[dropcap size=big]A[/dropcap] proposal submitted by the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council seeks to commemorate an influential Jewish labor leader who lived in and galvanized the neighborhood in the early 20th century, fighting antisemitism while influencing Cesar Chavez and other civil rights and labor activists in our region.
If successful, a beige sign that reads “Julius Levitt Square”—to be developed by LADOT—would be mounted to a pole or fixture on St. Louis Street just north of 1st Street, outside of the former Jewish community stronghold known as the Vladeck Center, where the Hollenbeck Community Police Station now stands. It will be similar in look to signage erected around the corner for civil rights leader Dolores Huerta over two years ago.
Levitt was the first head of the Boyle Heights-based Los Angeles Jewish Labor Committee, and later, the wider Southern California chapter. The national organization was formed by Eastern European immigrants in New York in 1934 to combat Adolf Hitler’s rise to power while also advocating for socialism, unionism, and Jewish culture. Levitt assumed the role in 1935, establishing an independent organization of activists that would eventually form wider coalitions with groups like the NAACP and the Japanese American Citizens League.
Finding a way to honor this local leader was the goal of David A. Silvas, vice president of Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council as well as the V.P. of its Planning and Land Use Committee, who seeks to commemorate Jewish roots within the community of Boyle Heights.
“Boyle Heights was and still is a very multicultural enclave and community, which has gone through many different transformations,” Silvas tells L.A. TACO. “Apart from the Breed Street Schul, there really isn’t that much left visually of the Jewish legacy that people know about. There has been almost an erasure or disappearance of Jewish legacy in the neighborhood.”