Valley Beth Shalom was founded in 1950 by a small group of Jewish families who had recently settled in Encino. Most of these families consisted of Jewish WWII veterans from the East Coast who had trained in Los Angeles and moved here with their families after the war. The families bought a property on Sepulveda Boulevard, and started a Minyan and eventually a day school. In 1952, VBS moved to the property that it currently occupies on Ventura Boulevard.

VBS’s growth has been directly correlated to the growth of the Valley’s Jewish population, which increased exponentially in the 1950s and 60s, and peaked in the 70s. The Jewish population has been steady since; there are now 180,000 Jews in the San Fernando Valley. Similarly, VBS started with a small core of families in 1950, and it now boasts a membership of 1600 families, or 5000 people. Furthermore, VBS serves as center of communal life to thousands of nonmembers. In short, VBS is a major center of Jewish life its part of the Valley.

Rabbi Ed Feinstein is the senior rabbi at VBS. His family moved to Southern California in 1961 from New Jersey, in search of better opportunities and better weather. He came to Valley Beth Shalom in 1993 and succeeded Rabbi Harold Schulweis as the congregation’s senior rabbi in 2005. Rabbi Feinstein’s grandparents immigrated to the US from Lithuania and Russia.

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