Wise Years is Stephen Wise Temple’s seniors group for members and guests 60 years and better. You are invited to join us for our regular series of learning, lunch, leisure, and community. Mornings feature speakers on a wide range of timely and timeless topics. Following lunch together, afternoons offer a choice of films or games.

Upcoming Programs

Wise Years May 2022 Meet the Clergy

Welcome back Wise Years!

We’re so excited to announce that we will be gathering for events on the second Tuesday of every month, starting in September of 2022.

Full season Single Session
Member $36 $8
General Community $72 $16

Thursday, April 11, 2024

Time Activity
9:30 a.m. Registration & Coffee
10 a.m. Living in the New Age of Extremism
with Doug McIntyre
Doug McIntyre is a Columnist for the Southern California News Group which includes the Los Angeles Daily News, Orange Country Register, Long Beach Press Telegram among others.In addition to his work in print, McIntyre has been active for over 30-years as a television/screenwriter and producer including work on the hit series Married…With Children, WKRP in Cincinnati, Mike Hammer – Private Eye, and the critically acclaimed PBS series, Liberty’s Kids, which earned a Humanitas Prize nomination for excellence in television writing. Together with wife, actress Penny Peyser, Doug wrote, produced, and directed the award-winning feature documentary: Trying to Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon. For 25-years Doug McIntyre was heard on KABC radio in Los Angeles as host of McIntyre in the Morning. Before that Doug created Red Eye Radio, taking it national on 300 stations.Doug has a long association with the California Distinguished Speakers Series, hosting memorable evenings with showbiz icons Jane Fonda, Lilly Tomlin, Steve Martin, John Cleese, Robert Redford, Betty White, Ron Howard and Goldie Hawn as well as world leaders and public figures such as George W. Bush, Liz Cheney, Colin Powell, Lech Walesa, Bob Woodward, David McCullough, Ken Burns, Anderson Cooper, Ralph Nader and many others.

Doug debut novel, Frank’s Shadow, was published by Greenleaf in July to excellent reviews.

11 a.m. Jewish Names Around the World
with Sarah Benor
Sarah Bunin Benor is Vice Provost and Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (Los Angeles campus) and Adjunct Professor in the University of Southern California Linguistics Department. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Linguistics in 2004. She has published and lectured widely about Jewish languages and names, sociolinguistics, Yiddish, and American Jews. Her books include Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism (Rutgers, 2012) and Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps (Rutgers, 2020). Dr. Benor co-edits the Journal of Jewish Languages (Brill) and directs the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project, which features the Jewish Language Website and the Jewish English Lexicon.
12 p.m. Lunch
1 p.m. Movie: Exodus (the first half, the second half will be in May)
Mahjongg or Bridge

Previous Programs

May 13, 2021 – Juilliard trained pianist, Beth Sussman, hosted a delightful afternoon of both classical and jazz music by George Gershwin. Selections performed included some of his own amazing arrangements of songs including “S’Wonderful”, “Lady Be Good” and “The Man I Love.” Beth introduced his music with brief remarks that enhanced the appreciation of Gershwin’s genius.

(No recording is available for this session).
April 28, 2021 – What’s your Jewish Zodiac sign?
Whether you’re a Bagel or Blintz, join us for a humorous and inspirational multimedia history of the delicatessen across four generations of Jews in America, led by comedian Seth Front, creator of the Jewish Zodiac, a deli food parody of the Chinese zodiac. 
March 11, 2021 – Barbara Goldberg, founder of Wells Bring Hope, tells us about digging wells in Niger, West Africa that provide clean water to transform communities and lives.

February 11, 2021 – Making Babka with Deborah Turobiner, founder of the Holla for Challah community on FaceBook.

You’ll find Deborah’s recipe for babka here.

January 14, 2021 – Cantor Jonathan L. Friedmann, keeper of Jewish history in Los Angeles, details the earliest Jewish settlers in Los Angeles.

December 10, 2020 – Rob Eshman, Editor of The Forward. discusses his blog, Foodaism, about his connections with food and Judaism.

November 12, 2020 – Legal Journalist Linda Deutsch and Law Professor Laurie Levenson discuss celebrity justice over the decades.