WORKS IN PROGRESS

“From Brooklyn Avenue to Cesar Chavez”

Curated by: Dr. Caroline Luce

Anchored in a thick interactive map of the neighborhood, “From Brooklyn Avenue to Cesar Chavez” will offer users access to archival photos, documents and objects as well as scholarly essays about those historical materials in an explorable virtual space. It will enable users to “drill down” at particular places – including institutions like the Soto-Mission JCC, Home of Peace Cemetery, the Jewish Home for the Aged, and Mt. Sinai Hospital — and explore how those places changed as the neighborhood’s physical, social and racial landscape shifted in the years after World War Two. By bringing the many overlapping and syncretic layers of the neighborhood’s history into focus, “From Brooklyn Avenue to Cesar Chavez” aims to add texture and nuance to discussions about Boyle Heights’ past, present and future.

“From Russia With Books: Russian Jewish L.A. Then and Now”

Curated by: Dr. Naya Lekht

Although “From Russia with Books” begins at the library, the story of the Russian-speaking Jewish community unfolds to include a network of closely knit associations that helped bring together the community. The Association of Scientists and Engineers was created for the purpose of allowing Soviet Jews to interact with one another, provide support, and discuss ways of applying their professional skills on the job market in America. Voicing a desire to create and grow a Russian-language library, the Association of Scientists and Engineers first received financial and spiritual support from the Russian Chabad and as such the library was initially housed in the West Hollywood Chabad synagogue. “From Russia with Books” likewise highlights the relationship between the Association of Scientists and Engineers and Chabad of West Hollywood, pointing to a bizarre though valuable liaison between a secular and religious group. No less significant to the story of Russian-Jewish LA is the Los Angeles Veterans Association of World War Two, an organization that started in the late 1970s, but currently shares a roof with the library. Two of the library’s biggest sections, World War Two and the Holocaust, was made possible by donations made by the Veterans Association and the Association of Russian-Speaking Holocaust survivors.

The culmination of “From Russia with Books” will feature a digital tour through West Hollywood, stopping at the library, the Association for Veterans of the Second World War, and Plummer Park, where two monuments, one to Babi Yar and another to the fallen Soviet soldiers of the Second World War, stand. Both monuments are the result of the Los Angeles Veterans of the Second World War working closely with the City of West Hollywood.

“It Did Happen Here: Mapping Anti-Nazi Activism in Los Angeles, 1933-1941”

Curated by: Dr. Laura Rosenzweig and Dr. Caroline Luce

“It Did Happen Here” offers a comprehensive portrait of the landscape of anti-Nazi activism in Los Angeles using geospatial data collected from a variety of archival collections. Anchored in a sliding timeline, the interactive map details of the activities of local domestic fascist groups, as well as the Jewish community’s responses to developments at home and abroad, showing that the city’s Jewish residents responded forcefully to the rise of Nazism and anti-Semitism, mobilizing mass protests and forming new organizations to expose the activities of local fascist organizations, raise relief funds for their European brethren, and increase public awareness of the threat posed by Nazism. The project draws on the research of Dr. Laura Rosenzweig, whose work focuses on the formation of the Jewish Community Relations Committee and its effort to infiltrate pro-Nazi and domestic fascist groups, and Dr. Caroline Luce who writes about labor and left-wing activism in Boyle Heights.

Dr. Laura Rosenzweig received her Ph.D. from University of California Santa Cruz in 2013 and works in the UC Office of the President. A book based on her research about the Jewish infiltration of Nazi and pro-Nazi groups in Los Angeles in the 1930s is forthcoming from NYU Press. Dr. Caroline Luce received her Ph.D. in American History from UCLA in 2013 and is currently the Research and Digital Projects Manager of the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies. Her dissertation, “Visions of a Jewish Future: the Jewish Bakers Union and Yiddish Culture in East Los Angeles, 1908-1942,” includes a chapter on labor and left-wing anti-Nazi activism in Boyle Heights.