A former Israeli police officer and ordained rabbi who grew up in Australia will soon represent North Hempstead’s District 5, which includes North New Hyde Park, Garden City Park, Floral Park and the villages of Saddle Rock, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Russell Gardens, University Gardens, Lake Success and other unincorporated areas.
Yaron Levy — now a Harbor Hills civic leader, business owner and father of three — won the council seat on the town board by a wide margin earlier this month. Levy, a conservative Republican, will succeed Council Member David Adhami. His election keeps the Town Board’s Republican majority. Levy said his goal is to represent everyone – not just Republicans.
“I don’t care what political party you’re affiliated with; it’s irrelevant at this point. I won resoundingly,” he said. “I’m as an elected official entrusted to take your voice and your concerns and listen to them, listen to what the people have to say – take it on board and try to come to the best resolution,” he said.
Levy’s platform included supporting tax cut budgets, fighting hate crimes and being a visible and accessible community advocate. He campaigned alongside Nassau County Legislator Mazi Pilip, a Republican whom he described as his mentor.
“We worked really hard to get the vote out,” he said. “It didn’t just happen by chance.”
Besides his and Pilip’s campaigning, Levy said he credits his win to his community involvement and people resonating with the Republican Party’s lines.
“People have seen my engagement in the community, my sincerity within the community, my intent within the community,” he said.
Levy was born in 1982 in Australia and spent his early childhood in Bondi Beach, a famous beach and suburb in Sydney. His parents are immigrants from Israel, and his maternal grandparents are Holocaust survivors from Romania. He said his parents moved to Australia from Israel before he was born, and he grew up “ten minutes away from” the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
He said his mother worked at a bank, while his father delivered newspapers and “led one of the largest kosher industrial bakeries in the country.” He said he attended an Orthodox Jewish school.
“It was a beautiful childhood growing up in one of the most – literally — one of the seven wonders of the world,” he said.
When Levy was about 14 years old, he left home to study at a yeshiva in Israel full-time, marking his first step toward becoming an ordained rabbi. During his 12 years of rabbinic education, Levy studied at yeshivas in Melbourne, Brooklyn and Israel. He said he received his rabbinic ordination around the age of 21-22.
During his final year of education, Levy joined the Israeli police. About a year later, he was asked to become a deputy area commander, he said.
“When I was a kid, I was always interested in the police. And then I took it a step further,” he said. “I kind of contributed to the safety and security of the State of Israel.”
Levy said a mentor advised him to move to the United States when he was in his mid-20s, and he made the move around late 2007 to work in commercial mortgages – a job he said was greatly affected by the 2008 financial crisis.
“So I pack up my bags – hit the road, Jack, goodbye, not coming back. I’ve already locked it in my mind that this is what I’m doing. I’m moving to America, the land of the free and opportunity,” he said. “I come here, not even three months later, fall on my face. The whole world explodes. And I’m like, sitting here, like how do I even digest this?”
He said he returned to Israel to visit family and “clear his mind,” and when he returned to America, a friend from Australia asked for help with wedding planning.
“He didn’t have his parents over here, so I was acting as his mother and father and his friend, and I was putting bands together, flowers,” he said.
This inspired him to start an events management company, he said.
“And I was like, You know what? Maybe this is a calling. I’m going to go into events management right now,” he said.
He said a highlight was planning an event for Mike Bloomberg while Bloomberg was serving as the mayor of New York City, whom he said he found to be “just such a great guy all around at the time.”
After over four years of planning events, Levy returned to the real estate industry. He became a broker after completing a real estate course at the New York Real Estate Institute and founded Pearl Rock Home Builders, a home-building company that he continues to lead today.
Levy’s wife is from Great Neck, which he said inspired them to make the move from Chelsea several years ago. Levy and his wife are parents to three children, ages 2, 4 and 8.
He became president of the Harbor Hills Civic Association in 2023, where he organized community events and advocated for neighborhood issues.
North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jennifer DeSena, who was re-elected last month, said she has attended many events Levy has organized for the civic association and looks forward to working with him.
“He will hit the ground running and be a wonderful representative for residents of District Five,” she said.
She also noted Levy’s background in home building.
“He also is in the home building business, so he’s very familiar with how local government decisions affect the character of the community, and he’ll understand the balancing that we do to protect the safety and the quality of life of our residents,” she said.
Regarding party affiliation, Levy said his values most closely align with those of the Republican Party.
“Working hard and getting rewarded for it is what the Republican ideals and values are, and that’s what resonated with me,” he said. “Maybe the Democrat Party of yesterday might have made sense, but the Democrat Party of yesterday is not the Democratic Party of today, and that’s evident to everybody.”
Levy said he believes older Democrats are “in denial” about shifts within the party, and that some younger Democrats “don’t realize what hard work is.”
While discussing shifts within the Democratic Party, Levy also addressed the rhetoric surrounding Israel, referencing young Democrats who describe the conflict as a “genocide.”
“The Israeli army, the most moral army in the world, is not spraying people with bullets all day,” he said. “They’re not some militia forces — the IDF, Israel Defense Forces, they’re protecting their homeland.”
Levy will be sworn in in January.
