Discover something nu

After months of hard work, we are excited to launch our hyperlocal outlet and to partner with you — our vibrant, diverse, savvy Southern California community. We are thrilled to be able to #discoversomethingnu with you, and are proud to be fiscally sponsored by Jumpstart Labs. 

SoCal Jewish News is your digital megaphone for hyperlocal, hard-hitting Jewish news and culture. Our team is composed of talented, experienced, award-winning professionals with deep roots in the community. We are dedicated to fair, balanced and honest reporting, covering breaking local Jewish news, hard-hitting takes on important issues, and offering a variety of nuanced opinion and commentary. We also will highlight local culture, entertainment and lifestyle stories. You can read more about us on our “About Us” page and get a greater sense of how we operate on our Ethics Policy page. 

We are excited to unveil more features as we continue to grow and raise more funds. And we need your continued support. In the meantime, please keep an eye out for our next big rollout, which will be our interactive, community portal. As SoCal starts to reopen post-pandemic, our portal will be the place for you to upload your calendar events and simchas, place your classifieds, interact with fellow SoCal readers, and more. 

We are committed to not just being a voice for the community but partnering with the community. We want you to be engaged. We want to hear what you have to say. What matters to you? What should we be exploring in your corner of SoCal? 

And in keeping with our commitment to shine a light on important issues, we have chosen to launch with a deep dive into the troubling rise in antisemitism — particularly in light of the recent Mideast conflict in May — and how, as a community, we can tackle it. 

Hate is pernicious and none of us is immune to it. As Rabbi Paul Kipnes of Congregation Or Ami notes in our story, “Antisemitism is coming from the right and the left and each one is insidious. When the right and the left agree upon something — and, as usual, it’s their hatred of the Jews — we are all in trouble.” 

We can no longer afford to remain so deeply divided. Gina Nahai, whom we are honored to highlight as our first contributor, states this so eloquently in her piece, “Stop Feeding the Crocodile.” 

We can no longer afford to live in a black-and-white binary world, where we wrap ourselves around our perceived “truths,” like so many twisted vines that can only serve to choke us. 

We are committed to not just being a voice for the community but partnering with the community. We want you to be engaged.

There is no space for reason or understanding of others’ points of view if we remain adamant that only Republican Jews love and care about Israel, or only Democratic Jews worry about the plight of the Palestinians.

Yes, it’s a difficult subject. And the more people I speak with, the more they express genuine concern about whether and how and in what way they should — if at all — take a stand on Israel; whether they have the tools, the understanding and the wherewithal to break down what it means to separate antisemitism from anti-Zionism. 

As an Israeli citizen, these arguments matter to me. They matter because my entire immediate family lives in Israel and my nephews serve in the Israel Defense Forces. They are not “monsters.” As the fortunate survivor of a suicide bombing where I was targeted solely for being an Israeli, these arguments matter to me. As someone who lived and worked with good, kind Palestinians — from journalists in East Jerusalem to strawberry farmers in the north of the country — just trying to find a way to live peacefully and have some agency over their own lives, these arguments matter to me. As someone who lived in Israel in those heady days of the Oslo accords and watched peace splinter and disintegrate before my eyes with the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, these argument matter to me. 

There is no space for reason or understanding of others’ points of view if we remain adamant that only Republican Jews love and care about Israel, or only Democratic Jews worry about the plight of the Palestinians.

And, as Joanna Mendelson, the associate director for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Extremism, notes in our story, we need to shine a light on this hate, and to operate from the position that sunlight is the best disinfectant. To do that, we have to move beyond our own knee-jerk reactions to our personal, emotional triggers; leave space to truly listen to others with compassion and understanding.

Or, as the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic Rumi wrote:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

Kelly Hartog
Founder, Editor-in-Chief