Flying High on the Road to Becoming a Rabbi

Seven years and half-a-million miles after scratching the first itch, Sally Olins will be ordained as a rabbi, May 31 at the B’nai Hayim temple in Sherman Oaks--”the first time in history,” she marvels, “that an ordination has taken place on the West Coast.”

In an extraordinary demonstration of faith and perseverence, Olins, an ebullient, joyful Conservative Jew who lives in Century City, has been flying East every Sunday and returning every Wednesday since October of 1986, just to study at the Academy for Jewish Religion. Why New York? “Los Angeles has the second-largest Jewish community in the world,” Olins says, “but there isn’t a single seminary (that ordains rabbis) in the west. And they wonder why there’s a shortage of rabbis . . . “

For Olins, in her mid-40s, it was in 1982 that “I really needed to do something with my Jewishness.” A UCLA graduate, she went back to school for a masters at the local University of Judaism. At the time, Conservative Judaism permitted no woman rabbis, “but the (university) rabbi said, ‘Stick around, Sally, the law may be changed.’ It was like waiting in the wings, but when the law changed (in 1984), I was ready”--ready for exhaustive study of the Talmud, the Torah, both biblical and modern Hebrew, history, law. . . .

In New York, Olins stayed at the Plaza Hotel: “The staff there, and on the TWA flights, became my extended family. Race, religion, age isn’t important; people can be so supportive, so . . . beautiful !”

Olins reckons she’s studied seven to eight hours a day for as far back as she can remember, and will have flown 443,000 miles by ordination day. “It’s really a small price to pay for what I’ve gotten in return,” she insists. “I’m so lucky. I am doing what I was meant to do all my life.”

A Doctor’s 50th--an Act of Devotion

“The heart is revealed in the deeds.” So wrote Ronit Weintraub to husband Jack on the occasion of his 50th birthday this month.

Back in 1980, the Weintraubs were subjects of a “Fantasy Comes to Life” article in The Times’ Home magazine. The piece chronicled the couple’s transworld romance: she a sixth-generation Sabra (native-born Israeli) and former Miss Israel, he a Cleveland-born obstetrician-gynecologist; they meeting at an Israel Bond luncheon in Beverly Hills; she returning home; he following her to Israel to propose. . . .

“It is with love and admiration,” reads Ronit’s birthday letter to Jack, “that I have made a decision to honor you--this time with the help of our extended family, friends and your patients. . . . By raising $33,000 for furnishing the new proposed LDPR (Labor, Delivery, Recovery, Post-partum Room) at Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital where the entire birthing process will take place, it is our turn to show you our devotion. . . .”

Weintraub’s patients--many of whom contributed to the fund, unbeknown to the doctor--obviously agree. “You saw me at my very worst (me and a thousand others),” wrote one, “and we all share a common bond: You helped bring our children into this world, and there’s nothing more important.”

A Hotelier Honored for His Charity

He’s better known for his chops than his charity, but he obviously finds the time for both. In April, then, the United Cerebral Palsy Assn. will honor Bernard Jacoupy, general manager of Le Meridien Hotel in Newport Beach, at an “International Gourmet Gala” to be held in the ballroom of his own inn.

Under Jacoupy’s direction, the hotel has been a major supporter of UCP’s annual Bastille Day 8-Kilometer Race as well as the Christmas Boat Parade Auction, both major fund-raisers for the charity.

Dr. Ernest Nagamatsu of Los Angeles, who will chair the gala, notes the promised appearance of renowned chefs from France and Japan, and hopes to “make this a truly international effort,” with proceeds benefiting corresponding organizations in both countries, along with the UCP of Orange County.

Of hotelier Jacoupy, Nagamatsu says: “People are aware of Bernard’s achievements in the culinary world (among other accomplishments, Jacoupy created Bernard’s, a renowned restaurant in Los Angeles) . . . but his charitable contribution is less well known and equally impressive.”