Jews and California

The gold rush lured thousands of Jewish settlers to California. By 1860, there may have been as many as 10,000 Jews in the state, with half clustered in San Francisco and half scattered in the gold country and around other parts of the state. Los Angeles only had 8 Jews in 1850; by 1860 that number had grown to 60 men and their families.

The experience of Jews in California was much different than that of Jewish settlers in other parts of the United States. While the Jews on the east coast had to fit into already established social networks, Jews came to California just as it was maturing and stepped from the beginning into positions of authority, power, and respect. When Hellman arrived in Los Angeles in 1859, two members of the city council were Jewish. While there were anti-Semitic outbreaks and grumblings over the fact that Jews kept their stores open on Sunday—which was the Christian but not Jewish Sabbath—there was remarkably little discrimination.

In 1854, the Jews of Los Angeles formed the Hebrew Benevolent Society, which purchased land in Chavez Ravine for a cemetery. They held religious services in borrowed offices and homes until 1872, when they constructed the city’s first synagogue, B’nai B’rith, on Fort Street (now known as Broadway). Hellman was the congregation’s president at the time.

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