In the past 25 years, Conservative Judaism in Israel has matured from a movement created by Americans making aliyah to something genuinely Israeli. But the group’s new executive director wants people to realize that fundraising in the United States is still necessary.

“I need to do work on education in this country, so people here understand the importance of supporting and promoting religious pluralism” in Israel, said David Lissy, who last month was appointed executive director and chief executive of the Masorti Foundation of Conservative Judaism in Israel.

“We want to have an Israel that is a Jewish state, and if we have a country that is 20 percent ultra-Orthodox and 80 percent absolutely nothing, it cannot retain its Jewish identity,” he said. “We need people to understand that it is possible to be spiritual, and to be religious, and to have an identification with God and with our brother Jewish community without having to be ultra-Orthodox.”

Lissy will offer that message on visits to U.S. Conservative congregations and in mail solicitations.

Lissy, 61, said the Conservative movement has taken root in Israel since it was started in 1979 by American emigres, and that today it has Israeli leaders, Israeli-trained rabbis and an Israeli lay leadership.

“It is very much today an indigenous movement,” he said. “We have more rabbis available to serve than we have the money to support them. So we want to open more congregations” when the money is raised.

“There is an opportunity to serve more people with our message of inclusive congregations that are at the same time sensitive to halacha [Jewish law] and tradition,” Lissy said.

Lissy grew up in the Conservative movement in Philadelphia. He served as president of the Philadelphia region of United Synagogue Youth and in 1961 was the group’s international president.

After earning his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a degree from its law school, Lissy and his wife, Maggie, moved to Washington, where he worked in the White House and State Department. He also served as the liaison to the Jewish community for President Gerald Ford in 1975-76.

After leaving government, Lissy moved to Mamaroneck in Westchester County and held management positions at several large corporations, most recently as general counsel and senior vice president of Ames Department Stores. He served as president of the Mamaroneck Board of Education.

He has continued his activism in the Jewish community, too, serving as chair of the local UJA campaign three times, and on the boards of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and three synagogues. He has been involved as well with the American Jewish Committee.

Lissy said he left business for the nonprofit world “to make a contribution to the Jewish community,” and that his new position helps him to fulfill his passion about the “importance of religious pluralism in Israel.”

“I think it’s important not only for Israel but for those of us in the United States who want our children and grandchildren to grow up loving Israel and relating to it,” he said.

Lissy noted that there are now about 50 Conservative congregations in Israel that have an impact on the lives of 50,000 to 75,000 Israelis. Among the movement’s programs is one that trains children with special needs for their bar and bat mitzvah — the only one in the country, he said.

“My wife and I were at a Masorti congregation in Jerusalem when one of the kids was celebrating his bar mitzvah, and it was a joy to watch the family rejoice in the child’s accomplishment,” Lissy said. “It’s a pity more people are not doing this in Israel.”