Tour Revisits the Roots of Jewish L.A. : History: Program sponsored by the University of Judaism charts the migration of Jews from Boyle Heights to Fairfax and the San Fernando Valley.

From the 1920s to the 1950s, Boyle Heights bustled with Jewish culture and community; the neighborhood was filled with Jewish shops and butchers, and Congregation Talmud Torah on Breed Street was known as the “queen of the shuls.”

Today, the Breed Street shul stands in abysmal disrepair--its doors are chained shut, its ornate facade has been desecrated by graffiti, its steps are crumbling, and pigeons live in the crevices of the Star of David that crowns the synagogue. Few would guess that the neighborhood, now predominantly Latino, was once home to about 90,000 Jewish immigrants.

Boyle Heights, just east of Downtown, is one stop on a five-hour bus tour of Jewish Los Angeles sponsored by the University of Judaism and the Jewish Historical Society. The tour charts the migration of Jews from Boyle Heights to Fairfax and the San Fernando Valley, providing an account of Jewish contributions to the city’s formation and offering a first-hand glimpse into the city’s Jewish past.

“The only real way to understanding where we are today is to learn where we used to be,” said tour guide Jerry Freedman Habush, vice president of the Jewish Historical Society, who has been giving tours for 11 years. “We try to provide a workshop on wheels, so people can learn more about the variety of aspects of their heritage and experience in L.A.”

On a recent Sunday, the journey started at the University of Judaism on the Westside and headed Downtown, where Habush told the 16 tour participants about the Jewish founders and designers of many of the historic movie palaces along Broadway. C. Albert Landsburgh designed the Orpheum, which opened in 1925, as well as the Shrine Auditorium, the El Capitan and the Warner-Pacific theaters in Hollywood. Sid Grauman founded the Million Dollar Theater in Downtown, as well as the Chinese and Egyptian theaters in Hollywood.

The tour went to the original site of the Home of Peace Cemetery in Chavez Ravine and the original Downtown home of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, which was founded as Kaspare Cohn Hospital in 1902, an eight-bed home for Jewish tubercular patients. In 1930, the hospital was renamed Cedars of Lebanon when it moved to Hollywood, and a merger in 1960 with Mt. Sinai Hospital formed Cedars-Sinai on Beverly Boulevard.

“I’ve wanted to see parts of L.A. that I’ve never seen before,” said Meryl Epstein, 37, an accountant who lives in Palms and who went on a tour earlier this month. “It’s very interesting to see what the old neighborhoods look like now, to see the change and the conditions, to see where so much began.”

The tour, offered about four times a month, attracts people of all ages and backgrounds, and arouses strong emotional responses in many participants.

“It makes me tearful to see everything so different,” said Betty Savin, 72, who was born in Boyle Heights at Kaspare Cohn Hospital. “(Boyle Heights) wasn’t the greatest neighborhood when I lived there, but it was a lot cleaner.”

Savin, who now lives on the Westside, had not been back to Boyle Heights in 25 years. She remembers when the streets were filled with barrels of herring and pickles, dress shops and merchants selling live poultry. “The buildings are still there, but the places are gone. It’s very sad.”

Marcia Bauchman, 56, remembered visiting Boyle Heights and the Breed Street Shul with her father when she was a child. “It’s shocking and heart-wrenching to see (the synagogue) now,” said Bauchman, a North Hollywood teacher. “And it’s kind of surreal to see the neighborhood. I can picture the shops--the meat market, the chicken store. It’s strange to see the buildings as something different.”

The group also visited the current and two former sites of Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the oldest synagogue in Los Angeles. Located on Wilshire since 1928, it began as Congregation B’nai B’rith in 1862 on what is now the site of the Los Angeles Times parking structure on Broadway.

Other stops included churches that were once prosperous synagogues. Sinai Temple, the first Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, founded in 1909 in what is now the Pico-Union district, has been the Welsh Presbyterian Church since 1925. The church has maintained many of the original temple’s Jewish symbols, including huge Stars of David in the masonry and in the stained glass.

“There is a Welsh and Jewish connection,” said Dafydd Evans, a senior elder at the church who spoke to the tour. “Being Jewish and being Welsh has never been easy. But we both hang onto our identities.”

Many take the tour as a way of learning how to teach others about their Jewish heritage.

“In Orange County, there is very little Jewish history,” said Robin Hoffman, 30, a Hebrew teacher at Temple Beth David in Westminster. “I’m trying to find ways to give the children and their families an experience they can remember as a community.”

Lilian Klepa, 31, a management consultant, said she appreciated the tour because it gave her an overview of local Jewish history and insight into the community.

“Things don’t exist in a vacuum,” said Klepa, who lives in Los Angeles. “I want to see what the community was like before I was a part of it. I want to see how I was influenced by the things that happened before my time. I had no idea that the Jewish community in Los Angeles was so big and old and established. Or that so many churches used to be synagogues.

“I like knowing that there was a living, breathing community here before I was.”

The University of Judaism sponsors a variety of tours, including walking and overnight tours of Jewish Los Angeles. The day tour costs $25 per person. For information, call (310) 476-9777.