Hip Historians

The quiet hallways of the Jewish Historical Society of Southern California (JHS) are teeming with something you wouldn’t expect: young blood. Neither fusty nor old-fashioned, the group has been experiencing a revitalization during the past several years, with an influx of lay leaders who have yet to grow a follicle of gray hair and who have résumés reaching deep into City Hall and Hollywood.

“They are making some inroads in bringing younger participants,” said Josh Kun, a 29-year-old assistant professor of English at UC Riverside who paid homage to Mickey Katz at JHS’ annual board meeting last month. “With a lot of other Jewish organizations, I felt that my voice didn’t matter and the world that I traveled in was not the same world. I think [the JHS board members] realize that this is the case, and they’re open to younger voices and are comfortable with the fact that it may not mean the same to me as it does to older generations.”

At 37, Jeremy Sunderland, vice president and deputy general counsel at the WB television network, is one of the younger members sitting on the JHS board.

“People seem to think a historical society is peopled by seniors, but, in fact, it’s very alive,” said Sunderland, an L.A. native who volunteers his time to conduct JHS tours. “I think younger people can bring more energy and vitality to discovery and rediscovery of roots.”

Sunderland cited Kun’s Mickey Katz presentation as an example of JHS realizing its purpose by “bringing the generations together.” Kun caught the Katz bug several years ago after jazz musician Don Byron played Katz’s klezmer on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Now a devoted authority on Katz’s life and career, Kun delivered a Katz tribute that not only attracted Katz’s own son, “Cabaret” star Joel Grey, but packed the house with attendants young and old.

Established in 1952, JHS is a nonprofit membership group committed to preserving and showcasing the region’s unique Jewish past. Located in the heart of Museum Row, the society’s archive center shares its space with the Jewish Community Library of Greater Los Angeles and The Los Angeles Holocaust Museum — all beneficiaries of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Lately, JHS has also attracted attention — and more new members — by leading a multiethnic fight to save and restore Boyle Heights’ landmark Breed Street Shul.

“What I think is really important about what the Historical Society is doing is their commitment to not treating Jewish American culture as an insular, singular unit,” said Kun. “They are looking to understand and reexamine contemporary Jewish American culture in relation to other culture.” The Latino-run Self-Help Graphics in Boyle Heights and the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo are two organizations working with JHS on the Breed Street Shul effort.

“They are people who care about the history of Jewish L.A. as well as Los Angeles in general,” Sunderland said of JHS. “I would love to see that hundreds of thousands of Jews recognize that L.A. is a place that they could be proud of and not dismiss it. When you can go to Dodger Stadium and you can say that the oldest Jewish-owned land sits behind the ticket booth, that a Jew was the first police chief here and Jews were among the first politicians, I find that very rewarding.”

At the heart of JHS stands its youthful president, 43-year-old Stephen Sass. As senior vice president of business affairs at NBC Entertainment, Sass’s title, while impressive, may ultimately not be that unusual — after all, Hollywood is teeming with studio execs. But what Sass does on his off-time is singular and, by many accounts, indispensable. Sass is working with JHS vice presidents Robert Chattel and Toby Horn and a team of volunteers to preserve, celebrate and disseminate local Jewish history through a combination of educational programs, tours and publications.

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Sass says, he had a very undernourished grasp of geography on the other side of the hill. Following Grant High School, Sass attended USC, where he became the editor of the Daily Trojan. And while his interest in journalism was in full bloom, Sass said he “always had an interest in Jewish history,” something instilled in him by his mother and father, who ran a Western wear surplus store.

But it was while working at L.A. Hebrew High School that Sass wound up teaching local Jewish history, a Sunday elective. A single book, “History of the Jews of L.A.” by University of Judaism professor emeritus Max Vorspan and Lloyd Gartner, deepened his interest in the study, which progressed as he attended law school at Loyola.

The more he investigated local Jewish history, the more Sass learned of the Jews who contributed to L.A.’s prosperity, such as Justin Turner, a real estate entrepreneur who started JHS.

For nearly 15 years, Sass, a resident of Studio City, has served as JHS’s president despite a demanding schedule at NBC. Part of Sass’s responsibilities on behalf of JHS has been leading the board of the Breed Street Shul project with Chattel, attorney Alan Mutchnick, UCLA Law School assistant professor Jonathan Zasloff, and Robin Kramer, Mayor Richard Riordan’s former chief of staff. The project won the city’s permission to oversee Breed Street Shul’s renovation; Kramer refers to the synagogue as a “beautiful treasure, earthquake-damaged and long neglected.”

Kramer told The Journal that, with the vital research assistance work of the board’s intern, Devorah Servi of Hebrew Union College’s School of Communal Service, the project is currently investigating which approach to take in salvaging the vandalized shul and is mounting a yearlong fundraising effort.

“I’ve really come to see the potential that this place has for the community to express itself to the Latino community, and vice versa,” Kramer continued. “Steve, from the very beginning, has built a wonderful relationship with the people who live around the shul. Many of them get the fact that this was a holy place, even though they haven’t met a Jew before they met Steve Sass.”

For JHS there is still much work to be done. Although a 1998 visit to Breed Street Shul by first lady Hillary Clinton raised its profile and helped pave the way to a FEMA grant for its preservation, JHS is by no means financially set. Fundraising aside, Sass said that there are a lot of opportunities for volunteers of all ages. The JHS has gathered volumes of material, and while a Jewish Community Foundation grant will go toward a direly need archivist position, there is much material to be classified. Oral history is another area that volunteers can contribute to, and Sass welcomes both interviewers and interview subjects (particularly those from the Persian, Russian, South African and Israeli communities with stories of local Jewish historical interest). The JHS also welcomes assistance in the creation of a long-overdue Web site.

“I would like to see us continue to become increasingly visible to the community at large, especially to our younger generations,” said Horn, “so they can get the sense and the flavor of the beauty of the Jewish community and help keep it alive.”

The Jewish Heritage Center is located at 6006 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. For more information, contact the Jewish Historical Society of Southern California at (323) 761-8950 or e-mail JHSociety@aol.com.