My husband Daniel and I moved from New York to Los Angeles 12 years ago, and during 10 of those years, we’ve had an orange tree in our backyard. This is common in LA, as the weather is ideal for growing produce. It has also been the ideal place for us to grow in our Jewish journeys. The community we live in, Pico-Robertson, is warm, welcoming, and diverse. Everybody fits in, no matter what their background. There are lots of baal teshuvas and converts along with FFBs, Sephardim, Ashkenazim, Persians – and Modern Orthodox Jews to charedi to chasidic to Reform and everything in between.
My husband is a Sephardic Jew who went off the derech and came back to Judaism when I began my conversion process. He’s a comedian and I make my living with words – writing, marketing, and publicity. We have two kids and some dogs and chickens and a cockatiel and tortoise. We are as out of the box as it gets. And yet, we fit in perfectly to Pico-Robertson. I hope that all Jews can find a community in which they feel the same – perfectly content, perfectly at home.
