significant collection of artifacts and venues for public lectures, performing arts, and educational activities for children and families. Jack H. Skirball's foundation provided the seed funding, the College-Institute approved the project in 1981, on the condition that Herscher secure the funds himself. Over the next decade, with help from key supporters such as Skirball, Los Angeles Times Chairman Franklin Murphy, and the Levi Strauss family of San Francisco, he raised the money from both Jewish and non-Jewish benefactors. A fifteen-acre site was acquired in the Santa Monica mountains, and Israeli-American architect Moshe Safdie was engaged to design the campus. In 1996 the Skirball Cultural Center, separately incorporated, opened to the public, with Herscher as founding president and chief executive. The Center attracted some 300,000 visitors in its first year, and an ambitious expansion of its facilities, programs, and endowment ensued. By 2005, it had become one of the world's major Jewish cultural institutions. In 2009 Newsweek named him # 9 on its list of "50 Influential Rabbis." Herscher holds honorary degrees from the University of Southern California and the University of Judaism, and recently completed his five-year term as one of five commissioners on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. He and his wife, Dr. Myna Herscher, have four sons. References External links www.skirball.org Living people 1941 births 20th-century American rabbis 21st-century American rabbis