October 8 - Los Angeles – There was singing, dancing, and prayer tonight at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles as more one thousand people from American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Israeli community, and the Latino Pentecostal and Evangelical community joined together to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

“AJC is the first mainstream Jewish organization to dialogue with the growing Latino Evangelical community,” says AJC LA Regional Director Seth Brysk. “This is part of our expanding efforts find common ground, share our cultures, and show our love for the State of Israel.”

The evening began in the colorful ‘Sukkah’, a structure built for the holiday of Sukkot, the eight day Jewish pilgrimage festival of thanksgiving.

Randy Brown, AJC’s Assistant Director of Interreligious Affairs and fifth year rabbinical student at Academy for Jewish Religion in California, invited members of the Latino community into the structure – a tradition hearkening back to Biblical times when Israelites welcomed strangers into their tents.

Members of the Latino community participated in ancient Jewish rituals, including the waving of the Lulav and Etrog – a symbol of the holiday’s connection to the environment and the fragility of life.

"We have many things in common," said Tony Solorzano of Zion Multimedia in Downey after waving the Lulav and Etrog. "AJC’s Essence of Judaism program has opened up our community to Jewish culture and people and strengthened our community’s commitment to Israel.”

The relationship was not always this strong. Levels of anti-Semitism amongst recent immigrants from Latin America are higher than average, mainly because they have little exposure to Jews in their native, mostly Roman Catholic, countries.

However, when Brown visited Hispanic Pentecostal congregations in Southern California three year ago, he was surprised by displays of Star-of-David flags, zealous prayers for peace in Israel and Hebrew words in their church names.

Brown soon found out that this was the fastest growing religious group among Hispanics in Latin America and the United States.  He saw an opportunity to build Jewish-Latino relations and forge new bonds between the Hispanic/Latino and Jewish populations.

Brown has since taken three groups of Pentecostal Hispanic pastors to Israel, offered an award winning course in Spanish on Judaism called ‘Essence of Judaism’, and organized two previous Sukkot celebrations whose attendance has doubled each year.

This year’s celebration brought together fifteen hundred participants for a program of songs in English, Hebrew, Spanish, and Ladino (a combination of Spanish and Hebrew), a presentation on the growing Jewish/Latino relations, and awarding certificates for graduates of the Essence of Judaism academic course.

The attendees listened intently as Jacob Dayan, the Consul General in Los Angeles for the State of Israel, thanked them for supporting Israel during the January war in Gaza and visiting the country to learn about its history, culture, and people.

The program was punctuated by the sharp call of the shofar, a ram’s horn used traditionally by Jews during the High Holidays as a call to prayer, blown by a chorus of Latinos.

The two communities were brought together at the end of the night for a raucous two hours of dancing, singing, and eating.

### 

AJC seeks a secure Jewish future in a more just world, believing that each pursuit depends upon the other. AJC has 28 U.S. chapters, 8 offices overseas, and 28 official partnerships with communities around the world.

 AJC:

 • Builds Bridges

• Advances Security

• Promotes Human Rights

• Supports Israel

• Strengthens Jewish Life