A CLOSE-UP LOOK AT PEOPLE WHO MATTER : Learning and Love From ‘Uncle Harvey’

As Roxanne De Los Santos remembers it, she was helping a bank customer when Harvey Schecter slipped a thick manila envelope onto her desk and left.

Schecter, who had met De Los Santos only a few days earlier, had given her a 50-year-old copy of “Cyrano de Bergerac” after she told him she was named for the love interest in the novel, but had never read it.

So he gave her the copy he used in school, and she joined a lucky group of Los Angeles Valley College students and other young people to have been “adopted” by the friendly old gentleman they call “Uncle Harvey.”

Harvey B. Schecter, 71, of Sherman Oaks is a retired Western regional director of the Anti-Defamation League who grew up in a poor Brooklyn neighborhood in a house full of books. For those he mentors, he buys books and lunch and imparts valuable advice on getting started in life.

“With all the young people . . . I help, I tell them there are three ground rules,” Schechter said. “You can say anything you want to say, and know that it stays with me. And I can say anything to you. You can ask any question you want. And you can never pick up a check. I always buy.”

After that, Schecter explained his purpose: “Thirty years from now, when you have disposable income, you will do with some young person what I am doing with you.”

Schecter nearly died 11 years ago when a valve in his heart collapsed. Doctors saved his life by implanting a pig’s valve. But during his recuperation, Schecter learned the truth of the phrase “Tomorrow was promised to no one.” He knew he had to do more with his life.

Although he already had a master’s degree in sociology, Schechter started going to Valley College part time in 1986. After he retired from the ADL two years ago, he put in more hours at the school, using his free time to help fellow students.

“When he talks to me, it’s like talking to my father,” said Ashraf Kabiri, a Tarzana mother who is studying physical therapy. An Iranian immigrant, Kabiri had felt lonely at the college until she met Schecter in a religious history class.

“Most of us were getting Cs, and he was getting A’s,” said Raquel Paige, another of his classmates. “We couldn’t understand how he could walk out of the class with only one page of notes.”

So he taught them how to take good notes. But he does more than that.

“It’s like he reads my mind and dials me into where I need to be,” said Andrew Apfelberg, a law student at Boston College who met Schechter a couple of years ago. He often gets newspaper clippings from Schecter, who reads the papers every day with scissors in hand.

Apfelberg is co-president of the National Jewish Law Students Assn., and Schecter has given him a wide range of advice--from how to drive cross-country to how to prepare for a lunch meeting. “It’s not just Harvey saying ‘Oh, here’s what you can do,’ ” Apfelberg said. “He teaches you to fish rather than giving you a fish.”

Schecter and his wife, Hope, have been married for 40 years but have no children of their own. For him, the young people he helps come close to being his own, and he fills a role in their lives.

“So many kids have difficulty talking to their parents,” Schechter said. “I’m the one that tells them I love them, but it’s a non-threatening love.”

He is a cheerleader, said De Los Santos, who is joining the U. S. Air Force in September, partly with his encouragement.

“He’s very motivating, very inspirational,” she said. “I think everybody needs an Uncle Harvey.”