On Thursday, January 23rd, The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles honored Younes and Soraya Nazarian with our Lifetime Achievement Award. The Nazarian family were honored for their decades of leadership and generosity to the local Jewish community, Israel, and the Los Angeles community at large.

The evening celebrated the work the Federation and the Nazarian family have done to bring together diverse segments of the Los Angeles Jewish population.

Aligning with the Nazarian family’s belief in the importance of giving back and looking forward, proceeds from the evening will support the Federation’s Next Generation Leadership Training Programs, which focus on ensuring that young adult leaders have the skills to help our Jewish community address our shared challenges.

Learn more about the Nazarian Initiative and its impact on Jewish L.A.

In January, we offered three sessions of the workshop Teens & Screens: Thriving in the Digital World with Julia Storm, an L.A.-based digital media wellness specialist. Julia is an educator, a writer, a public speaker, and the author of Reconnect, a whole-child and whole-family approach to life in the Digital Age. Her workshop offered relevant information, simple researched-based tips to support parents in this era of technology, and a helpful Q&A session. 48 parents attended. One parent shared, “Very relevant topic. Speaker was excellent — very informative and articulate. THANK YOU!” LAJTI hopes to continue the conversation around teens and screens because we know that parents are struggling to navigate these choppy waters.

During the month of January, all Community Leadership Institute (CLI) participants convened to meet their mentors for the first time. The CLI tracks retreated to individual breakout rooms where track chair pairs led strategy sessions that helped mentor/mentee pairs identify key learnings, goals, and milestones they plan to achieve by year’s end. It was a truly inspiring and energetic evening for all present. We were overjoyed with how the event turned out. Mentors and mentees came together to focus on their shared mission and discussed bold and creative strategies to achieve their goals. We believe that the partnership between established and emerging leaders is a bedrock of our Jewish community, and we are excited to see what this cohort can accomplish together.

National Young Leadership Cabinet (NYLC/Cabinet) kicked off 2020 with a meaningful three days together in Mexico City for the group’s annual Shabbat Experience. The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), our Federation, and Cabinet are committed to actively engaging all alumni and creating opportunities for members and their spouses to take part together in this wintertime Shabbat Experience every year. Sharon Janks, Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles board member and former cabinet alum (1983-1989), along with her husband Leon, was one of 20 Cabinet alums who participated in the trip alongside NYLC Vice Chair of Engagement and L.A. Cabinet Member Robin Polansky.

With 95% of Jewish children in Mexico attending a Jewish school and most visiting Israel following their bar/bat mitzvah, it was clear that the Jewish community there is highly structured and extremely active. Over time, it has become a diverse community since Jewish families settled there from Syria, Turkey, and Eastern and Western Europe, bringing with them (and maintaining) the traditions, cuisine, and histories of their native countries.

Highlights included visiting the Centro Deportivo Israelita (an impressive JCC), hearing from Israeli Ambassador to Mexico Zvi Tal and US Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau, touring the Museum of Memory & Tolerance, and sharing Shabbat services and dinner at Bet El Congregation where JFNA President & CEO Eric Fingerhut addressed 45 local community leaders from the bimah. Eric inspired the group with a call to action, and the young Jewish leaders fueled the movement and set an example for Cabinet today to be out in front on the community’s key issues.

NYLC is Federation’s 5-year premier national leadership and philanthropic development program that cultivates, trains, and inspires young leaders to take on positions locally and nationally that will impact the future of the global Jewish community. NYLC’s next stop will be Riga and Paris for the Cabinet Study Mission from March 23-29!

Applications are now open through May for the 2020-2021 cycle of National Young Leadership Cabinet. Contact Alexi Baker at (323) 761-8386 or ABaker@JewishLA.org to learn more about the application process.