Woman Who Lends Name to Jail to Be Honored

For someone whose name turns up in the news so often, Sybil Brand is remarkably little known.

The name graces the front of the Los Angeles County women’s jail, the Sybil Brand Institute for Women. This, of course, guarantees that the name will crop up in dozens of news stories each month--most of them dealing with women who have run afoul of the law.

This week, a ceremony at Beverly Hills City Hall will serve as a reminder that the name belongs to a distinguished social worker. An 88-year-old resident of Beverly Hills, Sybil Brand will be honored Tuesday by Mayor Allan Alexander and the City Council for a lifetime of humanitarian achievements.

For the record, the Sybil Brand Institute was so named because of Mrs. Brand’s extensive efforts to improve jail conditions, particularly for women. She got involved in the issue when, as a member of the county Public Welfare Commission, she volunteered to monitor the jails. She quickly discovered that the conditions in the women’s jail were dismal and set about to rectify them.

In 1960, she campaigned vigorously for the passage of a ballot measure that would provide funding for a new jail. When the measure passed, the jail was named for Mrs. Brand in recognition of her efforts.

Mrs. Brand continues to serve as the chairman of the Institutional Inspection Commission. Her duties include visits to the women’s jail every three weeks.

In a telephone interview, she said: “I try to help anybody that asks. I don’t even have know them. . . . I will do anything I can to help them.”

Mrs. Brand has also been active in many other community charitable organizations.

“Ever since I was a little girl,” she said, she has borne in mind some parental advice: “My mother always said if I can do one good deed a day, life is worth living.”

A testimonial dinner last week marked the retirement of Rabbi Pinchos Gruman, a veteran leader of Orthodox Jewry in Los Angeles.

A native of the Ukraine, Gruman served as rabbi of the Young Israel of Los Angeles congregation for 27 years.

Money raised at the dinner will be used to launch a research center at which Gruman and other scholars may study the life and work of the Maharal of Prague, a 16th-Century scholar famous for his supposed creation of a clay robot.

The robot, known as the Golem, is famous in folklore for having protected the Jews of the Czech capital against their enemies.

Gruman said, however, that he has found no mention of the robot in the Maharal’s writings or in early biographies of the sage.

Maharal is a Hebrew acronym. The rabbi’s real name was Yehuda Low, and scholars are actually more interested in his authoritative commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud, according to Gruman.

Gruman also served as principal of the Rambam Torah Institute, an Orthodox day school, between 1959 and 1979, and is currently president of the Rabbinical Council of California, which oversees much of the kosher supervision in the state.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David M. Rothman has received the President’s Award from the California Judges Assn. in recognition of his contributions toward improving the judicial profession.

Rothman was honored for his work on judicial ethics and sex discrimination. He also wrote the first “The California Judicial Conduct Handbook,” a comprehensive account of cases, opinions, rules and procedures in the field of judicial ethics.

Since 1989, he has served as the supervising judge in the Santa Monica-based West District.

The Boys and Girls Club of Venice has selected Jerome H. Snyder as Man of the Year and Dena Stitt as Woman of the Year.

Snyder is founding partner of the J.H. Snyder Co., developer of several commercial and residential projects on the Westside.

Stitt is executive director of FIDM Productions, a video production company.

They will be honored at a dinner Tuesday at the Sheraton Plaza LaReina Hotel at Los Angeles International Airport.