David A. Lehrer, a longtime leader in the Los Angeles Jewish community and an advocate for civil and human rights, has died, it was announced Thursday.
Lehrer died at his Los Feliz home Wednesday at age 75, his family said. A cause of death was not announced.
Lehrer served for 27 years in a variety of leadership positions within the West Coast office of the Anti-Defamation League, joining the ADL in 1975 as a civil rights lawyer and rising to become director of the Pacific Southwest Region, a post he held for 16 years.
His accomplishments there include drafting California’s first hate crime laws, helping lead the legislative efforts to outlaw tax-subsidized discriminatory private social clubs, and confronting extremist groups across the West.
In his wide-ranging human relations work, Lehrer forged ties with politicians, the media, law enforcement and ethnic communities. He helped initiate programs to bring non-Jewish students of color to Israel, educate 100,000 Southern California teachers about stereotyping and bigotry, and develop business ties between Latinos and Jews.
Lehrer also helped make the ADL the premier information center on extremist organizations, ranging from white supremacists to the Jewish Defense League.
Shortly after leaving the ADL in 2002, Lehrer and veteran civil-rights activist Joe Hicks formed Community Advocates, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to forging partnerships and improving relations among the region’s various ethnic communities.
In 2017, alarmed at the election of Donald Trump and a corresponding rise in intolerance directed against Latino immigrants and Muslims — and the failure of established Jewish organizations in Los Angeles to speak out against such prejudice — Lehrer and other Jewish community leaders formed Jews United for Democracy and Justice.
In addition to his civil rights work, he served as an appointee of then-Mayor Richard Riordan as a member and president of the Los Angeles Board of Library Commissioners, overseeing the city’s $90 million public library system.
Lehrer was an active longtime member of Temple Israel of Hollywood.
He is survived by his wife Ariella, children Eli (and Sari) Lehrer, Jonah (and Sarah) Lehrer, Rachel Lehrer (and Adam McClelland), and Leah Lehrer (Annie Clark); and nine grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Community Advocates Inc. at www.cai-la.org/donate.