Doikayt in Los Angeles

 Why Los Angeles?

Well, I live in Los Angeles, the infamous West Side in fact, so it's the part of SoCal I'm familiar with right now. Maybe 30 years ago I knew San Diego, but a lot has likely changed since then. So what's here?

What's here anyway?

Well, I'm glad you asked! LA is known for its beaches, it's terrain, hiking, the movie industry, The Valley, heat, traffic, and lots of small barely connected enclaves of life. The traffic does make it much harder to have a coherent singular experience, but, well, we also have nearly 4 million people in the city alone, and over 18 million in the statistical area. And we have impassible streets and highways, narrow passes between regions, a lot of desolate land, and every kind of Jew you can imagine.

We also have several Jewish organizations working on different aspects of community and exploring how to live as Jews. There's Der Nister, a secular/religious community in Downtown that's rapidly growing and becoming the center of Yiddish culture there. We have several chapters of JVP. There's the Silverlake Independent Jewish Community Center west of downtown, and they've been a cultural center there forever basically. And there are several Chassid shuls, every kind of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and every other kind of shul.

But what uniqueness grows out of this that makes us "Los Angeles Jews"? That's what we're exploring. There's of course the strong and pervasive Ashkenazi culture, the contrasting Persian and Ladino cultures, all of them fusing together in ways different from how they did in Palestine. And then we mix in the indigenous and former Spanish Imperial customs, and we wind up making Guava Challah, Jalapeno Bagels, and regularly eat Doner.

Anyway, this is what we're exploring here, and in the rest of SoCal. If you're interested come join us! We're looking for members, leaders, and especially people wanting to spread the word and help us explore our unique Diaspora!

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