Advice guidance on moving to California Please!!

craftymommy

Sun, Jul 11 2010, 9:32 am

My husband has recently been offered a position in California and accepted, he will b'h be going there in a few weeks (we're from Montreal) and I will be joining him in order to find us a place to live, daycare for my children (they're 4 and 1 1/2) and pretty much settle in to everything. I was wondering if anyone could give me some guidance as to finding an affordable place in a neighborhood near a synagogue, and Jewish daycare..... I have no idea where to start, ive been searching craigslist but I'm a little iffy and I also dont know the Jewish areas. I would like a frum daycare for my children even though we are not very frum, we're modern orthodox. My husband will be working in Westlake Village and would obviously doesnt want to live terribly far from his work.

bonitag1

Sun, Jul 11 2010, 10:36 am

Westlake Village is in the West San Fernando Valley/Conejo Valley area of Los Angeles. The largest community within a do-able commute that has an Orthodox shul, shopping, daycare, schools, restaurants is in North Hollywood/Valley Village (where I live) and the largest shul in that community is Shaarey Tzedek, www.valleyshul.com. This is 20 miles or more east of Westlake Village, probably a 45 minute commute. There are closer communities in Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Woodland Hills, Tarzana, but they are small and the shuls (except for Calabasas, Rabbi Yaakov Vann) are mostly Chabad. Our experience 10 years ago in moving to this area was that it was hard to find a viable modern orthodox community in these smaller places, but things may have changed. You will find housing expensive but it is much less so than it was a few years back before the housing bubble burst. There is a Heschel West day school in the Agoura area that you may want to check out. The major day school in the Valley is Emek, with branches in Valley Village (preschool) and Sherman Oaks. If you would like to come to Shaarey tzedek for a shabbos, contact the shul or pm me. The larger Los Angeles frum communities, such as Pico-Robertson, are farther from Westlake Village. although I do know someone who commutes from Pico to Westlake daily, so it is possible, although your husband will have to develop quite a tolerance for dealing with the infamous 405 freeway and LA traffic in general.

amother

Sun, Jul 11 2010, 11:50 am

The Agoura Hills/Oak Park community has really grown. They have 2-3 restaurants and a big kosher market. It is very suburban there and gorgeous. They have a beautiful mikvah too. There is no eruv there, they tried but something happened. I think they are still working on putting it up.

The Valley Village community is the biggest in the Valley, but it would be a longer commute for your DH. Without traffic, probably 30 minutes, but an hour with traffic! In my opinion Valley Village, once modern orthodox/traditional has become VERY yeshivish. There are a lot of black hat people, and the rabbis of the shuls are all black hat there. There is a lot of pressure

If you are Montreal/Hebrew Academy type I'm not sure you will like valley village. It depends on how old. Our friends who live there who are modern (wife not tznius/doesn't cover hair) all their friends there are frummer: sheitels/etc. They even had some of their acquaintances refusing to eat in their house because they weren't "frum" enough. The old timers in Valley Village are modern though... and there are some sefardi/Israel shuls there. The plus of valley village is that it has an eruv.

Also to consider: Encino/Tarzana. They have chabads and there is a new ashkenazi shul there as well as tons of sefardi shuls in the area. They are actually in the process of building their eruv (The West Valley Eruv). Its a nicer neighborhood in terms of affluence and there isn't much of a yeshivish influence at all.

ganizzy

Sun, Jul 11 2010, 1:10 pm

the valley is cheaper then the other jewish areas and also alot closer to ur dh's work. if hes going soon to check it out - just beware that its majorly hot in the valley in the summer.

also in california we are used to driving alot.a 30 min commute is short for many people and traffic is a killer.

agoura hills has a day school and shul run by chabad, but kids from all backgrounds go there.

but beware of the prices u will pay in tuition, insurance and other things, is he getting enough of a pay raise to make this worthwhile?

craftymommy

Sun, Jul 11 2010, 1:20 pm

Thanks for the great advice! In Montreal my daughter attends a chabad school (Beis Rivkah) althoughwe are not chabad we really like the community and feel very acepted and welcomed, my husband also attends the chabad shul near our house so we would love to find a similar community in Califormia. Can anyone recomend a place to find apartments such as jewish online publications or maybe a jewish realtor, we are looking to rent a 3 bedroom that is not too pricey in a safe neighbourhood. Also I'd like to know what the prices of daycare are like.

bonitag1

Sun, Jul 11 2010, 11:01 pm

For apartments try Craigslist or Jewish Journal, both online. (You can narrow your search on the Los Angeles Craigslist to the San Fernando Valley.) For realtors, Dan Adivi is very knowledgeable about the Calabasas, Agoura area and the Jewish communities there. Here is the link to his website http://danadivi.com/ For Valley Village, there are several frum realtors. Anne Greenfield belongs to Shaarey Zedek and is nice and an experienced professonal. Email her at AnneRExpert@gmail.com

JollyMommy

Mon, Jul 12 2010, 12:37 am

good news for you if you're going to live in encino or tarzana! we are getting our long awaited eruv in august iy"H.

I am a native valley girl and still live there. if you are interested in encino or tarzana I can help you a lot.

pm me for specific questions.

JollyMommy

Mon, Jul 12 2010, 12:45 am

one more thing- the above anon poster was right, valley village/north hollywood is pretty yeshivish nowadays. . .even 5 years ago was more modern than now.

we LOVE modern orthodox people in encino or tarzana. my kids are around your kid's ages. but, if you're going to live near your husband's work then you need to speak with someone who knows westlake better. people are happy over there as far as I know.

I wanted to say that our preschool, gan israel, is AMAZING. I seriously cannot think of a complaint and look forward to sending my second there IY"H in 2011.

there are plenty of communities to choose from, I'm sure you'll find your place. oh, and we have restaurants up the wazoo.

brbs

Mon, Jul 12 2010, 3:47 am

I lived in Northridge for 4 years. It is a small warm community with several shuls, an eruv and an excellant day care facility. It was the cheapest place to live in the valley when we moved there like 5 years ago but I don;t know how things are now. Definately something to look into if you want a smaller community that is more reasonably priced.

bonitag1

Thu, Jul 15 2010, 1:57 am

Shalhevet is very problematic. The school has had an awful lot of turnover in leadership over the last several years, and lost its principal last year before the school year ended. Due to budget constraints they have eliminated all the grades below high school. Enrollment has been declining. Sadly, it is the only modern orthodox school high school in LA. Our personal experience with it was not good, although we know people whose children were happy and successful there. Our biggest problem was that most of the students that my DD met there were not from observant homes. If I had it to do over I would send to YULA instead. NCJHS, in the Valley, is a good school with high standards and excellent leadership but it is a community school and only a very small percent of its student body is orthodox.

teachby

Thu, Jul 15 2010, 2:10 am

bonitag1 wrote:

You don't consider YULA to be modern orthodox?

saralea

Thu, Jul 15 2010, 1:21 pm

Valley Torah is a wonderful school and has the advantage of being in the valley. Rabbi Stulberger and the teachers are wonderful. They really care about the kids. It is separate and not "modern" but the girls and especially the boys( which is a larger school) are a large mix of frumkeits. The girls do have a uniform with a blouse. I think that YULA is very similar to MTA. Any other q's, feel free to ask. Smile

smalka

Thu, Jul 15 2010, 8:50 pm

Thanks for all your replies about high schools. You confirmed my impressions of Shalhevet. It is so unfortunate that in all of LA and environs a modern, coed high school cannot sustain itself. It is so discouraging to me that there are so few areas in the country which have that type of high school. I think modern orthodoxy is putting itself out of existence for so many reasons, but this is probably a topic for another forum.

amother

Thu, Jul 15 2010, 9:39 pm

Valley Torah is not modern! It is essentially a yeshiva. How many girls do we know who came out of there wanting to marry learners? That does not sound like a MO philosophy. They also discouraged several graduates who I know from going to college....

Most of the kids attending YULA are modern, okay the campi are separate but it has great secular studies. YULA does a great job of preparing kids for top-tier universities. They also have good Judaic studies!

Shalhevet... yeah its a sad situation. I used to be a nanny for a family there and a large percentage of the kids there weren't frum at all... they were basically rich LA Jews who just wanted to attend Jewish private school. Some drove to Orthodox shuls on shabbos, etc... But there were also some great kids coming out of Shalhevet, it really depends on the year.

LA has recently gotten a lot of new HS's like Bnos Devorah and Rabbi Tendler's yeshiva.. so I feel they are making more options aside from YULA/VT/Yeshiva Gedola and Bais Yaacov/YULA/Valley Torah

amother

Fri, Jul 16 2010, 1:07 am

Just remember that modern and yeshivish is all according to YOUR standards. According to my background, valley torah, yula and shalhevet would be too modern for my children. Then there are the other extremes such as Bnos Esther and Mesivta. I think a typical yeshivish family from brooklyn would probably play their best luck in BYLA because its a mixture.

brokertov

Thu, Dec 16 2010, 6:25 pm

Hi there - I am a Realtor servicing the frum community in the Valley, specializing in the Shaarey Zedek/Valley Village area but also quite active in Encino and Tarzana.
I just joined imamother.com so only just saw your post. By now I hope you are settled and happy! If not, I'd love to help you out. My neighbor is the daughter of a famous MO rabbi in Montreal, perhaps I can hook you up with her...
anyway, call or e-mail me at your convenience with any questions,
p.s. what schools did you end up at? Just curious because I'm enjoying reading all the posts!
I'm a Valley Torah alum (class of '79) but my daughters went to Bais Yaakov and I grew up MO in Beverly Hills area....
all the best,

Jennifer Niman
818-907-7255
818-448-2240 cell
Prudential CA Realty
DRE # 00965903
jniman@prula.com