I. Kingdon Hirsch; Manufacturer and Philanthropist
I. Kingdon Hirsch, who took much of the fortune he earned in manufacturing and investments and put it into philanthropic causes in Los Angeles, died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
The co-founder, with his late wife, of the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center was 77 and died of the complications of a stroke, said his son, David.
A 1931 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Hirsch became merchandise manager of the R. H. Macy Co. in New York City before founding the Bogart Corp., a textile manufacturing firm, in that city.
He and his family came to Beverly Hills, where they were to live for the next 35 years, and in 1974 Hirsch and his wife, Didi, founded the community mental health facility in Culver City that today is considered a model for centers offering short-term psychotherapy to those in crisis situations. Didi Hirsch died in 1975.
In his mother’s name, he founded the Rhea Hirsch School of Jewish Education at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, where he also was a board member.
Another of his philanthropies was the R. David Hirsch Foundation, named for his father, which dispenses funds primarily to California charities.
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