Strides in Justice Lauded at AJC Gala

Justice was celebrated Tuesday night when the American Jewish Congress Pacific Southwest Region gave out its annual tzedek awards. The Congress honored Mayor Tom Bradley; UCLA executive vice chancellor Andrea Rich; artist and activist Betty Warner Sheinbaum and her husband, Stanley, a political activist and past president and current member of the Los Angeles Police Commission.

Tzedek is the Hebrew word for justice, “not charity, but justice,” AJC executive director Rabbi Laura Geller told the gathering, referring to the 75-year-old organization’s overall mission.

Defeating the recession odds, the $250-a-ticket event brought 400 people to the ballroom of the Olympic Collection in West L.A.--double the number attending last year’s awards dinner.

Many were still on an inauguration high. Just back from the festivities and ceremonies in Washington were attorney and AJC regional co-chair Geoffrey Cowan and his wife, attorney Aileen Adams; the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee’s Margery Tabankin; author and feminist activist Betty Friedan; songwriters Marilyn and Alan Bergman; Westside activist Marjorie Fasman, and former AJC regional director Esther Shapiro.

They were joined by a predictable Westside mix of entertainers, political candidates, elected officials and other community leaders including singer Harry Belafonte, who made a long and moving tribute to both the AJC and Stanley Sheinbaum; City Councilman and mayoral candidate Michael Woo; producer Barbara Corday; Councilman Mike Hernandez; singer Theodore Bikel, wearing a red AIDS awareness ribbon; City Council candidate Jackie Goldberg; political commentator Bill Press; State Sen. Tom Hayden; Police Chief Willie Williams and police commissioners Ann Reiss Lane and Jessie Brewer.

The evening’s most somber moment came when co-chair Cowan called for a moment of “silent memory” of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall who died last Sunday. After the silence, Cowan offered a prayer that “somehow we will find another Thurgood Marshall to see us through the days ahead.”

For the most part, it was a warm night of schmoozing, political gossip and informal, but serious, dinner-table talk of the social justice issues that concern AJC.

Halfway through the awards, Alan Bergman treated the group to a sampling of his current passion--singing cabaret-style, as he occasionally does at the Russian Tea Room in New York.

If anything the evening was too much of a good thing--the schmoozing carried on to the podium, where honorees and presenters remembered each other with litanies of praise and fond anecdotes.

People began squirming in their chairs. Some dozed. After each changing of the guard at the podium, a few more guests would edge their way out of the room.

All of which led Bill Cosby, there to make the final presentation to Mayor Tom Bradley, to greet the stalwarts who remained with “Good evening. It’s the end.”