Opinion: Living in Los Angeles helped me discover what being Jewish means to me

Two men stand talking outside Elat Market as a woman approaches

By Jessica Elisheva Emerson

Sept. 13, 2024 3 AM PT

There’s a powerful Jewish value, elu v’elu, that means “these and those.” As in, both these and those ideas have merit. Both these and those people contain a holy spark. Both this and that answer can be right.

When I moved from Tucson to L.A. in 1997, I left a greater metro area of a little over half a million people for a city with a little over half a million Jews. I quickly learned that despite being raised Jewish, I knew only a sliver about the diversity of Jewish experiences. I’d never heard of elu v’elu, but being in Los Angeles helped me discover it.

As a student at USC, I joined Jewish campus organizations. A rabbi there helped me realize that although I was far less learned than the ancient sages, my own ideas about the religion had validity. I began to define what being Jewish meant to me. These and those.

Working at a production company, I came to understand how Hollywood’s arts elevated Jewish ritual across the city. It was revelatory to see a Torah portion presented as a play, hear a sermon in the form of poetry. I got married. We watched old Yiddish movies with friends and read contemporary Jewish playwrights.

I met young Argentine Jewish parents at a garden co-op in Santa Monica and old Russian Jews at a community garden in Hollywood. The former were teaching their children liturgy in English, Hebrew and Spanish, and the latter had abandoned organized Judaism but hung out almost exclusively with other old Russian Jews. Absorbing their contrasting histories and lifestyles, asking question after question, helped me understand what was most meaningful to me. Elu v’elu. And still, we all grew Persian cucumbers and little yellow pear tomatoes.

I’d never met a rabbi who wanted to study Talmud with young adults — I’d never studied Talmud at all — until coming to Los Angeles. But in an un-air-conditioned room of a community center one hot night, I traced my fingers over layers of rabbinic interpretation and the ancient code of Jewish law, each insight built on the other. Elu v’elu, these commentaries, and those.

At Rabbi Sharon Brous’ IKAR synagogue, I learned about justice through a Jewish lens, and about activism. I began to think of Jewish texts as an ancient technology, one through which — whether by agreeing or vehemently disagreeing with the ideas — I could filter the pressing questions of modern life. These and those.

My years living in the Jewish enclave of Pico-Robertson were a cultural and sensory feast. On Friday nights, as we settled into our Shabbat meal with our young children, we could hear “Shalom Aleichem” sung to different tunes, and with different numbers of repetitions of the verses, blending with the voices at our table. Our Jewish neighbors crossed the spectrum from extremely observant to totally secular. These and those.

I no longer live in L.A. Before I left, my tattoo artist, a native Hebrew speaker, inked the Hebrew names of my children on my arms, along with a giant jacaranda. Now, when I cover my eyes and welcome Shabbat each week, I am often thinking of the neighborhoods and people of Los Angeles, from Boyle Heights to Topanga Canyon, and especially along Pico Boulevard.

I remember the Persian, Afghan, Bukharian, Yemeni, Iraqi and Moroccan neighbors whose traditions made their way into my religious practice. I remember the joy of walking down Pico during the festival of Sukkot and the scent of cheesecake that accompanies Shavuot in the air. When I uncover my eyes, I take my pick of all those Shabbat songs and start to sing. My melodies and the text aren’t static and, as I learned in L.A., neither is my Jewish identity. These and those.

Jessica Elisheva Emerson’s first novel, “Olive Days,” is about a Los Angeles woman’s search for Jewish identity.