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Rabbi
Leonard I. Beerman is the founding rabbi of
Leo Baeck Temple. He was born in Pennsylvania.
He graduated from Pennsylvania State University
and was ordained as a rabbi at the Hebrew Union
College – Jewish Institute of Religion
in Cincinnati Ohio. Rabbi Beerman is the past
president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern
California and of the Pacific Association of
Reform Rabbis. He has served on the faculty
of the Claremont Men’s College and Immaculate
Heart College, and has lectured widely in a
number of academic institutions, synagogues,
churches and mosques.
At the present he serves actively on the boards
of institutions that reflect his primary interest,
the application of ethical values of Judaism
to the concrete problems that face human beings
in our time, especially the issues of justice
and peace. He is the vice president of the
Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Jewish
Peace Fellowship (JPF). Among the boards he
serves are Clergy and Laity United for Economic
Justice (CLUE), the Interreligious Committee
for Peace in the Middle East, the Institutional
Review Board of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,
Human Rights Watch – California, Death
Penalty Focus, the Progressive Religious partnership,
the Progressive Jewish Alliance and Labor and
Community Services of Los Angeles Federation
of Labor. He is a fellow of the Los Angeles
Institute for the Humanities.
Throughout his career, he has been involved
in the issues of peace and justice, and has
worked to bring conscience and faith to the
forefront of many difficult and controversial
social questions of our time. He has been honored
with numerous awards for his work. Among them:
the City of Los Angeles, the American Civil
Liberties Union, the American Friends Service
Committee, Physicians for Social Responsibility,
the Human Relations Commission of Los Angeles,
the Jewish War Veterans, the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, the Liberty Hill Foundation,
the Los Angeles Psychological Association,
and Death Penalty Focus.
Rabbi Beerman and his wife, Dr. Joan Willens
Beerman, live in Brentwood. They have five
children and six grandchildren.
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