The San Diego Jewish community is the second oldest organized Jewish community in California.
Today there are more than 30 congregations located throughout San Diego County.
Old Town
Louis Rose, the first Jewish settler in San Diego, and other members of his wagon train party were welcomed in 1850 at the casa on the east side of this plaza--the one with the small belltower. This building is called the Casa de Estudillo. The Estudillo family offered their hospitality to the hungry travelers who before arriving in San Diego were ready to boil their shoes and their belts into a soup.
In the party with Rose was James Robinson, a Texas lawyer who once had served as provisional governor of Texas in the days leading up to Texas's Independence War with Mexico. The center of attention and curious stares at that night's celebration at Casa de Estudillo was Robinson's wife, Sarah. She was the first Anglo woman to come to this area, and everything about her -- her skin, her hair, her features -- attracted attention from both the California men and women.
Four years after they arrived, Robinson built his own home on the west side of the Plaza. The two-story building contrasts as clearly with the Casa de Estudillo as the American and Mexican lifestyles. The Casa de Estudillo looks inward around its central courtyard, Robinson’s house featured a second floor balcony from which Robinson could both observe the town and be observed by its residents.
After Robinson died, Rose purchased the house from Robinson's widow. Thus the house is named the Robinson-Rose house. The state Parks Department has placed a mezuzah inside the northern front door. In other buildings around the park -- such as the Casa de Estudillo -- there are symbols representing the Roman Catholic religion of most of the Mexican-born residents. In fact, there is a small chapel inside the Casa de Estudillo which the family outfitted for the visiting priests. During the winter holidays, when other buildings are utilized for Christmas celebrations, there are nightly lightings of the Chanukah menorah here.
The Franklin House is not standing today; the lot next to this building is vacant. It was San Diego's first three-story building,The Franklin House was built by Lewis Franklin, an English Jew who had a brief, and not altogether popular, career in San Diego. Franklin was a merchant who came to San Diego from San Francisco in 1851. In San Diego, in 1851, he also hosted High Holiday services, but besides himself there were only two other men present, not including Rose whose whereabouts that day are unknown. Notwithstanding the absence of a minyan, historians mark this as the first known Jewish religious service in Southern California.
Franklin was a prominent citizen in Old San Diego. He served as a grand jury foreman where he suggested that the town had far too many saloons and that the saloons had an inordinate number of customers.. He later would have a celebrated feud with his brother, Maurice, resulting in a trial concerning the division of the assets from the hotel, saloon and store run in the Franklin House.
Another famous trial in San Diego involved Moses Mannasse -- the brother of Joseph Mannasse -- who was called as a witness in a case involving a knife fight between two San Diego citizens. Moses had come into town in the fall of 1859 to attend High Holy Day services at the Franklin House As the services were proceeding, a representative from the sheriff's office served a subpoena on Mannasse. He was ordered to leave the service immediately and to give testimony in the case, which was being tried that very minute at the courthouse.
Mannasse refused to leave, explaining that High Holy Day services were sacred for Jews, and that as there were only nine other men present, he was required for the minyan necessary to pray. The messenger returned a second time and again he refused. Finally a posse came and dragged him to court. On the witness stand, he sat in silence, refusing to testify until after sundown when the holy day ended.
This sequence of events became known both as the "San Diego incident" and the "Yom Kippur incident." Lewis Franklin was particularly enraged and denounced the treatment of Mannasse and the disrespect shown to the Jewish community. He called the whole episode a despicable instance of anti-Jewish bias.
The incident touched off a debate in the Jewish world, with commentators in Anglo-Jewish newspapers around the country divided in their opinion. Some said Mannasse was right; that he should not have testified. Others said that he was wrong; that he should have done his duty as a citizen. Today, American courts would honor the High Holy Day and simply reschedule the hearing, but the issue obviously was not so clear in those days.
Today the walkway between the Bazaar del Mundo and the Casa de Bandini goes without a name but in the 1850s and 1860s, it was known as "Judeo" Street because it was lined with the stores of Jewish merchants. The Jewish population of San Diego at the time was approximately 10 percent.
At the southeast corner of the plaza is a small building identified as San Diego's first courthouse. (Inside are various plaques, including one that mentions the Board of Supervisors on which Rose served in 1853 as an original member.) Shortly after Robinson and Rose arrived in San Diego, the small city received its charter and later California was granted admission as the 31st state of the United States.
Heritage Park
San Diego's Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO) arranged for the 19th century structures gracing Heritage Park to be moved here from locations throughout the City of San Diego. Temple Beth Israel's first home originally sat at the corner of Second and Beech Streets. The building is considered a fine example of late 19th century Gothic Revival-style religious architecture. The Ten Commandments atop the building and the six-pointed Stars of David on the windows identify this building as Jewish in origin, but there is no permanent marker telling visitors it is the old Temple Beth Israel because the park is owned by the County of San Diego, and officials believe that such a sign might violate the U.S. constitutional requirement for separation of church and state.
Many people mistakenly believe that the balcony of this temple was to provide separate seating for women as is required by Orthodox Judaism. But such was never the case. Before the very first services were held in this building, for Rosh Hashanah on Sept. 25, 1889, the congregation had switched from Orthodox Judaism to Reform Judaism. The balcony simply was for overflow seating. The interior of this building was reconstructed on the basis of newspaper accounts of the first service. The ner tamid or eternal light hanging from the ceiling by the aron kodesh (holy ark) was part of the original temple
The congregation had to struggle to make ends meet and occasionally rented out the building to church groups. When enough Orthodox Jews immigrated to this area from Eastern Europe, they established a separate minyan (prayer group) sharing this building for services until dedicating their own congregation as Tifereth Israel Synagogue in 1906.
Rose Canyon/Roseville
Robinson and Rose became good friends during the wagon train journey from El Paso, Texas. Rose and Robinson by 1853, only three years after their arrival in San Diego, literally ran the town.
In 1852, the city had to declare bankruptcy. The state Legislature revoked San Diego's charter as an autonomous city. In place of a City Council, the Legislature decided to appoint a three-member Board of Trustees to run San Diego's affairs. The first two boards resigned in despair. Robinson and Rose were appointed to the third board. Needing two votes to make a majority of three members, they pretty much got to run the town.
They decided to auction off the only real asset the city had -- its lands in order to pay off bad bonds that had gotten the city into trouble. Anyone and everyone was free to bid on certain lands that would be sold to raise the money to pay off the bondholders.
Louis Rose bid at auction for lots along the San Diego Bay. Rose figured that a better place for a city to be located was alongside the bay, where a good port could attract commercial shipping. He also purchased land on the road between Old Town San Diego and another small pueblo to the north -- Los Angeles. He figured that travelers might stop on the land that became known as Rose Canyon to change their horses, or to take refreshments. What he didn't know -- and as it turned out, he didn't have to -- was that Rose Canyon was located on a small earthquake fault line that today is identified with his name. No earthquake of consequence is known to have occurred during Rose's lifetime.
(Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center @ 4126 Executive Dr. established ????
Was this funding from Larry Lawrence former US Ambassador and one of 400 richest Americans? Open to all people regardless of race, religion etc. It’s a huge place with lots going on!)
Rose Canyon Marker -- On the UCSD campus in front of the Applied Physics and Mathematics Building, is a monument originally placed in 1934 (several decades before the campus was built) to mark the top of Rose Canyon. The plaque was placed by the San Diego Historical Society, Congregations Beth Israel and Tifereth Israel, and Masonic Lodge 35, which Rose helped to found. It describes Rose, who died in 1888 at the age of 81, as a "brickmaker, tanner, outstanding citizen."
In 1968, because of the construction of the University of California, San Diego, at the head of Rose Canyon, the old Highway 101 was rerouted. No cars pass it now. A new building of the University of California here thrusts across what once were the southbound lanes of U.S. 101.
In September, 1969 the plaque was missing. It was presumed to have been removed for cleaning. John E. Carroll, the engineer in charge of university construction was notified. Carroll, realizing it had been stolen, notified the police who undertook efforts to recover it.
Engineer Carroll had taken an excellent photograph of the plaque and with it as a model arranged for the campus authorities to prepare a duplicate. In January, 1971, the replacement was mounted on the exact spot on the boulder which the original had occupied.
Rose would be astonished to discover that a monument had been erected in his honor. And doubly surprised that it stands today on the campus of a great university, in the city he loved, fully believed in, and to which he contributed so much.
Pt. Loma
Rose’s dream of Roseville becoming San Diego's commercial hub was never to be. After the Civil War, a younger, more ambitious entrepreneur -- Alonzo Horton -- came to San Diego and promoted another undeveloped stretch of land near the bay for a commercial center. Whether by coincidence or as a result of Horton's influence, much of Rose's bayside land was declared essential for U.S. military purposes and appropriated by the federal government. Horton's land comprises the area known today as downtown San Diego.
Balboa Park Area
Congregation Beth Israel is located at 3rd and Laurel Streets close to the park. For many years the Organ Pavilion has been the focus of its Simchat Torah activities. In 1931, the congregation also hosted an outdoor reception for Albert Einstein here.
The House of Pacific Relations is comprised of many cottages, representing peaceful or "pacific" countries from throughout the world. At the House of Israel are exhibits about Israeli geography and customs. Refreshments are served Sundays to visitors from different San Diego Jewish organizations ranging from temple sisterhoods to the Jewish War Veterans.
In a building nearby, what was once the Navy Chapel is now the San Diego Veterans Memorial Center Museum. The former chapel includes a stained glass window bearing the Magen David. Behind a curtain there is a turntable altar that enabled chaplains to conduct Catholic, Protestant or Jewish services.
The San Diego Zoo too has its "Jewish connections." Not only does it exhibit animals indigenous to Israel and the rest of the Middle East, but it has acted as a "big sister" to the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem. Some of the exhibits at the Jerusalem facility were modeled after the San Diego Zoo. Additionally, Jerusalem Zoo personnel have visited the San Diego Zoo on two-week study sessions organized by the Jerusalem Foundation.