Jews in the Los Angeles Mosaic

From the curators:

Explore how a growing Jewish community settled, prospered, and helped shape the economy, politics, and culture of a city — and how the diversity and dynamism of Los Angeles have transformed the local Jewish community for the past 160 years.

This groundbreaking exhibition is the story of neighborhoods like Boyle Heights and Fairfax, people like Billy Wilder, Max Factor, and Frank Gehry, and lynchpin industries like the movies and suburban land development. See how Jews helped change the region by recruiting the Brooklyn Dodgers, inventing the Barbie doll, and joining other Angelenos in electing the city’s first African American mayor.

Featuring more than 150 stories, documents, objects, and images of family, community, and society, Jews in the Los Angeles Mosaic highlights how the history of Jews in Los Angeles is at once familiar—one of the many in the cultural mosaic of the city—and unique.

The history of Jews in Los Angeles is at once familiar and unique – familiar as a story of the growth of an American metropolis, and unique because Jews have been both at the center and the margins of the events that shaped contemporary Los Angeles. Through stories of families, communities and society, we invite visitors to see how the history of Jews in this place is familiar and understand why it is unique.

The exhibition runs through January 5, 2014.