I’d love to help you find that sweet spot where your values, lifestyle, and income all match up.
Meet The Team
Rifka Lebowitz
Certified Financial Planner
Sarah Rena Breuning
Financial Associate
Stefanie Levit
Financial Associate
Miriam Brodie-Elbogen
Online Business Manager
Rifka Lebowitz
Certified Financial Planner
Founder of Living Financially Smarter in Israel
A CFP® Certified Financial Planner with over 25 years of experience in the Israeli financial industry, a member of FBAI (Israel’s Financial Planning Association) and the Israeli Union of Home Economic Advisors, I’m a financial expert who has helped thousands of families.
I’m also the founder of Living Financially Smarter In Israel (LFSII), a brand empowering Olim with practical financial advice and education that has grown to include a 40,000 member Facebook group and the annual LFSII-NBN personal finance conference.
I am a member of the following professional organisations and keep to their code of conduct.
Financial strategy can only be effective if it’s tailored to my clients’ real needs
After decades working in numerous aspects of the financial industry, including as a licensed portfolio manager, personal banker, investment advisor, and budgeting expert, I developed the Living Financially Smarter Method to provide my clients with a holistic, big-picture perspective on their financial health and future plans.
I’m a firm believer that financial strategy can only be effective if it’s tailored to my clients’ real needs, so my advice is based on practical steps that can be quickly implemented into day-to-day life.
As one of the leading English-speaking voices in the Israeli finance space and a trusted advisor to hundreds of Olim and native-born Israelis, I enjoy long-term relationships with my clients that often include important life milestones.
Watching my clients’ progress and seeing them achieve their financial goals is my favorite part of the job. I love maintaining relationships over the years with my clients, and being in their corner as they grow and transform their aspirations into reality.
Sarah Rena Breuning
Financial Associate - Israeli CPA
Certified Financial Coach
Budgeting Advisor
Sarah Rena is a trusted financial and budget advisor on our team, helping clients get their financial houses in order. She is responsible for producing comprehensive financial and budgeting summaries, reports, and calculations, using financial data and software to build customized status reports.
Passionate about calculating and organizing numbers, charts, and data, Sarah Rena is a master budget coach who creates practical working budgets and frameworks that serve our clients in their daily lives. She also manages billing, receipts, and bookkeeping.
Fully bilingual in English and Hebrew, Sarah Rena is originally from Canada. A mother of six, she holds degrees in both Accounting and English. She’s thrilled to be a part of a company that aligns with her financial goals and beliefs, and finds working with LFSII to be thought-provoking and inspiring.
Stefanie Levit
U.S. CPA
Financial Associate
Budgeting Advisor
A registered American CPA with over 10 years of tax accounting under her belt, Stefanie has significant experience working with large corporations and high-net worth individuals. Formerly of Mazars, the international audit, accountancy, advisory, tax and legal services firm, Stefanie provides elite financial guidance to LFSII clients.
Stefanie is currently expanding her area of expertise and training to become a certified personal and family finance advisor. Upon completion of the course, she will be joining the Israeli Union of Home Economic Advisors.
Born in New York to an Israeli family, Stefanie is fluent in English and Hebrew. She finds great fulfillment in building personal relationships with her clients and watching them succeed in achieving financial stability.
She is excited to be part of a team that helps empower English-speakers in Israel, and is pleased to see the positive impact that LFSII has on our clients’ lives and financial wellbeing.
Miriam Brodie-Elbogen
Online Business Manager, Living Financially Smarter in Israel
LFSII’s operations guru, Miriam is the behind-the-scenes powerhouse who ensures that English-speakers in Israel gain the maximum from our programming and content. Miriam is an expert delivering stellar content to our audience and reaching as many people as possible.
Miriam plans and manages our online courses and live events, ensuring that our clients have an ideal experience from registration onwards. Her newsletters and social media posts ensure that our clients have consistent access to the newest strategies, legal updates and financial facts that affect them.
You may have met Miriam in person at the LFSII Conference or interacted with her online as the Moderator of the LFSII Facebook group. She’s grateful to work on a woman-led team, a rarity in the finance industry, and is proud to be part of Rifka’s mission to make financial knowledge more accessible to English speakers in Israel.
I’m on a mission to change the financial image in Israel.
Israel is not the place it was 30 years ago – a “developing” country where you had to rough it in order to make it.
With a GDP at $400 billion, today Israel is considered a high income country by the World Bank. It has one of the highest number of startups in the world, and has been ranked 11th most powerful country in the world in the 2021 Best Countries survey.
Rifka excels in empowering professionals and business owners with a ‘building wealth mindset’ and the strategic tools to set up their finances to achieve this goal. Super intuitive, highly resourceful and extraordinary dedication are just some of the qualities that I experienced first hand as Rifka helped me think out of the box and experience success in my professional life and business that I had not imagined!
Tzvi Broker
Career Consultant
Rifka’s role as financial advisor to the Jerusalem Scavenger Hunts is instrumental to our continued success story. As a small business owner, I didn’t want to limit the success of my business by my lack of financial expertise. Rifka guides me to set goals, make responsible decisions and gives me tools to understand the financial aspects of running a small and growing business.
With Rifka on the team as our independent financial advisor, I have the peace of mind that comes with knowing that I am making wise and calculated decisions and growing my business on a firm foundation. She continues to empower us to make wiser decisions and plan for the future.
Tali Tarlow
CEO Jerusalem Scavenger Hunts
I would like to give a huge recommendation for Rifka Lebowitz and the excellent service she provides. We met with her, on zoom, for an hour and a half financial consultation and her advice was absolutely invaluable. She gave excellent advice in the most comprehensive way enabling us to better manage our day to day and long term finances and navigate the complexities of family budgeting in Israel.
Michelle Merchant
Enaya Web Designs
Together, let’s lead the way for our shared successful future.
