An Images of America book

Online Event https://zoom.us/j/98955910306

The first known Jewish resident of the Mexican Pueblo de Los Ángeles arrived in 1841. When California entered the Union in 1850, the census listed just eight Jews living in Los Angeles. By 1855, the fledgling city had a Hebrew Benevolent Society and a Jewish cemetery. The first Jewish congregation and kosher market were established in 1862. Meanwhile, Jewish merchants and business owners founded banks, fraternal orders, charities, athletic clubs, and social service organizations. Jewish property owners developed vast areas of Los Angeles and beyond into the neighborhoods and cities we know today. By 1897, the city’s Jewish population was large enough to support its own newspaper. The 20th century brought waves of Jewish immigrants and migrants to Los Angeles, where they built the motion picture and television industries, Cedars-Sinai and City of Hope medical centers, the Jewish Home for the Aging, urban and suburban synagogues and Jewish centers, and other institutions. The foundations laid by these enterprising pioneers helped transform Los Angeles into a major metropolis.

About The Author

Jonathan L. Friedmann, director of the Jewish Museum of the American West and president of the Western States Jewish History Association, brings together images from the association’s archives, exhibits from the museum, and articles from 50 years of the quarterly journal Western States Jewish History.

Photo descriptions (left to right):

1. London-born Rosa Newmark was the driving force behind the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society of Los Angeles, founded in 1870 as the city’s first women’s charity. 

2. Rabbi Abraham Wolf Edelman, a native of Poland, became the first rabbi to serve in Los Angeles when he was hired by Congregation B’nai B’rith (today’s Wilshire Boulevard Temple) in 1862.

3. In May 1891, the Concordia Club of Los Angeles was incorporated for the “social and mental culture” of its Jewish membership, several of whom are shown here performing in a comedic play (1894). 

4. In 1905, Dr. Sarah Vasen was hired as the superintendent and resident physician of the Kaspare Cohn Hospital, which would later grow into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Vasen was the first Jewish woman to practice medicine in Los Angeles. 

5. In 1927, Turkish-born Isadore M. Hattem opened a large store at Forty-Third Street and Western Avenue that he called a “supermarket,” the first of its kind.