Deceased November 5, 2019

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In Memory

Marv Gross, one of my most treasured Amherst friends, passed away on Nov. 5, 2019, succumbing to one of the many complications of Type 1 diabetes that he had fought bravely and managed successfully for much of his life. 

During that same week, the Torah portion read in synagogues around the world was Noah, chosen by God to save life on earth because Noah was a “righteous man in a time of evil.”    Marv was truly a righteous man in our time. He dedicated his life to the pursuit of social justice.  He was a beloved figure in California’s San Gabriel Valley where he often was called “the conscience of Pasadena.”

Marv’s Amherst experience foreshadowed his remarkable life as a rabbi, activist, community organizer and CEO of Union Station Homeless Services. Marv was a religion major at Amherst, graduating cum laude. He volunteered at the Northampton State Hospital during his freshman and sophomore years. He spent his junior year abroad, studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. Upon returning to Amherst in his senior year, he was active in the Amherst-Smith Hillel and in the antiwar movement.

Following his graduation from Amherst, Marv served as a community organizer in his native Chicago, where he led a campaign against redlining in housing and as an organizer and fundraiser for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Subsequently, Marv decided to become a rabbi, earning his ordination at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York and then moving to California where he served congregations in San Francisco and Glendale for many years. He was social action chair of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, leading interfaith and interracial coalitions campaigning for a higher minimum wage and refuge for immigrants and refugees.

In 1994, Marv took the bold step of leaving the life of the pulpit rabbi to focus his energies on lifting the homeless. For 21 years, Marv was CEO of Union Station Homeless Services. His vision, inspirational leadership, collaborative spirit and fundraising skill enabled the transformation of Union Station from a tiny, volunteer-staffed hospitality center feeding homeless men in Pasadena into the largest and most comprehensive agency serving the homeless in the San Gabriel Valley with a 90-person operation and an $8 million budget. Marv’s pioneering and creative work in housing homeless families together is embodied in “Marv’s Place,” a unique, 20-unit, permanent supportive housing facility, named in his honor upon his retirement from Union Station in 2017.

Marv combined special qualities of passion and pragmatism, warmth and wit and intellect and insight. Following a never-failing moral compass rooted in his commitment to the highest values of Judaism, he served and comforted those most in need of comfort and support. I miss our visits, our talks and the inspiration he provided. His memory always will be for a blessing.

Marv is survived by his former wife, Lynn Winter Gross; children Tara Rangarajan, Daniel ’05 (Anu) and Becky (Austin) Gross; three grandchildren, Ari, Eli and Anisha; his brother, Rick, and sister, Frances Schnall.    

Larry Sidman ’70