Fiesta Shalom pics, part dos

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Chavo was so pressed for time that I didn’t even run into him after I got to the fiesta. I ran into everyone else and their mom, but not C. He’s sneaky like that. But yes I was able to get into the shul and get the quick 15 minute tour everyone was waiting for in the baking sun. I quickly sign a waiver and headed inside wanting to see the inside of the building I have live around and seen, from the outside all my life here in East Los.

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Thus far, only the ceiling of the shul has been revamped and looks great. The floor,walls and stained glass windows on the other hand are next on the list. All of the benches and other stuff inside the shul are in the back, in storage until everything is said and done. The tour guide said that there’s still a lot of work to be done and the future of the shull looks promising for both the Jewish and Latino communities.

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One of the reasons people had to sign a waiver was because the building doesn’t meet earthquake safety standereds and because it’s going under construction.

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With that being said, how bout I fill you in on everything else that happened after C took off. It got interesting. For one, Metro was giving away Linea de Oro information about destinations near stops and safety.

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Arts and crafts were on hand thanks to Self Help Graphics.

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These guys were beating their drums in front of a young lady.

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As I was waiting in line for the shul, a nice woman gave me a ticket voucher and I used it to get a falafel. I’ve never had one and it was good.

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Even Richard Montoya couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Tony V. at the fiesta. He looks WAY older up close. They sang the pledge of allegiance and the Israel pledge as well.

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That paint by numbers wall came along really nice and even toward the end people were still working on it.

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Even as I was leaving on my way home, I saw this star and thought about it for a second. Then I felt that falafel trying to come back up and continued on my way home. It was a good community event and like C said, a lot of media was on hand.

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I was disappointed in Quetzal not playing because I love them, but I felt where they were coming from. The whole time I was there I had this flag on the back of my bootleg Doyers hat. I wrote, “Peace in the Middle East” and “Israel outta Palestine” on it. I think I made my point.

12 thoughts on “Fiesta Shalom pics, part dos

  1. I knew you’d come through with the Shull pics! Good work rookie! 😉 By the way, don’t you mean Israel out of Palestine? Or are you starting some other campaign?

  2. Damn! I had to pay $6 for my falafel. Why do you always get the hook-up Random? 🙂
    I love the pics inside the shul!

  3. Shul is a word from Yiddish, not Hebrew. Yiddish is like the Ebonics of German. maybe 90% mangled German, and 10% Hebrew. Yiddish was spoken widely by the Jews of Europe up until World War II.

    The Biblical books were written in Hebrew, not Yiddish, though Yiddish uses the Hebrew alphabet, so it’s hard to distinguish from Hebrew if you don’t know either language. Most of the Jews that came to USA were from Europe rather than Middle East or North Africa and spoke Yiddish most of the time except during prayer services or Bible study, when they would speak Hebrew.

    English has a lot of words that come from German. Shul literally means “school” (note the similarity of the words there) even though in English a Jewish house of worship is usually called a temple, but Jews would refer to it as a “shul”. Most Jewish houses of worship do have schools attached to them for the kiddies, if the congregation could afford to build a building that’s big enough to accomodate separate classrooms.

    Relatedly, the word “rabbi” (Hebrew, not Yiddish) means “teacher.” Just a little demo that education is at least as important as worship in the Jewish religion.

  4. Mercer, you are forgetting about Ladino, spoken by Sephardic Jews. Easy for us in the Eastside to understand. I remember growing up in Mexico, my father and grandfather would trade with a Jewish merchant in Guadalajara and I could never figure out why he spoke “funny” with few words that I could not understand — it is now obvious to me that it was Ladino.

    I wish I could have stopped by, and it would have been more entertaining if they had Hip Hop Hoodios… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD5aiQU35ss

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l7vU9g1WTk&feature=related

  5. I’ve known tons of Sephardic Jews in my life, but I don’t think I’ve heard one spoken word of Ladino.

    My whole family spoke in Yiddish when I was a kid, but almost no one spoke or could read Hebrew at all. I don’t think most American Yiddish speakers today can read it at all. On the other hand, understanding spoken German is no problem after all that Yiddish. There are whole sentences and phrases that are common in Yiddish that are exactly the same in German.

  6. An interesting documentary on Sephardic culture in Los Angeles is this film:
    Island of Roses: The Jews of Rhodes in Los Angeles

    One of my favorite Ladino singers is Yasmin Levi, you can hear her here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywS718iVyVI

    I recently did some research on Crypto-Jewish heritage in Mexicans and Spanish settlers of the Southwest. I still have yet to finish the series of posts but for those interested, you can read the first two:
    http://chimatli.org/blog/?p=285
    http://chimatli.org/blog/?p=302

  7. Dude read up on some history Israel is the victim and has been the victim all along. Babylon, Rome, Berlin, London, Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad are all responsible for the turmoil in Israel\ Palestine. To simply focus through a narrow looking glass and view Israel as the bad guy is to ignore all the pain and suffering that both groups have suffered at the hands and the decisions of Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, Nazi’s, the British Empire, and the Arab League.
    Don’t use double speak to show support for only one group. It is only fair to all who live an suffer in the Middle East to be considerate and impartial to the problems that plague both Jews and Arabs alike.

  8. Marshall:

    I don’t think I’ve met any Ladino speakers under the age of 55 in this town. I go to Tifireth Israel (Sephardic congregation in Westwood) every now and then and that is where Ladino speakers can be found.

    I have also come across a few eldery Ladino speakers in the Pico/Robertson neighborhood (i.e. conversations I have over heard at grocery stores, walking down the street, etc.) I wonder how small the Ladino speaking population is in Pico/Robertson?

    -A local Sephardic Chicana blogger

  9. I live pretty close to Pico/Robertson. I think I should do some research and look for some Sephardic Jews. (Honestly, the only times I’ve ever heard of them has been in my Spanish/Portuguese civilization classes.)

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