Jewish Los Angeles Burns

Los Angeles has the second largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel (lead only by NYC). It is an unequivocally Jewish city, with over 600,000 Jews living in the greater LA area. Historic fires ravaged LA earlier this month, burning over 16,000 structures, most of which were single family homes. It was a tragedy for the city and this global Jewish center. We at the Berman Archive have also been touched by the devastation: our core team either lives in LA or was born here, we have many connections throughout the city, and we are sending our love to friends and colleagues who have lost their homes or who have been displaced.

The destruction was widespread. Jewish composer and emigre Arnold Shoenberg’s grandson shared his view of the loss from the Pacific Palisades where homes and relics from “the era when the city served as a refuge for a remarkable group of talented refugees, Jewish and non-Jewish, saved from certain death in Hitler’s Europe.” All over the city, Judaica go-bags were packed, containing artifacts, menorahs and other objects from holocaust survivors. LA’s Jewish community was both affected and activated, from quick loans to free bagels to celebrity homes evacuated and burned.

In Altadena, the Eaton Fire destroyed a synagogue—the Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center, which served the Pasadena area for more than 100 years. The congregation was at this location since 1941. Most was lost but the torahs were heroically saved and on the one remaining wall, a hidden mural was discovered, likely a biblical scene meant to evoke the Jews liberation from Egypt. Rabbi Grater told the LA Times, “We’re a people of history. We know in Jerusalem and the land of Israel that you find murals on top of murals and stones on top of stones. The fact that this was a hidden mural … is a very Jewish idea.”

To get a little more perspective, we spoke with Dr. Caroline Luce, an historian of Jewish LA. Luce is currently writing a book on LA history focusing on Jews and the Labor Movement in the early 20th Century, and serves as Project Director for the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. “There is a very Jewish tradition of memory work,” says Luce. She points to the efforts across congregations and communities that have created archives and spaces dedicated to Jewish cultural heritage.

Luce has been hands on with Jewish historical preservation over the past years. She was integral to the processing of the papers of the Western States Jewish History Association. Later she served as the chief Digital Curator of the UCLA Mapping Jewish LA exhibit. “I write about the preservation of the Breed Street Shul,” said Luce. “And, I’m inspired by Rachel Gross’s work [in Beyond the Synagogue] that reminds us to think about preservation as a ritual. It is about drawing your connection between the past and the future and connecting you to a beloved community.” Connecting historical efforts at preservation and the current dislocation and destruction of Jewish spaces across LA, Luce continues, “I don’t know how you rebuild these kinds of sacred spaces when you tear them out from under a community. It seems to be much more complicated to me than just rebuilding the building because the displacement goes to all these nodes of the community.”

In so many ways, LA’s robust Jewish community has been most equipped to deal with the loss, able to tap a wide institutional and cultural well of support. But nothing can replace the silver candlestick brought over from Germany, or the synagogue grounds where children played and parents prayed. That being said, so much of LA’s core Jewish life and history stands strong, deep in the city’s core (surrounded by concrete, miles from any fire line).

Where should someone go to experience LA’s Jewish history? According to Luce, the go-to place for a tour used to be Boyle Heights, where Jews numbered over 35,000 in the 1930s. Boyle Heights, now a heavily Latino and working class neighborhood, has experienced the ravages of gentrification and there’s hesitancy to promote historical tourism there. Rather, Luce suggests, “Go to Pico-Robertson,” in the middle of the city. “It is just as old and has just as much historic bona fides as Boyle Heights. If you want to see Jewish life in LA, past and present, it’s all happening on Pico Boulevard.”

Luce’s book, Yiddish in the Land of Sunshine: Jewish Radicalism, Labor, and Culture in Los Angeles is slated for publication in 2026 from NYU Press.

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