Jewish Federation Opens New Facilities

Carefully balancing the need for security with the desire for an inviting, airy atmosphere, Jewish community leaders in Los Angeles proudly displayed the results of a $24-million overhaul of their headquarters Monday in the Mid-Wilshire district.

The Jewish Federation center at 6505 Wilshire Blvd. will house a children’s museum and library, an exhibition gallery and offices for nine Jewish community groups in addition to the federation’s executive offices.

The 12-story building, which had housed federation employees since 1975, suffered structural damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The building was redesigned and three years were spent gutting and rebuilding it.

At first, officials say, they toyed with the idea of abandoning the site and moving to a new location closer to Westside or San Fernando Valley suburban neighborhoods where large numbers of Jewish families live.

But the Mid-Wilshire site remains a central location for services offered by federation agencies such as Jewish Big Brothers, Jewish Family Services and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, they concluded.

“We discussed locating to other parts of town, but the Jewish community is spread out all over town,” said federation President John Fishel. “We’re committed to the greater Los Angeles area.”

During the make-over, about 150 federation employees worked out of their homes with laptop computers and cellular telephones or in borrowed offices in West Los Angeles and in the West Hills area of the San Fernando Valley.

Returning workers greeted each other Monday with a progressive lunch that started with appetizers on the ground level and ended with dessert on the top floor.

“This is light and bright instead of being dingy and dark,” said an admiring Jay Shuster, a federation newsletter editor who lives in Sherman Oaks.

“Before, we’d find another spot to meet with potential donors rather than bring them here,” agreed associate fund-raising director Lee Rosenblum, of Redondo Beach.

“Now there are windows everywhere and there’s an open, airy feeling. I can’t wait to invite people here.”

The new windows are made with bullet-resistant glass--one of many unobtrusive security features built into the headquarters in the wake of last year’s shooting attack on a Jewish community center in the Valley.

“We’d always had security. But we’ve upgraded everything,” said Lionel Bell, a former federation president who helped oversee the redesign.

Construction workers who were still installing interior paneling and such outside security features as special car-stopping barriers set off metal detectors Monday as they walked through the front door wearing tool belts.

About 150 employees of the various Jewish agencies will be moving into the building, Fishel said. A grand-opening ceremony will be held, probably in December, when finishing touches are completed and the children’s museum and library are installed.

Federal Emergency Management Agency funds covered about $3.5 million of the cost, and private donations paid for the rest. The headquarters has been named the Goldsmith Center in recognition of the family of Elaine and Bram Goldsmith, whose $5-million gift kicked off the redesign and the repairs.

Along with heavy-duty retrofitting that includes a 2 1/2-foot steel-and-concrete reinforcement of the building’s perimeter foundation, some ground-level walls are sheathed in Jerusalem stone, said the federation’s director of community development, Lois Weinsaft of Studio City.

In Jewish tradition, she said, the shimmery, granite-like stone--the same as that used to construct the ancient holy city of Jerusalem--is the strongest building material in the structure.