Upcoming events

Our virtual Morning Minyan is one of the best-kept secrets of IKAR. Monday-Friday and Sunday at 8am PT on Zoom, we’ll explore a different modality we might use to help us access our prayer life: singing, meditation, study, etc. And each day we will end with a Mourner’s Kaddish.

Gather beneath the Harvest Moon for an immersive experience of improvised music, delicious bites, nature, ritual, and community. Just days before the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, we invite you to celebrate the season’s abundance and express gratitude as we craft a beautiful communal altar. With guidance from ceremonialist Devorah Brous, you’ll encounter four immersive “stations” that engage the spirit and enliven the senses. This outdoor full-moon-inspired harvest party blends contemporary festival energy with ancient, Earth-based wisdom. Music by KCRW Music Director, Ale Cohen. All are welcome.

Wind down and get ready for Shabbat. We are diverse: still working and retired; single, divorced, widowed, and in a relationship; have children, grandchildren, pets, plants, or none of the above; Angelinos and transplants. What we have in common is ikar, a multitude of experiences, and a desire to spend some of our time enjoying events and experiences with those in our age group (60+).

Every Saturday morning at 9:15am, join Dev Brous and/or Dr. Barry Goldstein for a meditation session on the 3rd floor/rooftop Art Room, located next to the elevator. And find your way to sip some homemade herbal tea blends, FromSoil2Soul, near the coffee station.

Looking for a way to spend a bit of quality time with your little ones on Shabbat? Join IKAR's Preschool Director, Cindy Stansbury, for an hour of hands-on fun and learning with an IKAR twist. Then stay for IKAR's free vegetarian community lunch! For families with children ages birth-4.

Sukkot Services Day 1 Shalhevet Beit Midrash (Rooftop Classroom) + YouTube New Member Table Under the Sukkah RSVP here! Conversation with Yotam Polizer IsraAid CEO and Rabbi Sharon Brous 12:45pm PT, In Person Yotam Polizer is the Global CEO of IsraAID – Israel’s biggest humanitarian NGO. Leading a team of 300+ currently active in 16 countries including a large-scale operation in Israel following the October 7th massacre. IsraAID is currently supporting 16 communities across the country including Kibbutz Beeri, Nir Oz, the Nova survivors and the Bedouin villages with mental health support, education and relief. Yotam Polizer is the 2023 Charles Bronfman award laureate. He has 15 years’ experience in education, humanitarian aid, and international development.

 

Mondays from 8:30-9 am PT, after our virtual Monday Morning Minyan, we open a short Grief Garden Circle, a sacred listening space. Please join us here if you are holding grief. Have questions? Please email [email protected]

The IKAR Writers Circle is a space for adult fiction and nonfiction Ikar writers to gather, share their work, and receive feedback. The circle is an intergenerational community that seeks to uplift Jewish writers and authentic Jewish stories removed from the pressures of writing and entertainment industries. Writers will meet once a month virtually, at 7:30 pm, on one of the last Mondays of the month. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

What is the Grief Garden? Please join Dev Brous, a certified trauma-informed Compassionate Bereavement Care grief counselor, and herbalist. Join this safe, reflective space to hold, and to be held as we “garden” grief. Here, we share reflections on what we’re learning from grief through embodied weekly prompts that connect people to nature-based Jewish healing practices. To sign-up, please fill out this form. Here’s the link to join the Grief Garden FS2S What’sApp: https://tinyurl.com/2eacz8nc Schedule a 1-0n-1 Grief Support with Dev here: https://cal.com/devorah-brous/grief-support?duration=60  

Parenting is amazing. And hard. Really hard. But it can be so much better when we do it in a community of thoughtful, caring, supportive, inquisitive parents. Here’s a chance to be part of an amazing community from the comfort of your couch, one night a week. We will take up different parenting challenges and questions, share information and ideas from experts and from each other, and enjoy a bit of grown-up time. Facilitated by Beth Weisman, M.A., IKAR’s Early Childhood Engagement Consultant. Free and open to grown-ups with children ages birth-5 years. Members and non-members welcome. We will meet virtually Wednesdays from 8:30-9:30 pm 9/30, 10/7, 10/14, and 10/21. A Zoom link will be sent once we receive your RSVP. We hope you’ll join us!

Poetry can often heal, elevate the soul and awaken the heart. Come join IKAR’s Jewish Poetry Circle as we read Jewish poets — the Oneg Shabbos poets of the Warsaw Ghetto, Medieval Sephardic poets, Israeli and Jewish-American poets up to the present—the historical context of their writing, spiritual relationships, personal agonies and joys. The Circle is not an academic writing class but rather an informal experience of a committed group of participants to explore and hopefully bond with Jewish poetic expression and with each other.

Join TRIBE + Minyan Tzedek for an empowering evening of activism and leisure in the IKAR Sukkah! We’ll kick off the night with some inspiration from Rabbi Brous, who’s stopping by to share a little wisdom as we head into the election. Then, we’ll call the youngest voters in the IKAR community to get out the vote and ask for their support on two ballot measures endorsed by the IKAR Board. We’ll reward ourselves with a cozy outdoor screening of Don’t Look Up, complete with fresh popcorn, cocktails, candy and the works!

Simhat Torah is the grand finale, the High of Highs, the culmination of this intense, challenging, inspiring season. Every prayer and prostration, moment of reflection and point of connection has led us here, to a night of few words and tremendous spirit. We desperately need to tap into celebration and rediscover hope for what might be possible—we’ll work to rediscover our joy, even as we find solace in being together.

We welcome everyone to our Shabbat morning services at 9:30am PT, 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.

Dog Monday, October 5, 6:30 PM PT Join us for a conversation on Dog by Yishay Ishi Ron, a harrowing, semi-autobiographical novel about an Israeli combat officer returning from Gaza with severe PTSD. Plagued by invisible wounds and moral injury, he spirals into heroin addiction and homelessness in Tel Aviv, until an unexpected bond with a stray dog offers a fragile path toward healing. The novel explores trauma, survival, alienation, and the possibility of repair. To RSVP/join, please email [email protected]

Join Minyan Tzedek to call new members of the community to ensure that we are a 100 percent voting community and to ask for their support on ballot measures we’ve endorsed.

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]  

We welcome everyone to our Shabbat morning services at 9:30am PT, 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. Stop by our Capital Campaign Lunch Table to learn about the IKAR Center and how you can support our future. 10/10/2026 Myla Vener 10/17/2026 Ayla Morchower 10/24/2026 Samuel Ethan & Joshua Gabriel Goldstein 11/7/2026 Lucille (Luci) Halpern-Fingerhut 11/14/2026 Henry Posalski 11/28/2026 Ezekiel Mataan Brous-Weber 12/5/2026 Samuel Rafael Marquit 12/19/2026 Finch Rhodes

Join us for a craft, and then drum and dance your way through our always awesome family service. Don't forget to bring your Shabbat dinosaur!

Please join us for brunch in our event space. At this brunch, we will gather information from you about your primary interests so we can better craft our future programs. If you cannot attend, no worries – fill out the interest form HERE. We want to engage you with ideas, humor and beauty. So some brunches will have speakers; some will draw groups together by shared interests; and some will have a specially curated Jewish Studio Project created and led by Ann Bohrer and/or Ross Berman. Twenty-five percent of IKAR (and growing) is over age 60. It’s time for us to give our demographic the full attention it deserves – as people with that unique blend of wisdom and experience, fragility and resilience, dreams and aspirations that mark this stage of our lives. And so, we present Orot. Orot, the Hebrew word that means “lights,” is a fitting new name for IKAR members age 60 and older. Orot helps its cohort explore aging consciously, affirmatively and thoughtfully, using the Jewish tradition to harvest meaning from our lives and supporting the process of determining what we want to experience and share in our remaining years. But that is only part of Orot. Lights blaze most brightly when they are together. So finding new friendships and supporting community is a primary goal. We will gather in settings designed to encourage friend-making and community building, adding smaller gatherings and classes, facilitated introductions and quiet surroundings.

Once a month, TRIBE is creating our own Beit Midrash (house of study) for us to engage with Jewish text to find how we can live more fulfilling, meaningful lives as we navigate our 20s and 30s! Each session will take us on a journey of text exploration and introspective work. Part of the session will be studying in hevruta, or with a study partner, and part of the session will be taught by Rabbinic Intern Jacob Schatz. No previous text study required! Join us for dinner, study, and lively discussion. Timeline: 7 PM – Dinner 7:45 PM – Learning (indoor/outdoor)

Are you an IKARite who feels daunted by this year’s ballot? Are you someone who wants to do your homework before you vote, but you’re not sure where to start?? Join us and our partners at JPLA for this meeting where we’ll learn about every single ballot measure at the state and local level. We will also discuss the two ballot measures IKAR has endorsed this year. Please join us and then you can help educate your friends and family before they cast their votes!

Off-Mic Kabbalat Shabbat Services + Community & TRIBE (20’s-30’s) Dinner IKAR Event Space (1729 S. La Cienega Blvd), 6:30pm Services, dinner Come together for our tech-free (off-mic) Kabbalat Shabbat Services with a focus on lifting our voices in song as a community. Enter through our alleyway and down the ramp into our event space. For those with accessibility needs, you can be dropped off and enter through the front door. Following Services, join us for dinner and TRIBErs come for dinner, dessert, and board games!