His name may not be as well known in San Antonio as other local legendary figures, but there’s no doubt that David Jacobson left a lasting impact on our community – including his tenure as part of the San Antonio Area Foundation’s founding leadership team.
The Area Foundation is recognizing the life and legacy of Rabbi Jacobson as part of the organization’s yearlong 60thanniversary celebration in 2024.
Jacobson served as the inaugural Chairman of the Area Foundation Board of Directors, from the organization’s creation in 1964 until 1973. They were turbulent years, book-ended between the height of the national Civil Rights Movement and the Watergate scandal.
Yet Jacobson’s tenure was informed by equal parts wisdom, compassion and integrity – personal qualities that his wife, Helen, shared in his 2001 obituary. Along with those gentle traits were good measures of moral courage and unshakeable integrity in a time of corrosive yet institutionalized racial segregation.
Even before Martin Luther King Jr. became a household name, Jacobson was fighting the good fight. His daughter, Dottie Jacobson Miller, recalled how she would witness in awe as her father navigated the San Antonio business spectrum with ecumenical peers – Archbishop Robert E. Lucey and Episcopal Bishop Everett H. Jones among them – to convince business owners to desegregate their establishments once and for all.
“This predated MLK and the boycotts of the early 1950s and 1960s,” Jacobson Miller said. “Along with the Catholic archbishop and various other bishops, he went to restaurants, movie theaters. He didn’t give it a second thought. ‘It’s wrong, it’s not Godly’ he’d say. And they were able to convince a number of people to stop it.”
For all his compassion, Jacobson was no pushover – those resistant to change faced consequences as he reminded shopkeepers with a quintessential gentleness buttressed by conviction. If they still resisted, Jacobson helped lead boycotts of those businesses.
Jacobson’s focus on civil rights was an extension of his social justice work at Temple Beth-El, where he served as rabbi. During his Temple tenure from 1942 to 1976, he chaired a commission examining the city’s economic and social issues and was a persistent advocate for racial desegregation throughout the city.
His lead role on such issues continues to resonate well into the 21st century. “Under his leadership and because of who he was, he really set the foundation for excellence in the community,” noted Heather Diehl, the Area Foundation’s Executive Director for Board Relations and Governance.
To have someone of his caliber and influence in leadership at the Area Foundation – the first community foundation formed in Texas – proved to be invaluable as he navigated the organization during its fledgling years.
“There was no roadmap for him to follow,” Diehl said. “His ability to put the Area Foundation on a good path was nothing short of extraordinary. It’s one of the main reasons why we’re here so many years later and will be here for many more.”
Jacobson’s indefatigable energy wasn’t limited to the Area Foundation. His civic engagement involved leadership roles at a who’s who of philanthropic and religious organizations, even at the national level. Some examples: National Conference on Social Welfare, United Way of Texas, Goodwill Industries, Southwest Region of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and National Association of Retired Reform Rabbis.
His leadership transcended theology, as showcased at Our Lady of the Lake University where he was the first non-Catholic board member and where the rotunda at the Sister Elizabeth Ann Sueltenfuss Library is named in his honor.
Jacobson’s call to service emerged during another pivotal period when he served as a U.S. Navy chaplain during World War II. That experience led to an equal role at Audie Murphy Veterans Hospital where he served as chaplain since the inception of that medical facility.
He set such a shining example of servant leadership that his influence still resonates at the Area Foundation to the present day, Diehl said.
“Partnered with staff and community, the role of the board is a critical one in San Antonio. Rabbi Jacobson contributed to that in really settling the example – not only for staff but future board members to follow,” Diehl shared. “That really put the Area Foundation in a good place as far as representing the community, and also just the appreciation that current board members have for the standards in place.”
To be sure, those ideals are well cemented at the Area Foundation. But it’s in everyday life – on walks, visits to the grocery store, attending events – that reminds his daughter of the impact her father had on her and the community, Jacobson Miller
“I can’t go out without somebody telling me about him – how he helped them or how he married their cousin,” she recalled. “He was very well known.”
Tony Cantu is a member of the San Antonio Area Foundation Marketing & Communications Storytelling Ambassador Network.
