In his 12 years as executive director of the Hebrew Free Loan Association, Irwin Wiener can point to several things he instituted that the organization has implemented nationwide.
One is a loan for parents who are adopting a child. Another is a program for first-time home buyers.
“Both of those were started here, and they’re being done internationally now,” said Wiener.
The 65-year-old Wiener is retiring after a 45-year career working for the Jewish community. The last dozen years were spent at HFLA, the 105-year-old organization that offers interest-free loans to Jewish students, entrepreneurs, emigres and others in need.
Originally from New York, Wiener moved to California in 1983.
Although at first he pursued the rabbinate, he decided to go into synagogue administration instead.
After working as executive director of Temple Sinai in Oakland and then Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, Wiener became director of HFLA in 1991.
“I will be able to work for the entire Jewish community, in opposition to a segment of it,” he told the Jewish Bulletin at the time. “To me that’s a cap on my career.”
What appealed to him about the job, he said at the time, was that agencies like HFLA give people “assistance they need, whether to straighten out finances, or settle here like Soviet emigres, or helping someone get an education.”
When Wiener joined HFLA, the association was offering up to $10,000 to small business owners. Now it is able to offer up to $50,000. When he started, it offered student loans of $4,500. Now, it offers $20,000 over a four-year period.
These loans are really “helping people get their lives together,” said Wiener, describing that aspect of his job as his greatest satisfaction.
Starting in 1994, HFLA began offering loans to first-time home buyers. “Putting a down payment on a house is the epitome of the American dream,” Wiener told the Bulletin at the time. But with Bay Area real estate prices already skyrocketing, he said, “I thought this would be an opportunity to present a program that is not being done in the community by any other organization. It’s all part of the desire to help people become independent, self-supporting and productive members of the community.”
At the beginning of his tenure, Wiener coined a phrase that became a motto of HFLA and was also picked up nationally. That phrase was “We Lend Dignity,” which Wiener came up with because “the most important aspect of what we do is give people a second chance at life,” he said. “We treat them with dignity so they receive this assistance without feeling like second-class citizens.”
Wiener attributed some of his success to the fact that he often visited other agencies and organizations. This worked to “increase the visibility of the agency and make it more viable.”
Wiener oversaw the 100th anniversary celebration of HFLA in 1997 and was honored as executive of the year by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation. He also was appointed president of the International Association of Hebrew Free Loans.
He worked for the Jewish community outside his profession as well, serving as president of Adath Israel in San Francisco, and on the boards of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and the Jewish Community High School of the Bay.
Wiener recently wrote a letter to friends and colleagues in the Jewish community whom he’s come to know over the years. In it, he reflected that “I chose to indirectly be involved with those who need help. Not to tell them how to live, but rather to help them live. There are and were those more eloquent to instruct about life. The part I chose was to affect the change in people’s lives through direct action.”
Wiener will remain on the job until a successor is found, or if necessary, through the end of the year. Upon retiring, he and his wife, Sandra, will move to Phoenix.
“Now is the time to study more than ever before, because learning is an endless process,” he wrote.
HFLA past President Milton Greenfield said that Wiener “jettisoned us into the 21st century.”
Greenfield described Wiener as “innovative, creative and resourceful,” and added, “We’re going to miss him.”