Early History of Jewish Los Angeles
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Jewish L.A.
Los Angeles: A Jewish Mecca
Los Angeles should be considered a Jewish mecca—and why not? Over 100 years ago Jewish visionaries profoundly shaped our growth, industries, and our cultural fabric.
It all began in 1841, when Los Angeles, with a population of just 1,100, welcomed its first Jewish resident, Jacob Frankfort, a tailor from Germany. As news of California’s Gold Rush spread, the city’s population swelled. By 1850, the U.S. Census recorded 1,610 residents, including eight unmarried Jewish men. Though few in numbers, these Jewish pioneers played an outsized role in shaping the fledgling city. Despite their small numbers, these Jewish pioneers played a significant role in shaping the emerging city. Among them was Morris Goodman, who made history that year as a member of Los Angeles’ first city council under American authority.
As economic opportunities blossomed, so did the city’s Jewish population. In 1853, Harris Newmark, a 19-year-old Prussian Jew, arrived with the help of his brother. Newmark became a prominent civic leader, participating in the groundbreaking for the Jewish Orphans Home (now Vista Del Mar), co-founding the Los Angeles Public Library, and playing a pivotal role in bringing the Southern Pacific Railroad to Los Angeles.
His uncle, Joseph Newmark, arrived in 1854 and became the city’s lay rabbi. He helped establish the Hebrew Benevolent Society, Los Angeles’ first chartered charity. For the price of a dollar, the Society purchased three acres in Chavez Ravine for a Jewish cemetery. The Hebrew Benevolent Society evolved into the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles.
In 1862, Rabbi Abraham Wolf Edelman became Los Angeles’ first official Rabbi serving the newly created Congregation B’nai B’rith. By then, the city’s Jewish population had grown to 200. Congregation B’nai B’rith was renamed Wilshire Boulevard Temple in 1929, with Rabbi Edelman’s son serving as its president.
By 1900, Los Angeles had 102,000 residents, including 2,500 Jews. That year, Jewish businessman Kaspare Cohn purchased and donated a home to treat Jewish patients with tuberculosis. When the city expelled treatment of the disease out of the city, the sanitarium moved north and was renamed the City of Hope. Cohn closed the original location and established a new hospital in Boyle Heights. In 1930 Cohn helped build a third hospital in Hollywood, named Cedars of Lebanon. We now recognize that name as part of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
The turn of the century also saw other present-day institutions get their start. In 1906, Congregation Sinai, the first Conservative synagogue in Southern California, was established. In 1908, the Hebrew Sheltering Society was founded for Jewish newcomers to live in while they found jobs. Their mission quickly evolved to include an aging population. When they moved to the San Fernando Valley and merged with Menorah Village (previously California Home for the Aged) they became the Los Angeles Jewish Home, now known as LAJ Health.
The 1910s also marked Los Angeles’ rise as a movie town. In 1913, Cecil B. DeMille shot the first Hollywood film, and by 1915, Carl Laemmle had opened Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Jewish filmmakers such as Samuel Goldwyn, Adolph Zukor, and Marcus Loew followed, and by 1920, California produced 80% of the world’s films.
By the 1920s, Los Angeles’ population had reached 576,000, including 40,000 Jews. The opening of the Panama Canal, lower-cost train travel, and California’s allure spurred rapid growth. By 1924, the population exceeded 1 million and Jewish neighborhoods flourished, with Boyle Heights—dubbed the “Ellis Island of L.A.”
The 1920s also saw the area cater to different Jewish demographics take hold. Sephardic Jews had begun settling in South Los Angeles and established the Sephardic Brotherhood, and in 1926 erected their first synagogue. In 1925, the West Adams Hebrew Congregation was founded, later renamed Beth Jacob Congregation, becoming the largest Orthodox synagogue in the western United States.
Despite the many Jewish successes, antisemitism still reared its head. Harris Newmark in his memoir, Sixty Years in Southern California, chronicled his life and the rise of Los Angeles. In one of the book’s footnotes, he proudly quoted his friend George W. Burton, who authored his own tribute to Los Angeles opportunities stating that Newmark’s Jewishness “was an advantage in one way, and a handicap in another; it was an advantage to a young man giving him a sound mind in a sound body, and a disadvantage in the prejudices entertained against many in this ancient race.”
Isaias W. Hellman arrived in Los Angeles in 1859 and opened the city’s second official bank. Hellman became a key player in real estate, transportation, utilities and the Jewish community. At one point Hellman served as president or director of 17 banks and controlled $100 million in capital (equivalent to $59 billion today). His greatgreat granddaughter Frances Dinkelspiel wrote, Tower’s of Gold, about Hellman’s life. She explains that “Hellman exemplified the almost unfettered access Jews had to power.” Yet, Hellman once told his bank’s attorney, Jackson Graves, “I have to be a better man than you are, because I am a Jew. You can do things that I cannot do. If I did them, I would be criticized, while you would not be.”
Prejudices were not hidden including at The Los Angeles Country Club (founded in 1897), that restricted membership to white Christian males. Jewish entertainment leaders reacted and in 1920 established the Hillcrest Country Club.
Today, Los Angeles is a melting pot of world Jewry, with significant populations from Iran, Russia, Israel, Morocco and seemingly New York! According to the 2021 Jewish Population Study of Los Angeles, the city is home to 564,700 Jews across nearly 300,000 households, making it the second-largest Jewish community outside Israel, surpassed only by New York City. And being Jewish and what Newmark termed an Angeleño can coexist with immense pride.
