by stacey palevsky
staff writer
Ernie Weiner’s storied life is etched in his face: his military service, his time in the ring as a scrappy boxer and, perhaps most important, the 38 years he spent as the influential regional director of the American Jewish Committee.
Weiner, 83, is retiring Friday, Aug. 15 from the organization, whose primary mission is protecting the individual and religious rights of Jews all over the world, especially with respect to Israel.
“The rewards of this job are not tangible,” he said. “The rewards are those of conscience, soul and intellect, and that’s a rarity these days.”
As he reflected upon his tenure, Weiner’s voice deepened in pitch and lowered in volume, something he does when he really wants to make a point, when he wants his audience to lean in and listen closely: He said he is reluctant to move on (he’s worked every day since he was an 11-year-old shining shoes on the Staten Island Ferry), but is ready to let go.
Mervyn Danker, formerly the head of Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City, is the incoming director of the AJCommittee’s Northern California region. Weiner will serve as a consultant for the organization.
“I feel like I’ve made some timid journey across the history of the Jewish people, and I have done it as a proud American,” said Weiner, pausing, then chuckling. “Wow. That sounds like some sort of speech, doesn’t it?”
He is thoughtful and eloquent, the result of many years in publishing prior to working in the Jewish community. He is quick-witted and even abrasive at times, with the bravado one might expect from a former boxer.
Friends and colleagues described him as gregarious and charming, qualities that have helped establish him as a consummate coalition builder, reaching out to ethnic groups in the Bay Area and establishing AJCommittee as an organization that seeks equality and justice for Jews and non-Jews alike.
“He’s one of those rare people who if he were dumped in a strange town, within 24 hours he would know the mayor, the police chief and the fire chief,” said Joseph Durra, a committee board member from Marin.
Weiner met often with the 75 consuls general in San Francisco (most recently the consul general of Egypt visited his office). He advocates for Israel at these meetings, yet does so in a way that doesn’t alienate anyone, says Andy Colvin, another committee board member.
“He comes to it from the point of view of shared democratic values, which is an approach and way of framing the issue that people in other ethnic communities are sensitive to and appreciative of,” Colvin said.
Over the years, Weiner has also reached out to the black, Indian, Asian and Hispanic communities. He pushed for AJCommittee to be the first major organization to endorse the Japanese American Citizen League’s campaign to redress World War II internment.
John Tateishi, former director of the JACL, said he relied on Weiner for advice as his group lobbied the legislature. In the May issue of Pacific Citizen, Tateishi described Weiner as his guide in the rough-and-tumble world of politics, and credited his uncompromising attitude with helping ensure the agency’s success.
“Only once in 30 years have I stood on the opposite side of an issue from Ernie, and I could see from that view how formidable he can be,” Tateishi wrote.
Years later, when a number of Chinese American parents filed a lawsuit in 1994 challenging admissions policies at Lowell High School in San Francisco — Chinese American students were required to score higher on an admission test than any other ethnic group — Weiner made AJCommittee the first non-Chinese organization to get involved with the case. He recruited attorneys from his board of directors to represent the parents.
That case mirrored another instance in the late ’60s and early ’70s, before laws later outlawed such prejudice, when Jews were prohibited from joining some social and business clubs in San Francisco. Weiner met with dozens of business leaders in the community to let them know that many capable and talented Jews consequently were being kept out of the networking loop. He predicted that if the Jews were aware of the policy, they would pressure the clubs to change it. And they did.
But of all his achievements, Weiner said he is most proud of the eponymous Ernest Weiner Fund, created and sustained by the Pearlstein family, which provides scholarships for high school seniors and programming in support of Israel.
“Historically, AJC has done a lot of work behind the scenes, and that’s certainly Ernie’s style as well,” said Susan Epstein, a board member from Piedmont. “He gets a lot of satisfaction in seeing others shine and succeed, and helping people solve problems.”
Weiner grew up in Bayonne, N.J. After high school, he served in World War II, an experience that “explains a lot of who he is and how he operates,” Colvin said. He was on the ground in France and Germany when the war ended and the concentration camps were liberated. He was injured badly by German soldiers. He spent several months in a French hospital and then was transferred to Japan when he was well again.
Thanks to the GI Bill, he returned to the United States and went to the University of Missouri, where he met his wife, Shirley. They married in 1949 and moved to Berkeley in 1952 into an apartment near the university campus.
“We pulled a trailer, came to California and were shocked by the prices they asked for apartments,” Shirley recalled. “We paid $25 a month in Missouri; in Berkeley we paid $65 a month.”
The move was motivated by Shirley’s job offer to conduct nutrition research at U.C. Berkeley. Her husband — in possession of an undergraduate and graduate degree in journalism and English, respectively — found work at a publishing company. He spent several years in publishing, then in 1967 got a job as the public relations director for the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation. He went to AJCommittee in 1971.
He picked up boxing as a teen, a sport he loved and at which he excelled. When he realized he would never make it as a pro, he gave up the sport. But he still delights in showing people his best move: left right, left right, left right.
“I had what they call fast hands,” said Weiner, who with his wife has four children, seven grandchildren (two more are on the way) and three great-grandchildren.
“In some ways, boxing is the perfect metaphor of his life,” Tateishi wrote in the Pacific Citizen. “[Weiner is] a fighter and where he no longer bobs and weaves in the ring, he does so when he takes on difficult and sometimes impossible issues in the community. And always with courage.”
His wife, Shirley, attributed Weiner’s longevity with AJCommittee to the fact that “the job has never been a burden to him. He’s always looked forward to it, and I think that’s what makes the difference,” she said. “He’s happy to do what he’s done, and happy to work with the wonderful people he’s worked with.
“I would be very shocked if he just went fishing, or something,” she added. “He’s not the kind to do that. He will still be interested and involved as much as he can be.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California