One year from now, Rabbi David Lieber...

One year from now, Rabbi David Lieber will step down as president of the University of Judaism, a post he has held since 1963. He is believed to have one of the longest tenures for any U.S. college president.

Lieber, 66, says he wants to “bring in younger leadership and allow me to return to my first love--study and teaching.” He will remain on the faculty as Skovron Distinguished Service Professor of Biblical Literature and Thought.

The 26-acre campus in the Santa Monica Mountains, east of the San Diego Freeway, has 165 students in undergraduate and graduate studies. Its continuing education classes serve about 2,000 registrants annually.

Aspirants for a rabbinical degree in the Conservative branch of Judaism complete their studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City.

Lieber joined the faculty as dean of students in 1956, nine years after its founding. The university, located for years on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, held its first classes on the present campus in 1977.

POSTSCRIPT

United Methodist Bishop Jack M. Tuell of Los Angeles said he was “pleased” that the Walt Disney Co. decided to drop out of a plan to develop a national lottery game show in conjunction with an organization of state lotteries. Tuell had marshaled protests from the nation’s Methodist bishops and from prominent religious leaders in the Los Angeles area. Disney’s television division headquartered in Burbank said this month that it was withdrawing because of a concern “that Disney’s association might be incorrectly perceived as encouraging children to play lotteries.” Although Tuell wrote to Disney Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner expressing appreciation for the action, the bishop said that church leaders still believe that a game show tied to state lotteries would be a bad influence on minors.

PEOPLE

The Rev. John D. Wolfersberger, pastor of First Christian Church of Clairemont in San Diego, will begin Monday as interim regional minister, or chief administrator, for the Pacific Southwest region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Wolfersberger, who has served pastorates in Oklahoma and Kansas for the Indianapolis-based denomination, will be in Los Angeles for a minimum of three years, a spokesman said. The region includes about 120 churches in Southern California, Hawaii and southern Nevada. Wolfersberger succeeds the Rev. Fredrick Evans, who became interim regional minister late last year upon the resignation of the Rev. Peggy Owen Clark.

DATES

About 34,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses were expected to attend a three-day district convention that began Friday at Dodger Stadium. The delegates are from Kingdom Halls (the name of the Witnesses’ congregations) in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties as well as the Bakersfield and Las Vegas areas. A Vietnamese-speaking convention will be held simultaneously at Dodger Stadium with the English-language convention. The meeting is one of 144 U.S. district conventions in June and July.

An ecumenical “welcome home” service for military service personnel and their families will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Palos Verdes Estates under the sponsorship of the Peninsula-Harbor Ecumenical Cluster.