A Pillar of the Area’s Jewish Community

When Maurice Ratner came to the Valley as a kid in 1914, there were only a handful of Jews living here. By the late 1930s, the number had grown to about 100 families, so Ratner had the notion of establishing a synagogue in the area.

“It was time,” Ratner said in a 1988 Times interview. “We needed a shul for ourselves and to encourage other Jews to move to the Valley. In those days, Jews hesitated to go places where there wasn’t much Jewish life. We looked forward to the day when there would be a synagogue here.”

In 1938, about 15 families, including his own, established the Valley Jewish Community Center, which would later become Adat Ari El, now an 800-family Conservative congregation in North Hollywood.

Ten years later, he helped found a second Conservative synagogue, Valley Beth Israel in Sun Valley. The sanctuary of the 165-family temple is named in Ratner’s honor.

Ratner remained active in the local Jewish community, helping to start Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Van Nuys, Shaarey Zedek Congregation in North Hollywood, the Emek Hebrew Academy in North Hollywood, the Teichman Mikvah Society in North Hollywood and several Chabad chapters in the Valley, among other Jewish organizations, according to his family.

He operated Ratner’s Drugs in Sun Valley from 1929 to 1945 and helped establish the Sun Valley Area Chamber of Commerce, serving as its president in 1928. In 1983, he was named the first--and thus far only--honorary mayor of Sun Valley.

An early developer in the area, Ratner began selling real estate at age 17 and continued with his Sun Valley Realty Co. until shortly before his death in 1990 at the age of 85. Ratner Street, which runs through the East Valley, serves as a permanent reminder of the mark he left on the area.