Giving Tuesday

This Giving Tuesday, join us in supporting IKAR’s work to build a stronger, more just world. We’re helping provide meals and grocery gift cards to families in need through our Thanksgiving and Holiday Tikkun programs. As in year’s passed we’ve cared for individuals facing housing insecurity with care kits and homemade meals and fought for housing equity, LGBTQ+ rights, and economic justice. With your support, we can deepen these partnerships, expand our impact, and continue showing up for our neighbors. Every gift makes a difference.

Donate and Support
5K Community Day
Sunday, Dec 8 • 9:30 am to 1 pm
IKAR’s Annual 5K & Community Day
Please join us on Sunday, December 8th for our annual 5K & Community Day. Let’s get together for a fun run/walk/move our bodies however we are able. We’ll also shmooze and nosh and do some good work together in the park. There will be music, food (of course), games/activities for the kids,  and you get the bonus of meeting other IKARites while doing a mitzvah. Come join us for this great event! We look forward to being together with you to make this community day fun and meaningful for all!. Every participant must register!.
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5785 Adult Learning Series

Welcome to IKAR’s Adult Learning Line-up for 5785. We’ve got something for everyone. Let’s learn, grow, and connect together.

Upcoming Classes
Welcome to our new website

This carousel features timely events and media. We invite you to move around and explore. Check out “This week at IKAR” to see what we’re up to! We hope you find something meaningful.

Upcoming Events
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TRIBE
Tuesday, Dec 3 • 7:30 pm to 9 pm
TRIBE (20’s-30’s) Singing Circle (Lay-Led)
Sing your heart out to your favorite Hebrew chant with us! Whether you are an expert or a first-timer, we welcome you! Lay led by Antonia Lassar. Light snacks are provided. For more information, please contact [email protected] *This event is fully indoors*
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Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, Dec 6 • 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Kabbalat Shabbat Services & Dinner
Let’s enter Shabbat together with a sweet, spirited Kabbalat Shabbat service. Daven with us in person or on YouTube, our website, and Zoom. RSVP for our kosher, vegetarian community dinner (suggested donation $25).
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Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, Dec 6 • 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Pray & Stay – Jessica Elisheva Emerson
After Services, Jessica will discuss her debut novel Olive Days, which follows a young mother in an Orthodox Jewish community of Los Angeles whose quest for authenticity erupts in a passionate affair following a night of wife-swapping. About the Author: Jessica was a finalist in the 2024 and 2020 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards and placed second in the 2020 First Pages Prize. Her stories and poems have been published in journals including Air/Light Magazine, The Beloit Fiction Journal, Midwestern Gothic, Crucible, Drash, and Anemone Sidecar. Join us before the program for Kabbalat Shabbat Services and RSVP for our kosher, vegetarian community dinner (suggested donation $25).
By: Jessica Elisheva Emerson
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SHABBAT
Saturdays • 9:30 am
Shabbat Morning Services
We welcome everyone to our Shabbat morning services, no matter their level of observance, experience, or familiarity with Hebrew. Daven with us in person at Shalhevet, or join us virtually on YouTube or Zoom. Childcare is available during Services for kids ages 2-5. Stay afterward for our kosher, vegetarian community lunch. Upcoming B’nai Mitzvahs: 11/2/2024 Bodhi Sroka 11/9/2024 Leo Weiss 11/23/2024 Adar “Adi” Lev Goldman 11/30/2024 Franklin Ariel and Cassidy Bulkacz 12/7/2024 Orly Grace Creasey 12/14/2024 Caleb Eamonn Fitzpatrick
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Lunch & Learn
Saturday, Dec 7 • 1 pm to 2 pm
Lunch & Learn: Liz Naftali Hirsch
After Services, join fellow IKARite Liz Naftali Hirsh in discussing her book, Saving Abigail: The True Story of the Abduction and Rescue of a Hamas Hostage, Three-Year-Old Abigail Mor Edan. Liz is Abigail’s great aunt and she tells this deeply personal story of the abduction and rescue. The book is her way honoring her family’s legacy and raising awareness about the ongoing fight to free all of the hostages held in Gaza. It is a story of survival, loss, and courage.
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Watch & Listen: Latest Sermons
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Sermon
3 days ago • Nov 30, 2024
Bound and Unbound
Who is Isaac?  The man perpetually trapped by his father’s story, still bound to the altar, forever defined by the core trauma of his life.  What will it take to break free?  For the once bound to become unbound?
By: Rabbi Morris Panitz
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Sermon
1 week ago • Nov 23, 2024
Let Us Be the Light Force
After a life of heartache, two estranged brothers affirmed each other’s humanity, and rediscovered their own. We, too, can make that choice. Let us push back on the encroaching darkness as a force for good—a light force—that counters the cruelty, racism, and violence poisoning our culture with compassion, tender presence, and forgiveness. This is what solidarity looks like.
By: Rabbi Sharon Brous
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Sermon
2 weeks ago • Nov 16, 2024
Love the Stranger
Loving your neighbor, who is like you, whose identity you share, is not enough.  You must stretch the boundaries of love to wrap into its embrace the stranger, the people in our society who are furthest away from power.  To counter the frenzy of rhetoric and the aspirations of policy that demonize these human beings, we need to love them fiercely.  We need to love them fully.
By: Rabbi Morris Panitz
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Sermon
1 month ago • Nov 2, 2024
Gifts of the Flood
There’s an eerie resonance between the Noah narrative and this week.  What does Noah’s Flood teach us about navigating chaos and coming once more to land?
By: Rabbi Deborah Silver
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Sermon
3 weeks ago • Nov 9, 2024
Dreams Don’t Die
One day our dreams will be realized. Just not today. And not tomorrow. And maybe not for many years. But just as hope doesn’t die, dreams don’t die.
By: Rabbi Sharon Brous
Watch now
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.

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IKAR is fueled by the love, talent, and creative investment of each of our community members.

Our membership is an expression of individual commitments and a way for each person to expand their Jewish horizons through learning and spiritual growth.

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Justice

“Love your neighbor, and love yourself. That is the whole Torah. All the rest is commentary” — Hillel

We believe that the active pursuit of justice and dignity for all is a core expression of our Jewish spiritual and religious selves, and we integrate that belief into everything we do at IKAR. Minyan Tzedek is how we harness the organizing power of our entire community to work toward the world as it ought to be. Our goal is 100% community participation through one of our four paths: Feeding Our Neighbors, Green Action, IKAR Community Organizing, and Global Partnership.

A Land for All
Responding to the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
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Support IKAR

“Love your neighbor, and love yourself. That is the whole Torah. All the rest is commentary”
–Hillel

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