{"id":30035,"date":"2025-10-30T10:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/30035\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T10:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:18:08","slug":"contributor-california-was-an-earthly-paradise-for-jews-is-it-still","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/30035\/","title":{"rendered":"Contributor: California was an \u2018earthly paradise\u2019 for Jews. Is it still?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

California, described by one observer in the late 19th century<\/a> as \u201cthe Jews\u2019 earthly paradise\u201d for the economic and social promise it held, seems to have become newly hostile to Jewish people in recent years. More than any other place on Earth, Jews have shaped much of California\u2019s progress, from Levi Strauss and the founders of the entertainment industry to numerous other leaders in culture, science, real estate and finance.<\/p>\n

The current assault expresses itself in politics, in schools from elementaries to universities, on the streets, in literary circles<\/a> and in anti-Zionist graffiti<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the UC Berkeley Law School (and my fellow contributing writer in the L.A. Times opinion section), expressed<\/a> two years ago that \u201cnothing has prepared me for the antisemitism I see on college campuses now.\u201d The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness have filed a lawsuit<\/a> against Berkeley, alleging \u201clongstanding, unchecked\u201d antisemitism.<\/p>\n

This is not just a local issue. California\u2019s population of 1.2 million Jews<\/a> is roughly three times<\/a> the size of each of the three largest Jewish diaspora communities outside the U.S. \u2014 in France, England and Canada. Los Angeles itself is the world\u2019s third-largest<\/a> Jewish city. Demographer Ira Sheskin<\/a> noted recently that unlike New York City, which has lost roughly half its Jewish population since 1950, California\u2019s Jewish populace has continued to grow, albeit more slowly in recent years.<\/p>\n

Despite their relative demographic vitality, many California Jews feel increasingly isolated. Even in Hollywood<\/a>, the Writers Guild<\/a>, long a bastion of fashionable progressivism<\/a>, suddenly decided to be neutral rather than making a statement on the Israel-Hamas war. Some leading figures, like Maha Dakhil, co-head of motion pictures at CAA, accused Israel of \u201cgenocide,\u201d<\/a> and others now refuse <\/a>to work with Israeli film companies. Two thousand actors<\/a> signed a statement outlining Israel\u2019s \u201cwar crimes\u201d with no mention of Hamas\u2019 atrocities.<\/p>\n

The political fallout has been considerable, and may become more so. Most California Jews are Democrats, according to the Pat Brown Institute<\/a>; 20-30% tilt to the GOP. But the anti-Israel caucus, both here and nationally, is almost entirely made up of Democratic progressives.<\/a> In a show of power, these activists even succeeded in disrupting California\u2019s 2023 state Democratic Party convention<\/a>. Many are justifiably uncomfortable with the GOP, citing the influence of antisemitism from the likes of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, and some critics of Israel have found the Democratic Party too cozy with Jerusalem and its supporters<\/a>, but generally the Republicans<\/a>, including MAGA young people<\/a>, are clearly more philosemitic than the Democrats.<\/p>\n

At a local level, politics in many cities have sent a message to the Jews of California. Anti-Israel resolutions have passed in Oakland, Stanton, Burbank and Richmond<\/a>, where the progressive-controlled City Council accused Israel<\/a> of \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d and \u201capartheid.\u201d Oakland<\/a> called for an immediate ceasefire without mentioning Hamas\u2019 atrocities. Demonstrators<\/a> there even suggested that Israel murdered its own people as a pretext to attack Gaza.<\/p>\n

And California\u2019s youth are being groomed to hate Israel with hostile curriculums<\/a>, setting up a whole new generation of antisemitism in the future and in the meantime putting Jewish teachers at risk. San Francisco<\/a> has experienced anti-Israel walkouts in 10 high schools, organized by an advocacy group with access to student addresses.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the drive to \u201cglobalize the intifada\u201d affects California\u2019s Jewish community directly. It has forced at least one L.A. synagogue to relocate<\/a> its services; others have been vandalized. <\/a>The Brentwood home owned by the president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was attacked<\/a> in 2023 with smoke bombs and red paint. More recently, two years after the bloody Hamas attack on Israel, supporters of Palestinians disrupted a commemoration at Pomona College<\/a>, warning that \u201cZionism is a death cult that must be dealt with accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

These assaults make Jews more concerned about their safety<\/a> and perhaps more likely to turn inward in their communities<\/a>. Far less alluring under these circumstances is the Jewish notion of tikkun olam<\/a>, or repairing the world. Although it is the driving force in many congregations, particularly Reform synagogues, in troubled times it can be eclipsed by concerns about safety.<\/p>\n

This new environment favors the Orthodox, pioneers of a kind of \u201cself-segregation,\u201d notes writer Joseph Epstein<\/a> in the Wall Street Journal. And because of their higher birth rates and the below-replacement birth rates<\/a> among non-Orthodox American Jews, the Orthodox could triple their share<\/a> of the U.S. Jewish population by 2060. This trend plays out in California\u2019s Jewish communities such as L.A.\u2019s Pico-Robertson \u2014 epicenter of California orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

The resurgence of California Jewry matters more today, given that voters in the traditional center of Jewish life, New York, have been supporting a mayoral candidate who was at least at one time sympathetic<\/a> to \u201cglobalizing the intifada.\u201d Many suspect that the once well-connected Jewish community in New York will likely face indifference, if not open hostility, from City Hall if Zohran Mamdani is elected.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the sun has not yet set on California\u2019s Jews. The Golden State can still remain our \u201cparadise\u201d \u2014 true to its past. But this will work only by learning how to protect ourselves and make the case to our gentile neighbors so that we can continue to contribute mightily to the future of our common home.<\/p>\n

Joel Kotkin is a contributing writer to Opinion, the presidential fellow for urban futures at Chapman University and senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas, Austin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California, described by one observer in the late 19th century as \u201cthe Jews\u2019 earthly paradise\u201d for the economic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3629,22174,7,22173,8425,3784,340,22172,22170,48,52,51,47,50,49,2369,22175,22171,9150,315,1816],"class_list":{"0":"post-30035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-atrocity","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-earthly-paradise","12":"tag-future","13":"tag-hamas","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-jewish-community","16":"tag-jews","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-la-headlines","19":"tag-la-news","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","22":"tag-los-angeles-news","23":"tag-new-york-city","24":"tag-orthodox","25":"tag-other-place","26":"tag-recent-year","27":"tag-time","28":"tag-university"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}