionate about the temple. So I figured, what better way?”

“The third and most important reason is for my girls. They are 8 and 6. I want them to look up to me. I knew this would be great for them — to see their mom [as] the president of this beautiful congregation.”  

– Roxana Eli 

Roxana Eli the mom saved the best, the most persuasive, for last. “The third and most important reason is for my girls,” said the beaming mom. “They are 8 and 6. I want them to look up to me. I knew this would be great for them — to see their mom [as] the president of this beautiful congregation. I want them to be inspired, to do whatever they want to do.”

When Eli was growing up in the ‘90s, her family first belonged to Nessah when it was on Franklin Street in Santa Monica. Then they moved to Brentwood and joined the Chabad shul across the street.

Were her Sephardic roots emphasized during her childhood? “I didn’t have a clear one-step place that would be our temple,” said Eli. “Honestly, the only place I felt that was Chabad.”

In 2010, when she married David Eli, “we wanted to be part of a synagogue together,” she said. “We went to a few. When we came to Sephardic, immediately we felt this is the place where we want to be.”

Involvement began shortly after her older daughter was born in 2014. “This was such a homey, family environment,” Eli said. “I loved it. When I came to Sephardic, everyone welcomed [me] with open arms.”

 At the temple, Eli hopes “to make fun programming for not only the young parents, but also for youth,” she said. “One challenge all synagogues face is that once their bar and bat mitzvahs are over, they are gone. Working alongside Rabbi (Refael) Cohen, I want to not only make programs for youths, but also to make this a place where parents want to come. We have a wonderful community. Many people don’t know that.”

She continued, “I want to expose them to ‘let’s all meet each other.’ I am planning to have events at my house. I would like all who have joined within the last year to come to a meet-and-greet at my house, just to engage.”