When John Sullivan became Yochanan Rachmiel Ben-Abraham earlier this month at American Jewish University (AJU), he made the record books for one of Los Angeles’ most venerable Jewish institutions.
Before the ceremony, Anthony Elman, Sullivan’s mentor, teacher and sponsoring rabbi, said his student’s conversion to Judaism would be a historic event for the Los Angeles Jewish Home, where Sullivan has been living for nearly two years.
“He will be our first, in my knowledge,” he said.
On Nov. 11, Veterans Day, Sullivan entered AJU in Bel Air wearing a lapel pin bearing American and Israeli flags intertwined. As the two-hour ceremony opened, Sullivan, 79, stood in front of the three-rabbi panel at the Sandra Caplan Community Bet Din, or religious court, and answered questions that tested his knowledge of Judaism and his sincerity.
After the bet din rabbis, including Elman, voted to accept him as a Jew, Sullivan recited the Declaration of Faith, including these words: “Today I join the children of Israel, casting my lot with theirs, my hope with theirs, my pain and joy with theirs.”
Rabbi Dan Shevitz, head of the bet din and author of the declaration, proclaimed: “As my scuba instructor used to say, let’s go get wet.”
Sullivan’s journey to Judaism began 20 months ago, when the retired Hughes Aircraft engineer moved into the Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center on the Grancell Village campus at the Los Angeles Jewish Home in Reseda. At the time, he was a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist, believing that enlightenment can be attained in one’s present form and in one’s lifetime.
Since the Home accepts government funds, it can’t restrict its admissions. Elman said a small number of non-Jews live at the Jewish Home.
Bonnie Polishuk, the Home’s marketing director, said, “We don’t run statistics on such things, but the majority of our residents are Jewish.”
When Sullivan moved in, he was recovering from cancer surgery in which his entire stomach was removed. He could no longer live on his own.
Sullivan had a friend who, more than once, had served as his guardian angel. Rick Young, 65, was the last president of the former Temple Emet and past president of its successor congregation, Temple Kol Tikvah, both in Woodland Hills.
“I had no idea the Jewish Home took people who weren’t Jewish,” Young said. “But I checked, and they told me they did.”
Young met Sullivan through his youngest child, Stevan Kenji Sullivan, 40.
“Steve operates a computer service company,” Young said. “He came over once five years ago to fix my computer, and we’ve been friends ever since.”
Young, who describes himself as Sullivan’s “caretaker,” never had an opportunity to see his parents into old age: “My dad passed away at the age of 49, leaving my mom with three young boys, and then she died five years later at the age of 54, leaving us three boys at 17, 20 and 22 with no parents.”
After all 239 residents had settled into the new Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center building, officers were chosen. Sullivan, a gregarious man, was elected president of the resident council on a unanimous vote.
“Once I said I was interested in the job, everyone else dropped out. Now I’m in my second term. I take care of the monthly meetings. Everybody treats me like a million dollars. It’s embarrassing,” he said.
At the Jewish Home, Sullivan can’t kiss babies like other politicians, but he has endeared himself to other residents through endless acts of kindness.
“I try to be nice to everybody. It’s a zoo here on Mother’s Day. You could get trampled. One resident, a woman, is blind. She was just standing there. She couldn’t move. I helped her up to her room. I like getting along with other people,” Sullivan said.
The more time Sullivan spent at the Jewish Home, “the more I became interested in Judaism. In time, I fell in love with it. I met some very, very nice Jewish people in the Home, so I was exposed to Judaism. I’m a curious man, and I studied with Rabbi Elman,” he said, referring to Grancell Village’s spiritual leader. “The more I studied, the more interested I got. This was the religion I had looked for my whole life.”
Sullivan was raised in a nondenominational Christian church in his hometown of Kansas City, Mo. “My father made me go to church. He went hunting and fishing with me, but he wouldn’t go to church. I always went alone. In time, I became friendly with the minister. I was baptized several times.”
But Sullivan’s quest did not end there. He married his late Japanese wife, Chiyo, and took a deep and abiding interest in her culture. Chiyo was a Presbyterian, but Sullivan pushed her toward her ancestral faith. She lasted only two years as a Buddhist, but Sullivan stayed with it for nearly 10 years. He had no intention of abandoning it when he moved into the Home.
Today, he will not enter or leave his room without reciting a Hebrew prayer.
“The Jewish Home has given him religion, given him life,” his friend Young explained. “He believes there’s no better way to say thank you than by becoming a Jew. He goes to services all the time, wears a yarmulke for most of the day. When he’s lying in bed he wears a yarmulke.”
Elman, a tall, stately Englishman, said Sullivan has a “powerful wish to be fully at home as a Jew.” Sullivan has “a contemplative nature,” Elman said, and continues to meditate, as he did when he was a Buddhist.
“Typically, when a Jew meditates, he recites the Shema,” Elman said.
At AJU, Sullivan joined Rabbi Arinna Moon at the edge of the mikveh’s outer pool, its holding tank, as she explained why the mikveh was filled with ice heated to 85 degrees and why this was kosher.
Stevan, wearing a chai, accompanied his father.
Behind closed doors, Sullivan removed his clothes and then immersed himself three times in the 4 1/2-feet-deep inner mikveh. He lowered his head into the water, then recited the Shema and the Shehecheyanu prayers, and Elman gave him his Hebrew name.
“I could have spent another day in there,” an exultant and newly Jewish Sullivan said. “You don’t know how happy I am.”
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