Leona Aronoff Sadacca Supports Rabbis’ Spiritual and Leadership Formation Through Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion Initiatives

Leona Aronoff-Sadacca spent much of her career as President and CEO of Gate City Beverage Company in San Bernardino, California, after running an insurance company and a trucking company. But she says when she retired and began to focus more on volunteering and philanthropy, "I wanted something totally different." That meant turning to some things she enjoyed, even if she hadn't done them herself: "I'm on the board of Pacific Symphony; I don't play an instrument. I am on the board of South Coast Repertory; I do not act."

There was one other important focus that brought together Aronoff-Sadacca's values and personal experience more directly: supporting the training of rabbis through Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Aronoff-Sadacca says it was her rabbi, Hillel Cohn of Congregation Emanu El. in San Bernardino, who first introduced her to HUC-JIR when he invited her to join at a meeting about the College-Institute's work.

"I really got hooked by the people and what they were doing," she said. Today, "there are several programs that I have supported through Hebrew Union College, because they were near and dear to my heart." Those initiatives have included pastoral internships and mentoring to strengthen rabbinical students' leadership and community engagement skills.

Aronoff-Sadacca's emotional connection to rabbis' spiritual formation goes back to her own childhood experiences in France, where she was born in 1936 to observant Jewish parents. Her father was part of the resistance movement during World War II, and at one pivotal moment her dad got separated from his family. As Leona was told by her mother, "at that time the only way to get any information about where the resistance people were was by going to the temples that were still functioning."

But when her mother approached one synagogue, Aronoff-Sadacca says, "the rabbi there told her he couldn't help her because it was Friday night. And my mom said, 'I'm here with my children. I have no place to stay,' but he told her to go sit on a bench in the park across from the temple, and he would talk to her when Shabbos was over. So she stayed in the park overnight, with her young children."

"That's such a poor way to treat someone," Aronoff-Sadacca says.

It was hearing her mother recall that story that ultimately led Aronoff-Sadacca to Reform Judaism, and shaped her desire "to make sure rabbis are educated to have a little more knowledge of what's going on around them, so that they will be more helpful than that rabbi in France was."

"You can't lock yourself behind closed doors and just study the Bible when people are suffering outside," Aronoff-Sadacca says, echoing HUC-JIR's own recent recommendations about the ways clergy education must continue to evolve so students get the leadership skills and spiritual preparation they need to become Jewish leaders in this difficult time.

To advance HUC-JIR's clergy formation objectives, Aronoff-Sadacca - who is also a member of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion's Board of Advisors - has launched the Leona Aronoff Rabbinic Mentoring Program, the Rabbi David Ellenson Chair in Jewish Religious Thought, and the Dr. Rabbi Gershon Zylberman Pastoral Internships program, which has included a focus on ways to make it easier for rabbis to set aside time to visit terminally ill people and develop the skills necessary for conversations with them. And she says she is discussing other possible initiatives with HUC-JIR - an institution where she has continued her philanthropy because of its impact in the community.

In addition to the October 7 attacks in Israel and the rise of antisemitism throughout the diaspora, Aronoff-Sadacca says one of the contemporary challenges for American Jewish communities is that "we're losing our young people after the Bar and Bat Mitzvah, and they don't really come back until they get married and have children."

"Unfortunately, there's no magic bullet," she acknowledges. But she emphasizes that for her, the most productive response has been "to see what kind of programs we could set up through Hebrew Union College to help clergy students build on their mastery of Jewish text and thought and develop the spiritual and leadership skills they need, so that rabbis can be increasingly relevant in people's lives."

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