Celebrating the World’s Creative Capital
Irvina Lew marvels at the culture and character of Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, 15 million inhabitants live within 88 incorporated cities and countless independent neighborhoods, including Hollywood, a place name that frequently substitutes for everything “showbiz.” About one percent of LA residents identify as Jewish; that accounts for the second largest Jewish population in the United States and the fourth worldwide after Tel Aviv, New York, and Haifa.
Jewish LA residents past and present have had substantial influence on contemporary culture. Movie titan, director, producer, writer and philanthropist Steven Spielberg tops Forbes 2014 list as the “most influential celebrity.” With profits from Schindler’s List, he created the Righteous Persons Foundation to fund projects for Jewish youth and established the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, which collects historical testimonies from Holocaust survivors and makes the visual history archive available worldwide.
Read the full story in Totally Jewish Travel
