CARING DOESN'T GROW OLD AT CENTER.

Byline: BRAD A. GREENBERG Staff Writer

RESEDA -- Dying of cancer, Ben Eisenberg begged his doctor to keep him alive so he could continue helping the community.

``Don't worry,'' his wife, Joyce, interjected. ``I'll take care of whatever.''

The latest incarnation of the promise she made to her husband 20 years ago is scheduled to open at the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging by year's end.

Taking three years and $58 million to build, the Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center represents the biggest expansion in the 94-year history of the two Reseda campuses, which began as a shelter for five homeless men during Passover.

``It's just my favorite charity. What can I say?'' said Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer, a regular local philanthropist who donated several million dollars for the medical center. ``I'll tell you, 10 people want to diaper a baby, but they'll run when they have to diaper old folks. Well, there are a lot of old folks out there wearing a diaper.''

The residential hospital will add 249 beds at a time when baby boomers are getting older and people are living longer. It will help the home alleviate its 400-person waiting list.

The new building is loaded with amenities: rooms wired for the Internet, fitness areas and a Jewish deli serving soups, salads, sandwiches and bagels with lox. There's even a men's lounge with a pool table and TVs tuned to sports and the stock market, and a beauty salon where women can get facials, waxing and dye jobs, not to mention haircuts.

``It's all about reinforcement of people's self-worth and self-image,'' Chief Executive Officer Molly Forrest said.

The residential hospital, the Jewish Home's first foray into operating a medical center, includes the 10-bed Auerbach Acute Psychiatric Treatment Center. The goal is to keep people comfortable and preserve their dignity as their faculties wane.

``This will be a special place for our residents,'' Dr. Rick Smith, the medical director, said in a prepared statement. ``It represents the way medicine should be -- doing our best to ensure quality of life now and help preserve loss of quality of life in the future.''

The medical center and the 96-bed Goldenberg-Ziman Special Care Center, a residential-care facility for patients with Alzheimer's disease built in 2002, were the result of a record $72 million capital campaign.

In the next five years, the home will continue to expand services by adding 600 more skilled-nursing beds. It's something L.A.'s Jewish community has come to rely on.

``As Jews, we have a mandate to care for the vulnerable among us, including providing dignity and quality of life to our aging senior population,'' said John Fishel, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. ``The Jewish Home has helped our community fill that critical mission for many years.''

Still, of metropolitan communities, Los Angeles Jews have the fewest skilled-nursing beds per capita. Compare the L.A. Jewish Home's 920 beds for 600,000 Jewish residents with San Francisco's, where 100,000 Jews have 450 beds at Jewish facilities -- a per-capita ratio six times greater. Which explains the Jewish Home's planned growth.

Open to all Medicare and Medi-Cal patients, the home is overwhelmingly Jewish, with about 75 percent of its population on welfare.

It is unclear how many skilled-nursing beds are in Los Angeles. The state Department of Health Services, which licenses nursing homes, doesn't keep a total.

Los Angeles city and county governments, which try to keep seniors in their homes longer, rely on nonprofit and for-profit nursing centers for elderly residents who need long-term care.

``Studies indicate people want to remain in their homes, but there will be a time when they can't do that and they will need to go into a (nursing) home,'' said Patricia Holt, spokeswoman for county Community and Senior Services. ``You need those options. You need all of those options in the community to meet the different needs.''

Eisenberg-Keefer's parents remained in their apartment on Topanga Canyon Boulevard into their 90s. Then came the Northridge Earthquake, and they were homeless. Eisenberg-Keefer frantically called the Jewish Home. They told her not to worry, that a car was being sent to pick up her parents.

Her father lived his final four years and her mother her final five at the home's Grancell Village campus at Tampa Avenue and Sherman Way (not on the campus at Victory Boulevard, Eisenberg Village, named because of a $3 million donation Eisenberg-Keefer made after her first husband died).

It was a place they never anticipated living in. But it was a place they ended up loving.

``Everybody there treats your mom and dad like they were their mom and dad,'' Eisenberg-Keefer said.

[e-mail]

[phone].

If you go

The Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center at the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging will be dedicated Sunday. An open house for the residential hospital at Tampa Avenue and Sherman Way will be held between 2 and 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.jha.org or call 818-774-3333.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 2) The Jewish Home for the Aging's new Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center will add 239 beds for elder care. It is scheduled to open in December. ``It's just my favorite charity. What can I say?'' said Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer, a regular local philanthropist who donated several million dollars for the medical center. Left, a worker washes the plaza outside the new building Thursday. Above, a group of residents pose for a picture in 1950.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(3) Shirley Temple and Michel Levit greet each other at a Purim luncheon at the Los Angeles Home for the Aging in 1948. The home began as a shelter for five homeless men 94 years ago.

Box:

If you go (see text)