Sep 4, 2008 12:39 pm US/Pacific
L.A. Rabbi Awarded For Leadership, Inspiring Youth
LOS ANGELES
A rabbi who founded a social justice organization will receive the inaugural "Inspired Leadership Award" from the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, it was announced Thursday.
Rabbi Sharon Brous founded IKAR, a Jewish spiritual community in Los Angeles dedicated to the integration of spiritual and religious practice and the pursuit of social justice. According to the JCF, Brous is credited with drawing back many young, unaffiliated Jews to Judaism.
She was included in the Forward newspaper's annual list of the 50 most influential American Jews for three consecutive years, and Newsweek has named her one of the leading rabbis in the country, according to the foundation.
"Rabbi Brous exemplifies the committee's criteria for this prestigious award: she's a forward-thinking leader who is ahead of her time -- truly creative and entrepreneurial in her approach to Jewish communal issues," said foundation President and Chief Executive Officer Marvin I. Schotland.
"Her dynamic personality and commitment to Judaism and social justice are truly inspirational," he said. "She's a person of integrity and accomplishment who works to effect positive, meaningful change in the Los Angeles Jewish community."
The foundation created the biennial award program to recognize an outstanding professional leader whose vision can help transform the Los Angeles Jewish community. It provides a $100,000 donor-advised fund for Brous to distribute to programs and projects of local Jewish organizations that support her vision.
"For the first time in the foundation's more than 50-year history, we have established a monetary award program that recognizes and supports the work of an individual," Schotland said. "Our role as a prime source for funding causes in Jewish Los Angeles continues to evolve and expand. Consequently, our board feels it is incumbent upon us to identify outstanding young leaders and support their work."
He said Brous was selected from 15 candidates nominated by the foundation's board, but that the organization had been aware of her work for several years. She was one of the inspirations for establishing the award, according to Schotland.
Brous said she was "thrilled and honored" to be the first recipient.
"We started IKAR four years ago believing that if we approached traditional Jewish life with a pious irreverence, a true sense of mission, a spirit of innovation and risk taking, and a real sense of humor, we could build a beautiful and compelling model, and simultaneously catalyze a critical conversation in the American Jewish community about the Jewish future," she said.
Brous, 34, was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001. She received her master's degree in human rights from Columbia University, where she also did her undergraduate work.
After ordination, she served as a Marshall T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellow at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in New York City. Following her move to Los Angeles in 2002, the married mother of two was Rabbi-in-Residence and director of Advanced Jewish Studies at Milken Community High School.
For the past seven years, Brous has served on the faculty of REBOOT, a nonprofit that seeks to revive Jewish tradition, and on the regional council of the Progressive Jewish Alliance. The New Jersey native teaches social justice and spiritual activism at Hebrew Union College and sits on the rabbinic advisory boards of American Jewish World Service and Hebrew College in Newton, Mass.
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