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The Nessah Synagogue is a Sephardi Jews synagogue in Beverly Hills, California.
Persian Jews from the congregation initially worshipped at Beth Jacob Congregation, a long-established Orthodox synagogue in Beverly Hills. Later, they met at the Saban Theatre, also in Beverly Hills. Later, they moved into a building in Santa Monica, California. The congregation moved into its current building (the former home of the First Church of Christ, Scientist Federal Writers' Project of the Works Project Administration, Los Angeles in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City of Angels (University of California Press, 2011 reprint ed.), , p. 201. Excerpts available at Google Books. that now resides across the street) in 2002. The building's remodeling was supervised by architect Hamid Gabbay. It includes "Simcha Hall", a ballroom used for weddings, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Brit milah, fundraising events, etc. Nessah Synagogue website: Ballroom "Simcha Hall"
It acts as a large religious, educational and cultural center, where Hebrew and Iranian Jewish history is taught. It organizes three weekly Torah classes, daily prayer services, lectures, and three Shabbat services. A 2011 profile of Nessah Synagogue in Tablet Magazine found that the congregation serves an important function as a "community center" for the Persian Jews of Los Angeles and as a bridge between traditions rooted in Iran and the mainstream American lifestyle most of them now lead, and also noted that many members maintain affiliation both with Nessah and with another congregation with a more mixed membership, such as Sinai Temple or Stephen S. Wise Temple.Allison Hoffman, "Persian Gulf: Thirty years after the Islamic Revolution made them exiles, the Persian Jews of Los Angeles are split in new ways by an old question: how much to hold on to religious and cultural traditions forged in a country that now hates them". Tablet Magazine, April 6, 2011.
Inside the synagogue, the Torah ark is a replica of the one in the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam.Karmel Melamed, Photo essay: real story behind Nessah Synagogue's new Torah ark, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, September 29, 2007
In the early mornings hours of Saturday, December 14, 2019, an individual broke in and vandalized the synagogue, damaging a number of Torah scrolls, but the Torah scrolls for ritual use had been locked up and were not damaged.
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