Letter from the Federation

On behalf of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, we are excited to share with you the Study of Jewish Los Angeles. It’s a portrait of LA’s unique Jewish community that will help us chart paths forward as we strive to create the most inclusive, vibrant, and welcoming place for all.

This study began with dozens of conversations with diverse community members from across our expansive region. The goal was to ensure the study’s findings would be relevant and valuable to the broadest audience. This means that the Study of Jewish LA reflects all of us, each one of us in all our diversity and strength as one people.

We are extremely grateful to our key funders for making this landmark study a reality: The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Cedars Sinai, Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, The Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation, and The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation. They not only provided the financial resources to design and carry out an exceptional research study. They also offered insightful feedback and guidance that made the study better than if any one of us had done it alone. Their unwavering support and thoughtful contributions to the process have proven invaluable. Spearheading this effort for the Federation, we are indebted to Dr. Shira Rosenblatt, Associate Chief Program Officer, for leading the Study of Jewish LA and ensuring the highest level of rigor, genuine curiosity, and a collaborative spirit.

Together, we want to express deep gratitude to our research team of academics from two preeminent research institutions: Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies (CMJS) at Brandeis University and NORC at the University of Chicago. This dynamic team, led by Dr. Janet Aronson and Professor Leonard Saxe at Brandeis, and Dr. Zachary Seeskin and Dr. David Dutwin at NORC, merged the Cohen Center’s unparalleled experience conducting over 25 Jewish community studies over the last two decades with NORC’s expertise in the most advanced methodologies. We appreciate their vital partnership in this work.

Over the course of the next several months and beyond, we encourage all organizations, large and small, key stakeholders, and interested community members and leaders to help us ensure these data are used and applied for the betterment of our community. Together, we will make meaning, ask new questions, and strive to understand deeply the diverse faces, outlooks, perspectives, cultures, and practices that make up our colorful Jewish LA.

We designed this study to be accessible, action-oriented, and inclusive. We sought to create reports focused on key themes, incorporating illustrative survey quotes to add voices to the numbers. Each brings a fresh analysis of the data which we hope will stimulate community members to ask new questions, engage in strategy conversations, and consider the implications for our community. These thematic reports are intended to act as a starting point to spark curiosity. In the coming years, we will mine these data and engage in deep conversation to better understand their implications. We will also gather new data as we think of intriguing questions whose answers will enable us to evolve and grow.

Please begin your exploration of the reports with Key Findings and LA by the Numbers. These two reports describe the overarching findings of the study. They will guide our work in the years ahead and serve as foundational context for the rest of the reports. For more in-depth discussions of each topic, please enjoy the topic-specific reports. With these findings in hand, The Jewish Federation looks forward to utilizing the data, in collaboration with our partners, to refine priorities and strategies for our future. Thank you for taking this journey with us.

Rabbi Noah Farkas
President/CEO
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles

Richard Sandler
Study of Jewish LA Chair
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles

Becky Sobelman-Stern
Executive VP/Chief Program Officer
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles