How to pursue justice: 5 lessons from the life of Stan Levy

Executive Briefing

According to reporting by The Forward, At a time of so much division and injustice, when the temptation is to retreat into outrage or into ourselves, there is much to be learned in the life of our friend, Stan Levy. Stan, who died Nov. 5 at the age of 84, founded Bet Tzedek Legal services and was.

Detailed Factual Report

At a time of so much division and injustice, when the temptation is to retreat into outrage or into ourselves, there is much to be learned in the life of our friend, Stan Levy.

Stan, who died Nov. 5 at the age of 84, founded Bet Tzedek Legal services and was a fixture in the Los Angeles legal, philanthropic and Jewish communities for close to 60 years. Ensuring fairness where it was absent was Stan’s calling, both as a lawyer and a rabbi.

How he set out to do that — the sheer range of his accomplishments — is daunting: an experienced concert promoter, a corporate general counsel and law firm partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, an ordained rabbi, the founder and spiritual leader of a thriving congregation, B’nai Horin, the founder of a transdenominational rabbinical and cantorial school, the Academy of Jewish Religion, and, for good measure, the visionary behind the founding of three of the community’s most important legal aid organizations — Bet Tzedek, Public Counsel and the Western Center on Law & Poverty.

The first lesson: pay attention to the people others don’t see . The 1970s were something of a heyday for legal services, the funding relatively more plentiful and far less controversial than today. But Stan saw something few others did. There were no free legal services in what was then the center of Jewish life in Los Angeles, the Fairfax District. He recognized the significant needs of Holocaust survivors, a group otherwise invisible to most, and other low-income individuals and families living in the heart of the Jewish community. And in 1974, he founded Bet Tzedek Legal Services .

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Source & Verification Provenance

Information in this article was compiled directly from records provided by The Forward. Access the primary source document at: https://forward.com/opinion/861431/how-to-pursue-justice-5-lessons-from-the-life-of-stan-levy/. Reporting and editorial review conducted by the USA NOW News Desk.