Synagogue consultant Bob Leventhal, who had served as director of leadership with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and led the team that created USCJ’s Sulam Leadership Curriculum, died Dec. 6 at the Medical University of South Carolina from injuries he sustained when he was struck by a vehicle the evening before. Leventhal, who lived in Mount Pleasant, S.C., was attempting to cross a four-lane highway to meet friends for a movie when he was hit, according to The Post and Courier in Charleston. He was 74.

For the first 19 years of his career, he was a sales and marketing executive with his family’s Springfield-based cleaning products business, Vining Industries, later O-Cedar Brands when it was sold. He received his MBA in 1977 from George Washington University School of Business.

In mid-career, he became a synagogue consultant with the Alban Institute in Washington, D.C. He and his family were active in Dayton’s Jewish community, where he held layleadership roles with the Jewish Federation and was president of Hillel Academy Jewish day school.

“Then, the call came,” Leventhal wrote in a 2019 post at the USCJ Journeys website. “The seventh-grade teacher had resigned. Could I help out?” After he dove in and decided to create an “engaging, high-energy student experience,” he went on to receive his master’s degree in Jewish education from Spertus Institute.

Leventhal was the author of two books, B’yachad; Synagogue Board Development and Stepping Forward Together: Synagogue Visioning and Planning.

— Marshall Weiss

To read the complete January 2026 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.