As his lasting legacy, Zeldin left a thriving congregation and school system, now numbering some 4,800 members and students.
LOS ANGELES – Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin, a Reform Judaism leader who founded and guided Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles from modest beginnings to one of the world’s largest Reform congregations, died Friday evening (Jan. 26) at his home in Palm Springs, CA) surrounded by his family. He died of natural causes at 97. Born and raised in Brooklyn (New York), the son of a respected scholar and ardent Zionist, he moved to Los Angeles in 1954 to establish the California branch of Hebrew Union College and served as the 11-state regional director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
In 1964, he and a nucleus of 35 families founded Stephen Wise Temple on a striking 18-acre mountain site situated between the city’s two largest Jewish population centers, the Westside and San Fernando Valley.
