Jewish and Latino legislators announce funding to renovate century-old synagogue in LA’s Eastside

LOS ANGELES (RNS) — The Breed Street Shul, once considered an epicenter of Jewish life in the western United States, has been granted $14.9 million in state funding to renovate its century-old buildings.

California legislators said the state budget allocation will help transform Breed Street Shul — heralded as the religious and cultural anchor of the early Jewish community in the Eastside of LA — into a shared multipurpose space that will honor the area’s Jewish and multicultural history as well as the current neighborhood’s mostly Latino residents.

The shul, which encompasses two buildings in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places and is the last of the Eastside synagogues to remain open after postwar-era population shifts.

“This was at one time the center of Jewish life in the city of Los Angeles, the center of Jewish life in the western United States,” said Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, a Democrat who chairs the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, at a Tuesday (Aug. 10) gathering to announce the grant. “So much of our history as a community traces back to here in Boyle Heights.”