Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Friday, January 11, 2002

 

Page 3

 

Rabbi Gary Greenebaum Appointed to State Bar Board of Governors

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, western regional director of the American Jewish Committee, has been appointed to the State Bar Board of Governors.

Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg appointed Greenebaum to the post. He becomes one of six “public members,” non-lawyers appointed to the 23-member board that sets policy and oversees the licensing and professional organization for California lawyers.

Other public members are appointed by the Senate Rules Committee and by the governor.

Lawyer members of the board are elected by California attorneys.

Greenebaum is well-known in Los Angeles for his outspoken comments on behalf of the Jewish community and in support of interfaith dialog. But he is perhaps best known for his role as president of the city Police Commission during the tumultuous years that followed the taped beating of motorist Rodney King.

Greenebaum had been an active advocate of a charter amendment, ultimately successful, that increased civilian oversight over the department, and was appointed to the police panel by then-Mayor Richard Riordan in 1993. He remained a staunch advocate of reform of the Los Angeles Police Department, and continues to appear as a radio spokesman and editorialist in the Los Angeles Times on behalf of continued police reform efforts.

He also served on other city panels, including the board of Rebuild L.A., and the Los Angeles Educational Aliance for Restructuring Now, better known as LEARN.

Greenebaum is a graduate of University High School in Los Angeles and the University of California at Irvine, where he graduated in 1972.

He was ordained at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1978 and led congregations at several synagogues. Later, he became San Francisco Bay regional director of Hillel, an organization that provides programs for Jewish students at colleges and universities.

He became regional director for the AJC in 1990.

Greenebaum’s term on the Board of Governors expires Sept. 1, 2004.

 

Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company