Many people are mourning the death of Rabbi Harvey J. Fields, who formerly led the Wilshire Boulevard Temple for 18 years and was considered an influential leader in the Jewish and interfaith communities.

Rabbi Harvey Fields was instrumental in creating the Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s Irmas campus in West Los Angeles. (photo courtesy of Wilshire Boulevard Temple)

Fields died on Jan. 23 at the age of 78 in his home in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Steve Leder, the current senior rabbi at Wilshire Boulevard Temple, said Fields had suffered a stroke seven years ago, and also suffered from diabetes, which ultimately contributed to his death. Fields had presided over the temple from 1985 through 2003, and remained involved at the synagogue as rabbi emeritus up until his death. He led congregations in Boston, New Jersey and Toronto before moving to Los Angeles to take the position as senior rabbi with the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, which was founded in 1862 and is the oldest synagogue in Los Angeles.

“Harvey had a national reputation as a creative leader and someone who could modernize the worship experience for the congregation,” Leder said. “One of the first things he did was transition out an outdated version of the prayer book to a new prayer book he edited himself.”

Fields also brought music to the temple for the first time, and later hired a cantor to accompany services. Leder estimated that Fields had married approximately 800 couples during his tenure, and officiated at nearly 2,000 funerals.

He was also integral in the creation of the temple’s Audrey and Sydney Irmas Campus, near Olympic Boulevard and Barrington Avenue — a project that was prompted in the early 1990s by sizeable numbers of the congregation moving to West Los Angeles. Leder said the congregation dropped from approximately 2,500 to 1,800 families at the time.

Fields raised $26 million from members of the congregation for the new facility, which occupies an entire city block and has an early childhood learning center, elementary school, chapel, worship space and temple classrooms. The campus was completed in 1996.

“If we didn’t have a robust Westside campus and programming, we would have continued to diminish,” Leder said. “Harvey’s key role was raising that money.”

Leder said Fields was also committed to building bridges in the community with leaders of other faiths. Following the L.A. Riots in 1992, he helped form the interfaith Coalition to Heal L.A. During the same period, Fields joined Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray, who was then leader of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, to plan “Hands Across L.A.”, in which 15,000 people held hands along a 10-mile stretch of Western Avenue in a show of solidarity after the riots.

“He was deeply committed to interfaith work in Los Angeles. He chaired every committee in town related to that,” Leder said. “He was involved in a lot of African American and Jewish projects, and was a tireless proponent of interfaith relations. With Hands Across L.A., he was one of the primary movers behind that. He was a very skilled implementer.”

Fields also formerly served as president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and was chair of the Jewish Community Relations Committee, which is part of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. He was also involved in numerous projects and organizations in Israel, and spent many summers working overseas.

Leder said Fields had retired prior to the temple embarking on the recent $47.3-million renovation of its Wilshire Boulevard campus, but was proud of the work that was completed. He added that Fields always made time for members of the congregation or people in the community, and used the phrase “all in” to describe the rabbi’s dedication to others.

“God and human kind had no more tireless servant than Harvey Fields,” Leder wrote in Fields’ eulogy. “You were, you are and always will be a poet warrior unlike any I have ever known.”

Rabbi Mark Diamond, director of the Los Angeles region for the American Jewish Committee (AJC), praised Fields for his work at the temple and in the community.

“He was a beloved colleague, mentor, teacher and friend,” Diamond said. “I can’t say enough about how important he was to me, the AJC and all rabbis in the community. Members of the clergy are so busy, and it is very difficult to step out of the four walls of the synagogue and become active leaders in the community at large, but Rabbi Fields did that.”

Funeral services for Fields were held on Jan. 26 at the temple. The rabbi is survived by his wife Sybil, daughters Debra and Rachel, and son Joel, as well as seven grandchildren.