The third annual Fiesta Chanukah Celebration will be held from 2-4 p.m. today at the Breed Street Shul in Boyle Heights and will include a Hanukkah sweater fashion show, a holiday boutique, games, live screen printing and food.
Tickets are $18 for adults and $13 for children ages 13 and under. The Breed Street Shul is at 247 N. Breed St. Parking is available at 318 N. Breed St. and 249 N. Chicago St.
More information on the celebration is available online at breedstreetshul.org/fiesta-chanukah-2014, by calling (323) 881-4850 or by email at events@breedstreetshul.org.
The event is organized by the Breed Street Shul Project, a nonprofit organization established in 1999 which seeks to bring together the Jewish, Latino and other communities of Los Angeles by rehabilitating the landmark Breed Street Shul into a center of arts, culture, education and service for its current neighbors.
Boyle Heights, just east of downtown, was the largest Jewish community west of the Mississippi River from 1910-1950, with some 75,000 Yiddish-speaking Eastern European immigrants living side-by-side with neighbors from a variety of backgrounds and cultures.
The community included about 30 synagogues, including Congregation Talmud Torah, commonly known as the Breed Street Shul and nicknamed “The Queen of the Shuls” due to the soaring, visually stunning Byzantine Revival design of its main building.
Following World War II, Los Angeles’ Jewish community moved west and Boyle Heights became a predominately Latino community.
The main building of the Breed Street Shul, built in 1923, suffered neglect, vandalism and abandonment beginning the 1980s and was closed after being damaged by the 1987 Whittier earthquake. Services continued to be held in the synagogue’s original 1915 building until 1996.
The main building was saved from demolition, thanks to emergency stabilization work funded by $1.3 million of public and private funds and more than $500,000 of in-kind services.
A Hanukkah service was conducted in the synagogue’s original building on Dec. 25, 2011. The original building was officially reopened in 2012 and is used as a space for meetings and the arts, educational and cultural programming.
Efforts continue to rehabilitate the 18,000-square-foot main building. Plans call for it to become an event and performance venue for concerts, lectures, theatre, weddings, quinceneras and bar and bat mitzvahs; a gallery and space for meetings and programs.
Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights commemorating the rededication of the Temple by the Maccabees after their victory over the Syrians, begins at sundown Tuesday.
