What makes Us Special

When I took the position of Valley editor back in 1998, some people questioned the need for a reporter to cover the Valley. After all, nothing ever happens here, right?

In any given week in the San Fernando, Conejo and surrounding valley areas one can find: a "healing" service using Jewish prayers as meditation devices for Jews suffering from chronic illnesses; an Israeli couple buying kosher Chinese takeout; two senior citizens walking down Chandler Boulevard, debating the meaning of the parasha; a Mommy & Me group from a Reform synagogue in Woodland Hills deciding whether to go to Starbucks before or after the park; a meeting between a Jewish organization and a Latino organization to discuss getting together for … more meetings; the board of directors of this or that shul coming up with a fundraiser to help a beloved congregant who has fallen on hard times; a Jewish bakery opening, closing or remodeling; and a retreat being held at Brandeis-Bardin where some couple will either meet and fall in love or, if already married, will rediscover the reasons they stay together.

This rich pastiche of Jewish life provided the backdrop for my tenure as Valley editor at The Jewish Journal. Always, there were more committee meetings and people being honored or blessed than any part-time writer could hope to fulfill in print. The Valley areas — San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Antelope, San Gabriel and the Conejo — maintain a huge list of extraordinarily active synagogues and community centers, our own offices of the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Family Service, our own Jewish Home for the Aging and, of course, The Jewish Federation/Valley Alliance, a collection of some of the hardest-working, most caring, generous and dedicated people in our community whose only weakness is too many meetings and not enough action. (Perhaps that oft-rumored but never fulfilled break-off from The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles could provide the freedom they need to make good on their potential.)

There is a lot of potential here. The Valley Jewish community is dynamic and restless, reflecting the post-mellow Los Angeles of the past two decades; yet it has a certain quality that differs from the Jewish community on the other side of Mulholland.

I used to think this special quality had to do with safety. That theory has since been shattered by a certain lethal lunatic who aimed his gun at the heart of our community and shattered our security bubble, leaving scars on the families and friends of his victims that may never completely heal. So many people moved here from the city because they believed these suburban areas were safer. It is still true in terms of general crime, but we no longer carry the naive assumption that, as Jews, we can hide in plain sight. We have had to grow up a little, but I can honestly say we are better off. Despite how widespread the Valley Jewish community is geographically, I was proud to see in the aftermath of the JCC shootings how close-knit we really are, how we drew together in a crisis, acting together whenever needed and praying together even more.

If security is no longer our hallmark, neither is diversity. We comprise the same mix of Californian/Eastern/ Israeli/ Moroccan/ Persian/Russian/English Jews of varying degrees of observance as elsewhere in the Southland. However, in the Valley areas, the walls that exist in other places between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform are barely even shrubbery, as demonstrated by events like this year’s Winter Kallah at Shomrei Torah. Rabbis from as diverse parts of the Valley area as North Hollywood and Calabasas make an effort to study together and learn from each other about how to help their respective congregations. Ashkenazi congregations create Sephardic minyans for their couples who are in that kind of a "mixed marriage" (not uncommon in these parts). The Jewish Community Centers work together with Chabad to put on a Chanukah Festival. And so it goes.

That special quality? It’s a word we all learned on "Sesame Street": cooperation. A fairy tale in some parts of the world, but here in the San Fernando Valley a very real part of the way we live, the way we perceive things and how we go about doing our part for tikkun olam. I only hope that as the Jewish community here continues to grow and flourish as we continue to hold onto that quality, for in it lies our true strength.