Forging a Union Between Community, Jews : For Hebrew college, taking up residency near USC in 1971 was a natural move. The Jewish faith embraces the spirit of neighborhood involvement.

For 24 years, Hebrew Union College has been training reform rabbis and Jewish educators at its campus at 32nd and Hoover streets, near USC. Community activism is integral to its mission of religious education. Lee T. Bycel, dean of the college and president-elect of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, discussed with writer Catherine Gewertz the college’s approach to community involvement.

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Hebrew Union College was established in 1875 in Cincinnati and grew to have three other campuses: New York, Jerusalem and Los Angeles. The Los Angeles school was established in May, 1954, in a house in the Hollywood Hills. We moved here in 1971.

We moved because we wanted to be entrenched in a neighborhood that is multicultural, multiethnic. It’s a part of Jewish principles that one should never separate oneself from the community. We wanted to give of ourselves, our own resources and talents, to somehow enhance life in this part of town as well as to learn from our neighbors about who they are.

We also had the opportunity to be affiliated with USC. Arrangements were made so that students at USC and Hebrew Union College can take courses at both institutions. Now we have about 500 USC undergraduates each year take at least one course with us. Most are not Jewish.

Our own student body is about 80 full-time graduate students. They are divided about equally among three programs: the rabbinical program, which trains Jewish educators, and a program that trains students to work in social service agencies such as Jewish Family Service. Most in that last program are also getting master’s degrees from USC in social work or public administration.

Our activities in the community are an important part of our students’ training, because there is an important tradition in Jewish thought that’s captured in the Hebrew word tzadakah . It’s often translated to mean giving money, but in the larger sense it means the pursuit of justice. It reflects the fundamental value in Jewish life that we are obligated to give of ourselves to the world so that it might be a little better off.

It’s obligatory for a Jew to be deeply involved in the world around him or her. The only way for all of us to improve this world is to work together. So we are trying to work with our neighbors who have outstanding programs to make this a better neighborhood.

One of the ways we work in the community is through our Hebrew Union College Relief Fund. We give roughly $25,000 a year, in grants of $2,500 to $5,000, to local organizations. We raise money from students and faculty, from private individuals and foundations. We started it after the 1992 riots because we wanted to respond in a way that would strengthen our neighborhoods, a way that is long-lasting.

We have given $5,000 each year since the riots to the Hoover Intergenerational Center, which offers preschool and after-school programs for children of low- and moderate-income families, and they are committed to hiring senior citizens to work with them. We sponsored a one-month summer program at the Educational Consortium of Central Los Angeles, which is at the 32nd Street [Elementary] School. A multicultural group of kids went to museums of different ethnic and cultural groups and had to learn to navigate the bus system to get around.

We sponsored 12 students from our three local high schools--Fremont, Manual Arts and Jefferson--to go to the National Conference’s Brotherhood-Sisterhood USA Camp. It’s an intensive weeklong dialogue on racial, ethnic and personal issues. We also have given to the Central Recovery and Development Ministry, so they could pay for referees for night basketball games. Not only do we give grants to these kinds of agencies, our students often end up working with them too.

Another way we work is through the Tom Bradley Program in Multicultural Understanding, which was established in the summer of 1992 in conjunction with USC. It’s funded by Hebrew Union College and provides stipends for students from USC programs like Black Student Services and El Centro Chicano to serve internships in a variety of Jewish agencies. And Hebrew Union College students have internships in social service agencies like Catholic Charities, the Chinatown Service Center or El Rescate. Then all the students gather weekly for a seminar where they deal with diversity training, ethnic/religious identity and learn about nonprofit institutions.

We care deeply about our students learning that for everyone to survive, we must all work together.

There’s a Talmudic statement: If you save one life, it’s as if you saved the entire world, and if you destroy one life, it’s as if you destroyed the entire world. We want to give individuals the opportunity to make the most of their lives.