IKAR

Home: An IKAR Podcast

When we share our stories, we help one another understand what’s at stake on our ballots.

LA and cities across the country are in housing crisis. This November, we’re endorsing an LA city ballot measure, “United to House LA,” which would create a permanent fund for affordable housing construction and eviction defense for tenants. As we launch our effort to get out the vote for housing, we want to share your stories in a podcast about how the housing affordability crisis has affected us as individuals and as a community.

Have you stayed with or moved in with friends or family or had them move in with you because there was no other option? Have you had to leave a city or neighborhood because the rent is too high? Have you been through a breakup, a job loss, or an illness or disability that made it difficult to stay in your home or find a new one?

Share your story with us here, with or without your name attached, and you may record it in your own voice, or we’ll have it read by someone else to preserve your privacy.

LA and cities across the country are in housing crisis. This November, we’re endorsing an LA city ballot measure, “United to House LA,” which would create a permanent fund for affordable housing construction and eviction defense for tenants. As we launch our effort to get out the vote for housing, we want to share your stories in a podcast about how the housing affordability crisis has affected us as individuals and as a community.

Have you stayed with or moved in with friends or family or had them move in with you because there was no other option? Have you had to leave a city or neighborhood because the rent is too high? Have you been through a breakup, a job loss, or an illness or disability that made it difficult to stay in your home or find a new one?

Share your story with us here, with or without your name attached, and you may record it in your own voice, or we’ll have it read by someone else to preserve your privacy.

Upcoming Events:

Click The Link To Register:

8/8-12, 8am PT, Morning Minyan (virtual)

8/10, 6:30pm, Sababa Learning w/ R’ David Kasher (in person)

8/10, 7pm PT, Jewish Poetry Circle (virtual)

8/11, 12pm PT, Parsha Study w/ the Parsha Nut, R’ David Kasher (virtual)

8/12, 5pm PT, Boomers/Alta Rockers Cocktail Hour (virtual)

8/13, 9:30am PT, Shabbat Morning Services (hybrid)

The Transformative Power of Shared Grief

Sermon by R’ Sharon Brous

8/6 – Shabbat Hazon

Watch on YouTube + listen on Spotify / Apple

Tisha b’Av is a day of communal grief-we fast, lament, and hold the memory of the greatest catastrophes the Jewish people have endured. The danger in revisiting the tragedies of generations past is that our rituals foster a distorted self-perception, a feeling of eternal victimization. Instead, we must remember because grief is an expression of love because there is an urgent moral message in the stories of our suffering that we must hear today, and because we are drawn again and again, through our collective grief, into community.

Listen To Our Abortion Stories.

Click here to listen on Spotify + Apple

Ours is a tradition of stories. We see this from the flawed humanity of Adam and Eve through the tangle of relationships in Genesis and the struggle and redemption of Exodus, to the creative rabbinic interpretations of Midrash and Talmud, to the spiritually rooted Chasidic tales. Stories are essential to understanding one another and informing how we make sense of and choose to live in the world. Right now, we need to be telling and hearing our abortion stories.

The Court majority has proclaimed that the Constitution doesn’t protect abortion access despite 50 years of precedent to the contrary. Anti-abortion activists have argued that all people of faith must share their interpretation of when life begins. They have declared that prohibiting abortion is the only way to uphold the sanctity of life.

Our stories paint a different picture. They illustrate how the decisions we make are firmly rooted in our values, which are sometimes conflicting, and how each person among us must have the freedom to make these choices for themselves. When we hear one another’s stories we understand more deeply the role of abortion access in honoring the sanctity of life.

We urge you to listen, share your own story, speak out, and join the work to ensure that all people in the United States retain access to abortion and the freedom to follow our own consciences and religions.

Click here to listen on Spotify + Apple

Ours is a tradition of stories. We see this from the flawed humanity of Adam and Eve through the tangle of relationships in Genesis and the struggle and redemption of Exodus, to the creative rabbinic interpretations of Midrash and Talmud, to the spiritually rooted Chasidic tales. Stories are essential to understanding one another and informing how we make sense of and choose to live in the world. Right now, we need to be telling and hearing our abortion stories.

The Court majority has proclaimed that the Constitution doesn’t protect abortion access despite 50 years of precedent to the contrary. Anti-abortion activists have argued that all people of faith must share their interpretation of when life begins. They have declared that prohibiting abortion is the only way to uphold the sanctity of life.

Our stories paint a different picture. They illustrate how the decisions we make are firmly rooted in our values, which are sometimes conflicting, and how each person among us must have the freedom to make these choices for themselves. When we hear one another’s stories we understand more deeply the role of abortion access in honoring the sanctity of life.

We urge you to listen, share your own story, speak out, and join the work to ensure that all people in the United States retain access to abortion and the freedom to follow our own consciences and religions.

Summer @ IKAR

Home Hosted Shabbat Dinners

RSVP: Friday, 8/26

Let us connect you with IKARites for Shabbat dinner on Friday nights when there are no IKAR services.

Roxbury Park Shabbat (behind the community center)

Friday, 9/2

Let’s enter Shabbat together with sweet, spirited Kabbalat Shabbat service in nature.

Surfside Shabbat

Friday, 9/16, 5:30pm

Before the sun sets, gather with your fellow IKARites and friends at Lifeguard Station 26 on the Santa Monica beach for some ocean-side prayer.

What if I’m new?

Welcome! We love new faces and are glad you’re here. If you’re mulling over whether to come to check out IKAR, you should. We know it’s not easy to step into a new place, so we’ll be there for you and make it a bit easier to dip that toe in.

Click the links below:

Contact

FAQ

First Time Visitor Form

Our Mission

Creating a Just Community

Click here to watch us living out our mission.

IKAR’s mission is to reanimate Jewish life and develop a spiritual and moral foundation for a just and equitable society. Fusing piety and hutzpah, obligation and inspiration, IKAR is a dynamic, multi-generational community that fosters a yearning for personal, purposeful, creative engagement in Jewish life, particularly among young and disaffected Jews. Rooted in Los Angeles and reaching globally, we strive to actively and intentionally celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the Jewish people. Click here to learn more.