Services will be held tomorrow at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple for Rabbi Edgar Magnin in the synagogue whose congregation he helped expand from 400 families in 1929 to 2,500 now. Magnin, a leading Reform rabbi for decades, died Tuesday at the age of 94.
A native of San Francisco, Magnin became rabbi of Congregation B’nai B’rith in Los Angeles in 1915, remaining with the congregation when it moved to the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in 1929.
He received many “Man of the Year” awards and honorary doctorates of law and theology. He was a founder of the National Council of Alcoholism and delivered the prayer at the 1969 inauguration of President Nixon.
Magnin was founding president of the College of Jewish Studies which later became the Rhea Hirsch School of Education of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform higher education institution.
Los Angeles City and County and the State of California dedicated the block of the Temple as “Edgar F. Magnin Square” in May, 1980. He was rabbi of the Temple at his death.
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