For all of his synagogue-life roles, Rabbi James Lee Kaufman will be lauded tonight when members of Temple Beth Hillel gather for a fundraiser marking the temple's 60th anniversary as the oldest Reform Jewish congregation in the San Fernando Valley.

Committed to UCLA and her Jewish heritage, Weise was appointed to the board of directors of UCLA's Hillel in the mid-1990s and was chair from 2000-2004, during which time more than $12 million was raised for a new center adjacent to the campus on Hilgard Avenue.

The biblical scholars and archaeologists include such illustrious academicians as Richard Freund, Rami Arav, Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, Stephen Pfann, James Strange, Vassilios Tzaferis, James Fleming, Ronny Reich, Hillel Geva, Hanan Eshel, Ya'acov Meshorer, Bargil Pixner, Gideon Avni, Gabriel Barkay, Dan Bahat, Joseph Fitzmyer, and Orna Cohen.