The Final Days of the Kosher Food and Wine Business of Boyle Heights
One of the leasts known facts about the community of Boyle Heights, is that until recently it remained a very relevant hub in the daily Jewish life. Up until the past month, our kosher wines and foods used to be mostly distributed from right here in the lower industrial section of the Flats.
In the shadow of the classic Sixth Street Bridge, sat two special Jewish business. Which were located in the lower industrial section on Anderson Road.
The larger of the kosher food plants used to be run by Teva Foods:
“At Teva Foods, we bring together the goodness of nature and the flavors of fine Mediterranean cuisine in every pack of our Hummus, Dip and Salad. We use only the freshest ingredients, handpicked by our team of experts, to make sure that what you eat is healthy and tasty.”
Many of our local residents were employed at this plant, doing jobs like peeling the raw garlic for their products. Processing natural products under the supervision of the Orthodox Union.
“Shalom & Sons is a family owned full service direct store delivery distributor of kosher and health food products in Los Angeles, California. As a company, we are dedicated to providing outstanding service, while responding to the every day needs of the retail and institutional industries. We currently service the greater Los Angeles area, as well as the cities of Orange County, Santa Barbara County, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Arizona and Las Vegas.
“Shalom & Sons represents some of the largest food manufacturers in the kosher and health food industries, and is the exclusive west coast distributor of many kosher product lines…”
Though I had not met the owners of these business until recently, I have appreciated their presence here in the community for years.
Their facilities have long sat right along my favorite path I walk towards home. They have been a familiar presence for as long as I can remember. So you can only imagine my shock when I walked by one day and saw the Teva plant entirely demolished and hauled away.
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Shalom and Son’s Wholesale Foods, Anderson Street.
It was just the day after the groundbreaking for the new Sixth Street Viaduct that I noticed the demolition beginning in the area surrounding the footprint of the bridge. Already busy were the sounds of tractors and hauling trucks. Contractors scurrying about. Electrical crews rushing as they redirect the old power cables.
In concern I went into the offices of the Shalom and Son’s to inquire of them.
“How is our business being effected? We’re being forced to move!” responded Shalom, the owner, in exasperation. “We don’t want to move. We’re very happy here, but the city has bought our land. We have to move now.”
Shalom explained that his business had been in the neighborhood for over 20 year. Growing from a small family business to becoming a major stakeholder in the kosher food and natural food industry at this site.
Their operations had take residency on both sides of Anderson Street. Their business offices and cold storage facility, being located at 638 S. Anderson Street. And across from them on the west side of the street at 631 S. Anderson Street, was located their kosher wine storage.
“It was only the larger facility across the street that they wanted at first. Over there is where we actually keep the Kedem and all that.” Shalom said. Referring to the special kosher grape juice by brand, a necessary staple for making sacramental blessings over wine.
The cold storage facility of Shalom and Son’s
This is something that I totally appreciate hearing about, as kosher wine is very special part of the Jewish tradition. It is a liquid symbol of joy, which is used in every religious celebration and life-cycle event in our tradition.
It is also something which requires special care in preparation and handling to maintain its kashrut – meaning it’s ritually appropriate status. This special care taken by Jewish producers and distributors also makes this a premium product of the highest order.
“In the end, we also had to get them to buy this building too.” Shalom explains, referring to the small offices and cold storage facility. Explaining that without their larger wine storage across the way, the smaller facility could no longer suit the needs of their mainstay business. Their operation was being divided.
He explains that with the compensation from the city they are planning on relocating to Vernon with tension in his voice. Like he’s painfully imagining the notorious density and congestion of that area.
I had to appreciate his sentiments. He is situated right here in the middle of the East Los Angeles Interchange of freeways, which sends traffic in every direction. Close to every on-ramp. Ideal for a distribution business like his. And also located in a less dense area, here in an almost sleepy underside of the Sixth Street Bridge.
Shalom, owner of Shalom and Son’s: “Money isn’t the issue. When they give me money to set-up elsewhere in Vernon, I’m no better off. Because this is where I want to be. I’m happy here.”
Expressing even though they did buy out his property, he’s still not any better off than any other displaced person. Namely because this is where he wants to be. Stating if he wanted to move he would moved years ago. Holding his arms out he says, “Who would want to leave this? I’m happy here!”
As I looked at the amazing view just outside the doorway, I had to share his sentiments.
As I was visiting their site the business was in the middle of their biggest rush of the year. Everyone is rushing about their operation. We were just weeks before the Passover holiday. When their products are in highest demand.
Wanting to get out of their hair, I asked Shalom if I could snap a photo of him for my historical archives. He smiled for the camera. And I shuffled on my way.
See my very impassioned video, taken immediately after my visit:
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This area of the surrounding the Sixth Street Viaduct is going to continue to change dramatically in the weeks to come. As businesses are finished being cleared to make way for the upcoming bridge demolition of the bridge above. The changes are breathtaking.
The location of the kosher food and wine facilities: In red are the sites which have already been demolished.
The lots where Shalom and Son’s and Teva used to operate will become the storage and processing sites for the rubble from the bridge demolition. As the city agree to restrict the processing to the Boyle Heights side of the river, and not on the already gentrified downtown Art’s District side.
It should also be noted that this is not the only lopsided concession to the downtown Art’s District. which secured an amphitheater and some sort of arts park feature in their area’s redevelopment.
The land here on the much larger east side will remain greatly undeveloped as open fields and bike paths. With only an afterthought of an soccer field feature being planned for the empty field left in and near the footprint of the bridge. [See “The Inequity of the New Sixth Street Bridge Plan.“]
In the most typical fashion and according to the way this community has always been treated, the city is taking what it wants for its roads here and is carelessly tossing aside the rest.
And so we see right before our eyes, the past revisiting us. As the major Jewish businesses of the area are once again leaving the neighborhood, for no other reason than being displaced by road works.
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Shalom and Son’s Wholesale Foods, Anderson Street, Boyle Heights Flats. The larger building on the left was their kosher wine facility (now demolished), and on the right is their old offices.
For many years the subject of Boyle Heights had fallen out of the public consciousness. Few people seemed to remember the old neighborhood until recent years. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a Jewish presence proudly doing business here all along.
Often times I have traveled all over Los Angeles, to enjoy and also lead Jewish ritual. And most often as I introduce myself, people have seemed shocked that I come hailing from Boyle Heights
A neighborhood which is tarnished, if not discounted entirely as less than “kosher” (on many levels) in many people’s minds.
In retort I always was armed with, “Boyle Heights is plenty kosher! You’re wine here for this simcha (joyous occasion), makes its way to this and every table in the area by way of our neighborhood.”
I’m really going to miss saying that!
Thank you to Shalom and Son’s and Teva Foods. For over twenty-years of service to the Boyle Heights community.
Shalom and Son’s Wholesale Foods, Anderson Street.
Remembering the Jews who have lived and now rest in peace in the LA Eastside
The Young Israel Jewish Cemetery in Norwalk, founded in the 1938 by Congregation Bnei Israel of Los Angeles, the Houston Street Shul of old Boyle Heights.
Today I invite you to take a personal journey with me through Jewish life in the Los Angeles Eastside. I would also like to continue in the theme of recognizing smaller and lesser known Jewish sites of the area.
On this day we are doing something different, we are starting out our journey in reverse. Believe it or not, to date none of my historical videos have been planned out. I’m not a tourist, I’m a local. Usually a video comes about because I’m in the neighborhood and someone asks me to explains something as we are passing, and then we snap a video to capture my responses.
Today I am presenting my photos and a re-cut video with a bit of newly added audio commentary, documenting a recent visit to two special Jewish sites on the Eastside of Los Angeles County. One in Norwalk and the other in Boyle Heights.
Along the way we are also going to tell the untold story of the migration of Jewish people, deeper into the suburban eastside. Into the southeast cities of Los Angeles County and the San Gabriel Valley.
The Jewish Cemetery in Norwalk
This day I was actually in the dentist chair when I got a wonderful question from a friend from the southeast-side. His inquiry gave me a welcomed distraction and mission for the day!
He wanted to find out what I knew about a small burial site out in Norwalk. Knowing that I would be passing right next to there on my way home, I decided to make a quick detour into the neighborhood next the Metro Green Line Station in Norwalk to explore this topic a bit.
Crossing under the 605-freeway on Foster Road, I make my way through a broken-up and oddly shaped neighborhood. Over to the southernmost fragment and point of Curtis and King Road. And right there in between Briar and Tolly, there sits a small Jewish cemetery.
This cemetery is the Young Israel Cemetery in Norwalk, founded in 1938. This site holds approximately 500 Jewish burials. It is a well maintained site, run by the Chevra Kadisha Mortuary – the Orthodox Jewish sacred burial society.
The Chevra Kadisha also runs other well-known cemetery sites in the area. One of them being the Beth Israel Cemetery in East Los Angeles on Downey Road, near Olympic Blvd. And another being the Mount Carmel Cemetery, near the City of Commerce.
Though, it is important to note that this site here was not founded by the burial society which operates it today. In-fact, we are told by oral history that this site was founded by the Houston Street Shul in Boyle Heights. (Mort Silverman) And that it was later bought by the Chevra Kadisha.
[For a complete list of internments and photos for each grave, see the index at: “Find A Grave”]
So here we are, standing in front of an often forgotten cemetery, which was founded by a forgotten synagogue. We are also going to take a look at the shul along the way as well, as we make our way back to Boyle Heights.
But first we need to take this all in. One might wonder, why is it that a Jewish congregation in old Boyle Heights would have chosen a burial site all the way out here in Norwalk? And as most of the burials are more recent, so why would this remain an active site even after the closure of the congregation which founded it?
The answer to the first question of why here, this is only obvious to those who know about the complicated history of displacing cemeteries in the Los Angeles area. At the start of the 20th century nearly all the original cemeteries inside the city were displaced. They were forced to relocated their sites and bodies elsewhere: as most notably in the case of the original Jewish cemetery around Chavez Ravine.
The fear of this possibly happening once again compelled Jewish leaders to pick burial sites which were outside of the official city limits, into LA County territory. They located their burial sites in places this far out not just because there was open land here, but more so because they believed picking a site out here would be safe from future development. They began to put great attention into picking cemetery sites which would not have to be quickly uprooted and relocated. So that their dearly departed would not be disturbed.
As for the reason that this Jewish burial site would remain significant, it is clearly because Jewish people and their families had migrated into this area. Necessitating the continued operation and maintenance of this sacred burial site here.
“As for the reason this Jewish burial site would remain significant, it is clearly because Jewish people and their families had migrated into this area. Necessitating the continued operation and maintenance of this sacred burial site here.”
My friend who posed the question about this site is an Ashkenazi Jew, whose grandparents had left Boyle Heights to the southeast cities. My own Mexican-American grandparents from Boyle Heights and Compton, they would also eventually relocate to this southeastern corner of Los Angeles as it became developed with tract housing. This was the place for the up and coming, with a mixture of working-class and some professional families.
In the early years after World War II and the Korean War, this part of Los Angeles would attract many suburban aspiring people following government contract jobs. The area would also swell with prominence as this area became an important development and production area for the aerospace industry. Not far from here Rockwell Aerospace would later produce the NASA space orbiters.
However, as the cold war and the space program slowed down this also meant a great economic lull in the area. And then the neighborhood around here was further depressed by highway development in the area.
A view of a section of the 105 Century Freeway corridor in the 1980s, rows of condemned houses and lots. Photo by Jeff Gates, “In Our Path.”
When I was a kid much of this area was just rows of condemned houses. Houses which had been purchased by the county, left boarded-up and rotting for decades, then eventually razed in order to make a corridor for the 105 Century Freeway in the late-1980s. A demolition corridor which stretched through the struggling parts of the neighborhoods of Norwalk, Downey, Lakewood, Lynwood, Compton, Watts and on to LAX Airport.
When I was little my grandparents owned several business just across the street from the corridor. And I went to private school right up against the corridor for a while.
This corridor was the areafeatured in the mostnotorious punk-rock movie of all time, “Suburbia (1983)” by Penelope Spheeris. Which is a story of gutter punks occupying a distressed and crumbling suburbia. Though a fictional movie which takes great liberties with the story in their nod to the historical narrative, it does actually capture much of the complaints of locals throughout the corridorand the media hype surrounding all of that at the time.
In order to grasp and visualize the impact of this on the area, I also highly recommend the exhibition titled, “In Our Path” by Jeff Gates.
The Young Israel Cemetery is near the San Gabriel River and high tension power-lines which segment this area as much as the freeways do. It’s the proximity of this site to the river which catches my attention. This burial site was founded in 1938. The same year Los Angeles suffered one of the most destructive deluges in history, which devastated much of the river basin areas in the months of February and March of 1938, all the way down to Long Beach. It was this severe flooding which later that year caused the City of Los Angeles to adopt the policy of concrete paving the rivers. Which leaves us with a mystery to explore. Does this site here exists in-spite of that dramatic flood or as a result of the literally sweeping changes which came to this area at that time?
So here we are just near the widened 605-freeway, you can hear it. Near the interchange to the more recent 105-freeway, you can see it.
Quite honestly, we are very fortunate that this site still continues to exist after such sweeping changes around here. Had engineers planned a little bit differently, this site could have easily have been taken by one of our infamously controversial roadworks. Highway expansions which have repeatedly displaced so many people and places in less affluent neighborhoods; as had also been the case in the classic era of Boyle Heights.
But before I head back towards Boyle Heights, I pause to say a few prayers and pay my respects. And for a while I take comfort in seeing carefully placed stones on many of these graves, signs that there are local loved ones who have recently come to visit these graves. Paying respect to the dear souls who have come to rest here.
זיכרונם לברכה… May their memories be for a blessing.
The Houston Street Shul of Boyle Heights
So now we make our way back to the historic core of the eastside – to Boyle Heights. We make a journey in reverse, a journey that many of our parents and grandparents have made.
The only noticable sign that this Spanish-speaoing church was once a synagogue are these Lions of Judah, guarding the two tablets of Torah. The raised Hebrew words of the Ten Commandments appear to have been sanded down entirely.
Many, if not most, local minority families have their roots in Boyle Heights. The area which was once the officially designated minority enclave and has remained a working-class community to this day. For many immigrant families, this was both their Ellis Island and first homestead.
The way the eastside generally works is this way: Everyone starts out around Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles. But as a family becomes more financially secure and more integrated, they tend to migrate to the more suburban southeast neighborhoods.
Conversely for lifelong eastsiders, families falling on hard times sometimes moving back to these more affordable old neighborhoods when times become tough again. Migrating patterns up and down the eastside often closely related to one’s economic security. Unlike most of my family, I’ve lived in the rougher neighborhoods more often than not. Getting older, I have naturally wandered back to this my comfort zone.
But the path that we take these days is different from the ride I used to take in my childhood and teenage years. The 460 Express Bus no longer takes the scenic route through the greater eastside, with stops up and down the 5-freeway, then coming into town up Soto before crossing the Los Angeles River viaducts into downtown. The 460 now takes the 105-freeway corridor and 110-freeway through South Central LA on its way to Downtown, so now I go the long way around on my way up to the neighborhood.
One of the things which makes the neighborhood of Boyle Heights so special and worth the ride, is that it has all kinds of hidden treasures. All these interesting remnants of a diverse cultural and religious past in this old neighborhood. Still after all these years, I notice something new every time.
“La Iglesia de Dios de la Profecía.” The face of the converted synagogue, before the most recent beautification.
And so it is on this day as we find ourselves in front of the old Houston Street Shul – formally known as Congregation B’nei Israel of Los Angeles, founded in 1932. This lovely little vernacular neoclassicalstyle building was originally built to house an Orthodox Jewish congregation. It was one of over 30 synagogues in and around the area of Boyle Heights, which were most active in the first half of the 20th century.
This building sits amid a bustling neighborhood. Right below Wabash and just shy of the rumbling of the freeways which today curve painfully close to this area, here sits this charming little building.
Distinct in its style and sturdy in form, it catches your attention. Even more so on this day. The building has been recently repainted a classic golden color. No longer appearing dingy and musty as before, the building looks quite alive and cheerful again!
Also recently being brightened up with a new illuminated sign over the doorway, announcing the church which has for many years owned and operated this site: La Iglesia de Dios de la Profecía, a Spanish-speaking Pentecostal church.
As I begin to admire the building, my attention is immediately drawn to the only noticeable Jewish symbolism which is left on the building: Two Lions of Judah, guarding the two tablets of the Torah. This is all there is to explicatively tell us what this site once was. Yet even these signs are not well-preserved, as the church seems to have sanded down the Hebrew words of the Ten Commandments on these decorative Torah tablets.
As I move in closer with the camera to admire them, I notice the people in the neighborhood and the lingering Mormon missionaries all becoming curious as to what I’m seeing here. What looks so interesting up there, are they missing something?
As I get closer my attention is then drawn to the door-frames of the main entrance. On each side of the door are square indentations. Painted in and looking like exaggerative block molding. However, looking closely I could see the faint shape of the English and the Hebrew script of Yiddish in these spaces. Beneath thick brown paint are the memorial cornerstones honoring the founders of this site.
As much as I’m excited to seeing the building still exist and having better days. I’m also crushed over how little there is left to testify of its unique and celebrated past. This building is like most of the former Jewish religious sites, few of which have any remaining signs or homages to their honorable past.
Though the building in impressive in its own right, even aside from the religious symbolism. And while this building is not as imposing and dramatic as the other former synagogues of the area, sites such as this are significant precisely on account of their humble nature. This build has an honored past as being the realization of the aspirations of poor immigrant Jews. Bearing witness to the struggle and the sacrifice it took for new immigrants to establish this splendid site, all this during the lean years of the Great Depression!
It is strikingly clear that this site has been overwhelmingly changed since then. For this reason some feel that the historical significance of sites such as this has been irreversibly effected and in most cases lost entirely.
I wonder, would this church ever embrace that heritage and restore the site if they knew the cultural significance and historical impact of it all? And might this church consider restoring the Hebrew to these tablets out of respect to the Ten Commandments and the “Old Testament?” As we have seen these type of inspired restorations in other places in this neighborhood already. Time can only tell.
As I go between gawking and speaking into my phone to document the site for quite a while, the people hanging out on the block get even more curious. Surely I’m not just interested in the new paint job!
So I strike up a conversation and share some pleasantries with a family next door, who is seemingly having tardeada on this warm day. They give me the lowdown on when the latest upgrades have happened on the building. And I also share with them a bit of the history I know about this site. History in this side of town is always a most engaging topic, as people love to reminisce about the golden era of this area to no end. And even more today people are genuinely curious as to how and why things have come to be in this old neighborhood.
But the questions which always remains are this, why did all the Jewish families of Boyle Heights leave? And the almost inevitable, “Why did they all move to the Fairfax?”
What the housing displacement caused by the freeways looked like. This raw example being more recent, from the southeast cities in the 1980s; the I-105 corridor. Photo by Jeff Gates, “In Our Path.”
Though that is a very complicated question to answer, I ask people to really consider at least one thing which has repeatedly displaced people and heaped hardship on this community. I point towards the freeways which are rumbling all around us. And ask people to remember how our neighorhood and our own families were fragmented, as well over 10,000 people were displaced here between the 1940-1950s to create the web of freeway interchanges which carved this community apart. Which came with sweeping displacement for Jews, Latinos and all other residents.
Many people eventually moved away because their grandma’s house was taken by eminent domain for yet another freeway project, and then their own. Some of our families even being uprooted more than once by the freeways here. Not just families, but many business holdings being ripped asunder by development. This made many people finally choose to move on to other more assured areas, including the surrounding communities.
Consider the Freeways: This marks the location of the old shul. I ask people to consider how our city and our own families were fragmented, as well over 10,000 people were displaced here between the 1940-1950s to create the web of freeway interchanges which carved this community apart. Which came with sweeping displacement for Jews, Latinos and all other residents. This image shows the impact of two of the half-dozen major freeways-highways which have encroached upon and even slice through this community.
For this reason I reject the one-direction narrative. And the assumptive ideas which lend to an over-simplified narrative which is crudely summarized as “white flight.” And it takes a native and lifelong eastsider to challenge that old suspicion – and often character judgments which comes with that – as it is most often posed by the younger eastsiders of today.
I ask our local people to also reconsider this: The favored narrative always follows the mass migration of Jews out of Boyle Heights to the Fairfax, westside and San Fernando Valley. However, there have been significant numbers of Jewish people who have continued to migrate further into the eastside.
Indeed as early as the 1920 Jews started migrating out of Boyle Heights and City Terrace, to places such as Highland Park and Montebello. There was no place else for most people to go in those days, but deeper into the eastside.
Then in the 1950’s after the end of housing discrimination, many more Jews migrated even further into the newly expanding suburban areas of the eastside. Founding several wonderful Jewish congregations and cultural centers on this side of town.
Each of these congregations growing out of far less than homogeneous communities, which has fostered a unique multicultural and progressive character for shuls on this side of town. Congregations which also notably attract many local bilingual Spanish-speaking families!
The Jews of the Los Angeles Eastside aren’t entirely gone, it’s just that the Jewish people of today’s eastside are much more spread out. And in recent years, many families are migrating even further yet into the San Gabriel Valley and also venturing into Orange County. Once again, migrating to newly expanding areas.
As time passes the Jewish history of the greater eastside area becomes more obscured. However, its important for us to note that significant amounts of Jewish people have come further into the eastside to live out their lives and also to rest in peace.
![The Young Israel Cemetery is near the San Gabriel River and high tension power-lines which segment this area as much as the freeways do. It's the proximity of this site to the river which catches my attention. This burial site was founded in 1938. The same year Los Angeles suffered one of the most destructive deluges in history, which devastated much of the river basin areas in the months of February and March, all the way down to Long Beach. Which leaves us with a mystery to explore. Does this site here exists in-spite of that dramatic flood or as a result of the literally sweeping changes which came to this area at that time?]](https://barrioboychik.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/the105-605corridor.png)
Barrio Boychik 