Jan Perry: Standing Up As a Jew

“I’m a Jew by choice,” Jan Perry says.  “It’s a big part of who I am.”

Jan is running for Congress in California’s 37th Congressional District, which includes heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson and adjacent areas. If elected, Jan will be the first Black-Jewish woman to represent the district, just as she has been the first Black-Jewish woman to sit on the Los Angeles City Council and the first to run the Los Angeles Economic Workforce Development Department.

When I interviewed Jan, my first question was obvious: “Why did you choose to be Jewish?”

Jan said her interest started early. Both of her parents were Black and Protestant. Her father told her that he enlisted during World War II because he felt he had to do something about Nazi evil. He often spoke to her about the liberation of the concentration camps and of antisemitism.

Her family lived in the Midwest where the school system was largely White and Gentile. Treated as outsiders, a bond developed between Jews and Blacks.  Frequently invited to the home of a Jewish friend, she observed and even participated in the family’s Jewish rituals, finding them fascinating and elevating. She proudly noted that one of those friends is now a rabbi in Los Angeles.

In college she took a class in theology where, in her words, she became “hooked on Judaism” and “enthralled” by its ethics.  Judaism, she says, “provides a life view. It teaches you to be an ethical and caring person. Judaism opened the door to a deeper understanding of why I am here and that there is always greater meaning to what we do in this life.”

After two years of rigorous study, Jan went before a beit din and, in accordance with Jewish law, undertook what she described as a “highly emotional” immersion in the mikvah. Today she’s a member of not one but two synagogues: the Reform Wilshire Boulevard Temple and the Orthodox Westwood Kehilla.

Judaism, she said, helped shape her political life. “The Torah teaches that strong and involved women can make a big difference. It teaches the obligation to help the vulnerable and to do so in an ethical way.  And it teaches love of Israel.”

“The Torah teaches that strong and involved women can make a big difference.“ – Jan Perry

Jan served on the Los Angeles City Council for 12 years, and from 2013 to 2018 was the General Manager of the Los Angeles Economic and Workforce Development Department. Through these two very different positions she learned not only “how to participate in politics as a policy maker but also as a hands-on implementer of policy, getting a better understanding of what actually works in the real world.” This included creating thousands of units of affordable housing, creating green spaces and wetlands to serve overcrowded areas, and working to improve health outcomes in underserved areas. In all her projects she required benefits to the local community that ensured jobs for those with low incomes.

Her unalterable support for Israel, Jan said, is a product not only of her Judaism but of her father’s concern with the fate of the Jewish people during World War II. I noted that both Jan and her opponent are Democrats, and presently pending before the House of Representatives is HR 2590, which has 34 co-sponsors, all of whom are Democrats. In the proposed legislation, “Congress finds … [that Israel’s] control over the occupied West Bank results in … serious violations of international law” and that Jewish settlements “established by the Government of Israel in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have no legal validity.”

I asked Jan her views. She responded that she is endorsed by the Los Angeles Chapter of Democrats for Israel, and that she is unalterably opposed to the anti-Israel sentiment that finds a place among certain Democrats. Indeed, she says, one of the reasons for her conversion was because “in the event that I had a child I wanted to make sure that he or she had the right of return based on the fact that I was her Jewish mother.”

Jan noted that her election will provide a strong and proven Jewish voice in the Democratic Party to make sure that bills like HR 2590 never become law.

Gregory Smith is the President of Westwood Kehilla.