...Levy was the ideal -- and obvious -- choice to become the building's namesake. In 1858, after several decades of distinguished service, he became the first Jew to rise to commodore, and commanded the Mediterranean fleet. A proudly Judaic patriot, Levy faced six courts-martial during his career, most if not all growing out of anti-Semitism. All six convictions were overturned -- on three occasions by presidents. His campaign to eliminate flogging is generally credited with the abolition of the practice.

The commodore made one other significant contribution to his country. An ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson, he purchased the former president's home of Monticello in 1836, when it was in dire straits. Levy worked on the house periodically until his death in 1862 and thus helped to save it for posterity. Jefferson, of course, loved domes and deployed them in his buildings -- awkwardly at Monticello and splendidly at the University of Virginia. Boggs, always a thoughtful architect and often a romantically expressive one, was referring to this connection when he designed a domed structure as a frontispiece to the Levy Center.

It is a fitting historicist gesture that symbolically unites the commodore, the president and the principles of freedom and tolerance both believed in. And inside the building, behind the dome, we find a bold, satisfying, contemporary expression of faith.