Rabbi Simon Dolgin, 89; Beth Jacob Congregation Leader for 30-Plus Years

Rabbi Simon Dolgin, who led the Beth Jacob Congregation in the Los Angeles area for more than 30 years and laid the foundation for it to become the largest Orthodox synagogue west of the Mississippi, has died. He was 89.

Dolgin died Sunday in Jerusalem. The cause of death was not announced.

“He was one of the real pioneers of orthodoxy in Los Angeles,” said Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, chairman of Jewish law and ethics at Loyola Law School. “He put modern Orthodoxy on the map.”

Adlerstein said that at a time when many congregations were moving toward the more liberal Conservative stream of Judaism, Dolgin reversed the trend, at least at Beth Jacob.

“He managed to swim against the current and take a somewhat less-than-Orthodox congregation and move it to full Orthodoxy,” Adlerstein said.

A native of Chicago, Dolgin received rabbinical ordination at the Hebrew Theological Seminary in Skokie, Ill.

Dolgin was 23 when he was asked to take over the Beth Jacob Congregation, then located on West Adams Boulevard between Crenshaw Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, in 1939. There, he imposed a physical barrier between men and women during prayer services -- a hallmark of traditional Orthodoxy. It took him 20 years to gain full acceptance of this in the congregation, but Dolgin was adamant that it had to be done, according to members of the congregation.

In 1949, he founded the Hillel Hebrew Academy, the city’s first Jewish day school, which is adjacent to the current synagogue.

In the early 1950s, it was Dolgin’s vision that the synagogue and congregation should move to the west side of the city to reflect the needs of the congregation and the growth of the area’s Jewish population.

The synagogue moved to its present location on West Olympic Boulevard in Beverly Hills in 1954. Many members of the congregation uprooted their homes to follow Dolgin into Beverly Hills in order to live within walking distance of the new temple. Under Orthodox law, Jews are forbidden from driving on the Sabbath.

The synagogue came into its prime in Beverly Hills, both in terms of growth of the congregation and its influence on the city itself.

Dolgin initiated the program instructing every household in his congregation to donate to the United Jewish Welfare Fund, now called the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles.

In the late 1950s, he persuaded the downtown Biltmore Hotel to establish a kosher kitchen by promising that such a facility would be profitable. It soon was, and other hotels around the city followed suit.

In 1971, Dolgin immigrated to Israel and became rabbi in the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood in Jerusalem; the synagogue there was also called Beth Jacob. Dolgin was believed to be the first American Jew to be appointed a rabbi in Jerusalem.

He also served in the Israeli government, as director general of the ministry of religious affairs -- the first Western rabbi to hold that position.

Dolgin served for several years as chairman of the World Mizrachi-Hapoel of the Hamizrachi movement, an umbrella group for religious Zionists.

Survivors include his wife of more than 60 years, Shirley; daughters Saralee and Sharonbeth; sons Michael and Jess; and several grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 7:15 p.m. today at Beth Jacob Congregation, 9030 W. Olympic Blvd., Beverly Hills.

Times staff writer Larry Stammer contributed to this report.