Tonight, as it has apparently done since 1950, our new congregation hosted a “new member dinner” at the Rabbi’s house. As an aside, I learned a bit of the history of his house: it was built in 1938, and was one of the houses on the Whitsett ranch. It still has a covered porch and a full 2nd floor balcony, and has a wood 2nd floor on top of a weeping brick first floor. It faces to the south when all the other houses face west, because originally there were no houses in front of it (it predates the subdivision).
Anyway, tonight was the new member dinner. They got an ungodly number of new families (I’m thinking 30), so it was a pretty large dinner. There was the usual: introductions of programs, introductions of the rabbis, blessings before the meal, sukkot blessings (although no Birkat Hamazon, which I found interesting).
They also had all the new members introduce themselves. Here’s where I felt out of place. People would stand up and state their professions. Lawyer, Lawyer, Lawyer, Lawyer, Appelate Lawyer, Social Security Lawyer, Assistant District Attourney, Banker, Doctor, Teacher, Producer, Director, Casting, Production Manager for a Studio, etc. I stand up: ummm, I do computer security for an Aerospace firm. There was one other IT person there, and one other retired engineer. Last time I felt this was was back when I was at Wilshire, when everyone wanted to grow up to be a doctor or lawyer… and I wanted to go into computers.
So, where are the Jews in the middle/lower ends of the economic spectrum? The blue collar Jews? The engineers? Perhaps they didn’t come to dinner. Perhaps, it is as a friend of ours noted: there are no more aerospace engineering jobs in the San Fernando Valley (and no manufacturing jobs). If I went to the congregation in Redondo Beach, would I find the engineers? Possibly.
Oh well. It still is a welcoming congregation, and I got a chance to plug the FAQ and the mailing list. I guess it means I’m a shoo-in if I want to do their web page 🙂 [No, I won’t, at least until we’ve been there a year!]
