"Give us your money," one said.

"I don't have any money. It's my Sabbath," said the Jew.

The boys ran off. Their getaway car was parked on Holt.

They drove over to Pickford and La Cienega. When the Jew spotted them, they drove away fast.

This case is getting a lot of police and political attention.

YICC.com emails:

Dear Friends,

Please forward this to your neighbors and anyone else you think would find this information useful. While this may not have happened in your neighborhood, it is much too close for comfort.

As reported:
We just heard from our friend who was mugged on Friday night on
La Cienega and Pico. He lives in Crestview. Two other men were accosted, with their children present, as well in the past month.

The perpetrators in all three incidents were black gang members. Which gang, he could not identify.

In one incident, the man faced his assailant, in another he was grabbed by men in a car and frisked for money. In this person's case, he was attacked and beaten in front of his son (we have subsequently verified that this man who davens at Chabad of Beverlywood was taken to Kaiser's ER and needed 15 stitches). All three were religious Jews who carry no money on Shabbat.

PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS AND KEEP SAFE!

This Sunday Dec 25. 2:30-5:00 pm. La Cienega Plaza (Corner of La Cienega & 18th)
MOSHAV BAND!
Help build a lego Menora!
Children's rally!
Grand Menora Lighting!
A Joint project of:
Chabad of Beverlywood 310-836-6770 www.chabadofbeverlywood.com
The Chabad Garden School 310-288-5920 www.mygardenschool.com
Chabad of SOLA 310-739-1890 wwwchabadsola.com
The Jewish Montessori Preschool 424-288-4633 www.chabadsola.com

Prior to Sephardi shul, there was a Breslover shul at this location.

Who's moving in next? Will this holy site go for profane purposes?

I've also noticed that what used to be a Sephardic day school just north of Cashio, south of Pico, is no more. It has been replaced by a school teaching Spanish and Mandarin immersion.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for South-Robertson:

In 2009, the Los Angeles Times's "Mapping L.A." project supplied these "Pico-Robertson" neighborhood statistics: population: 18,019; median household income: $63,356.[3]
[edit]Education

Part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the neighborhood is served by Canfield, Crescent Heights, Shenandoah, and Castle Heights elementary schools and Emerson Middle School. The high school for the South Robertson neighborhood is Hamilton High School. The magnet school Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES) is in the nearby Faircrest Heights neighborhood.
[edit]Jewish community

The neighborhood features more than thirty Certified Kosher restaurants [1], including delis, Chinese, Italian and Mexican restaurants, a donut shop, a frozen yogurt shop, bakeries, and butchers. The community features four men's mikvahs and one woman's mikvah, the largest known as the Los Angeles Mikvah. There are several Jewish day schools located in the Pico Robertson area. The Chabad community operates four schools, Bais Chaya Mushka and Bais Chana, both of which are on Pico Boulevard, as well as the newly relocated Cheder Menachem on La Cienega. Yeshiva University High School has campuses on both South Robertson Boulevard and West Pico Boulevard, in the heart of the Pico-Robertson Jewish community.
The community overall has a wide variety of Jewish denominational groups. Over the past two decades, the Orthodox community has grown to become the most largest Jewish denomination in the area. This is evident in the growth of the Hasidic community. According to Chabad [2], the Hasidic movement has eleven centers in the immediate Pico-Robertson area, including the two high schools, boys cheder, day school, six synagogues, and a community center. Minyan Finder reports over twenty synagogues operating in the area.

I discuss the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Rabbs every Monday at 7pm PST on my live cam and on YouTube. Facebook Fan Page.

This week we study Parashat Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32).

• Why Are Home Sales Falling With Mortgage Rates?
• Forcing Banks To Keep A Skin In The Game Of Mortgage Lending
• ARMs Looking Better Than Ever
• Foreclosures Centered In A Few States Such As California, Florida
• Banks Remained Overwhelmed By Foreclosures
• Why Are Foreclosures Centered In A Few States?
• Falling Home Sales, Prices

May 26, 2011

• How To Cope With A Foreclosure
• The Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) Rule Threatens Mortgage Market
• Should Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Be Responsible To Freedom Of Information Requests?
• Mortgage Applications Tick Up Slightly
• Mortgage Delinquencies Grow Down Under
• Reckless Endangerment – Barney Frank And The Fannie Mae Meltdown
• Imperfect Foreclosure Operations By Bank Of America
• Largest Mortgage Lender Targeted In Foreclosure Probe
• Mortgage Interest Rates Hit 2011 Low
• Foreclosures Hit 'Astronomically High' Levels
• Barney Frank Knocked On His Fannie

Within walking distance of Pico and Robertson, there are about 30 Orthodox shuls and more than 60 different Orthodox minyans.

7. Pico-Robertson, Los Angeles

For decades, Jews have congregated near where Pico Boulevard meets Robertson Boulevard in West L.A. Of late, the community has grown exponentially, yet it still gives off the comforting sense that you are among brethren. Clustered within a mile-long strip between Beverly Drive to the west and La Cienega Boulevard to the east are a slew of synagogues, kosher markets, and eateries from fast food to fine dining. There are also Judaica stores, wig and dress shops, countless schools—even, a few blocks farther, the Museum of Tolerance and Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Most shuls are Orthodox, with every variation represented from Persian Chabad to the Carlebachian Happy Minyan, which meets in a Jewish-owned karate dojo. There are both old-school frum-from-birthers and a growing wave of ba'alei tshuva, newly observant returners to the faith who congregate at Aish HaTorah and several Modern Orthodox shuls. Housing is relatively expensive: Glamorous Beverly Hills starts one block north, and Beverlywood, an equally exclusive area, begins several blocks south; in between are "modest million-dollar homes," small in size but big in price, as well as apartments popular with singles and young families.

At-a-Glance Essentials:
• Epicenter: Roughly the intersection of Pico and Robertson boulevards.
• Downside: Pico is a somewhat unsightly boulevard that becomes highly congested during peak hours. Smart shoppers avoid the pre-Shabbat rush.
• Contacts:
  The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles (www.jewishla.org)
  L.A. Jewish Guide (www.lajewishguide.com)
• More: Click here (PDF) for further information on this neighborhood.

None that I know of since then.

Pico-Robertson is a great place to live, but it is situated next to some bad people and places to our south who sometimes come our way and wreak havoc.

I have friends who've been mugged, some at the point of a gun (including Rabbi Elazar Muskin of Young Israel of Century City).

The Los Angeles Times reports April 3, 2008:

They had hoped to reclaim their neighborhood from violence. Scores of marchers walked through a section of the South Robertson area of Los Angeles with banners calling for an end to gangs and guns and urging other locals to join the fight against crime.

But just days later, residents of the Westside community have been shaken by fresh bloodshed in two separate shootings that left a 37-year-old resident dead and a transient wounded.

On Wednesday, Los Angeles police officials said they had no evidence of a link between Sunday’s march and the shootings, and downplayed fears of violence in the area.

But organizers of the event expressed concern that the shootings were related to the rally and complained that the area had been plagued by gang-related crime.

They said residents of the La Cienega Heights neighborhood, where the march took place, reported gang members taking posters left over from the event and scrawling anti-police messages on them. Then they shouted anti-police slogans to mock the earlier marchers.

“They were harassing the neighborhood,” said Baila Romm, a member of the local community police advisory board that helped organize the rally and who lives nearby. “People are frightened because people are getting shot and killed. But [residents] don’t want us out of there. They want our support.”

Romm said the march was part of an attempt to revive a neighborhood watch group in La Cienega Heights, which is near the 10 Freeway between La Cienega and Robertson boulevards.

About 70 marchers and police officers attended the event, stopping on street corners to call for residents to join them. About 30 residents signed up to become members of the neighborhood watch, but others kept their distance, Romm said.

“Some people were afraid to come out,” she said. “The truth is, if you’re watching, they can’t commit crimes… . If the neighborhood is intimidated and shuts themselves in, they can continue doing it.”

But a day after the march, a transient known to frequent the La Cienega Heights area was shot several times. On Tuesday evening, Rene Wilfredo Cortez’s body was discovered in a narrow pathway leading to the backyard of a home in the 1900 block of South Garth Avenue.

South Robertson (also Pico-Robertson^[1]) is a Los Angeles neighborhood south of Beverly Hills. The commercial district along Robertson is sometimes called SoRo Village.^[2]. It is served by zip codes 90034 and 90035, and a local neighborhood council. It is generally bordered by Whitworth Drive on the north, Sawyer Street on the south, La Cienega Boulevard on the east, and Hillcrest Country Club on the west.

[edit] Education

Part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the neighborhood is served by Canfield, Crescent Heights, Shenandoah, and Castle Heights elementary schools and Emerson Middle School. The high school for the South Robertson neighborhood is Hamilton High School. The magnet school Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES) is in the nearby Faircrest Heights neighborhood.

[edit] Jewish Community

According to Los Angeles' Jewish Deaf Community Center, "The Jewish community in the Pico/Robertson area is a very close-knit community." [1]

The neighborhood features at least ten strictly kosher restaurants, including delis, [[Chinese, Italian and Mexican restaurants, a donut shop, a frozen yogurt shop, bakeries, and butchers. The community features the Los Angeles Mikvah and several Jewish day schools and Yeshivas. The Chabad community operates two schools, Bais Chaya Mushka and Bais Chana, both of which are on Pico Boulevard. Yeshiva University High School has campuses on both South Robertson Boulevard and West Pico Boulevard, in the heart of the Pico-Robertson Jewish community.

The community overall has a wide variety of Jewish denominational groups. In recent years, the Orthodox community has especially grown. This is evident in the growth of the Hasidic community. According to Chabad [2], the Hasidic movement has seven centers in the immediate Pico-Robertson area, including the two high schools, four synagogues, and a community center. The Orthodox Union reports that there are nine Orthodox synagogues in the area. [3]

[edit] References

1. ^ Home – South Robertson Neighborhods Council
2. ^ SoRo Village