JEWISH COMMUNITY GROWING; FEDERATION'S POPULATION POLL INCLUDES AREA.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Daily News Staff Writer

Hunting for a place to raise a family in Thousand Oaks, Debbie Leshon would survey the neighborhoods, looking for one tiny detail - a mezuza, the sign of a Jewish home, on the door.

And more often than she expected, in neighborhoods across the Conejo Valley, she found it.

``I felt pretty comforted that there was some culture and Jewish people,'' said Leshon, who moved from West Los Angeles to Thousand Oaks in 1988.

But Leshon and her husband, Steve, had a back-up plan in case they experienced anti-Semitism in their new home. ``I remember I told my husband we'll sell the house and move to Fairfax. We haven't had to do that.''

The Leshons are among the estimated 38,295 Jews in the Conejo Valley and Simi Valley - drawn by new homes, well-paying jobs and good schools, and kept here by strong ties to the growing Jewish community.

Though making up just a fraction of the 519,151 Jews living in the Los Angeles area, those in the Conejo Valley have caught the attention of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. The leading Jewish support organization included the group this year for the first time in its landmark population study, and is assessing the social services needed in the area.

``We certainly see it as a significant part of the Los Angeles federation community,'' said Miriam Prum Hess, an associate director at the federation. ``It's been very clear through the '80s and '90s that's an area that's growing.''

When Rabbi Moshe Bryski was running the Chabad of Conejo in an Oak Park storefront 15 years ago, there was no hint of the looming population surge that would triple the number of synagogues and bring 10,000 Jews to last year's Hanukkah celebration at Calamigos Ranch in Agoura Hills.

The Chabad itself has grown, now operating branches in Agoura Hills, Oak Park and Westlake Village, with hundreds of adults and children taking religious education classes once attended by only a few dozen Jews.

``There's a tremendous feeling of change in the community,'' said Bryski, whose Chabad of Conejo is the main Hasidic synagogue in the area.

``You have people moving here from the Valley, from L.A., from out of state. . . . At the same time, young families, they want to raise their families with (Jewish) identity,'' he said. ``That causes the experience we're having.''

Temple membership has skyrocketed from a few dozen families in the 1960s, when temples Adat Elohim and Etz Chaim opened, to more than 600 at those two Thousand Oaks synagogues today.

Preschools like the one at Congregation B'Nai Emet in Simi Valley have sprouted up, now enrolling more than 500 students at waiting-list-only facilities, with hundreds more attending Sunday religious classes.

Bryski notices the changes most clearly when he shops at Kosher Connection, the area's first kosher deli, which opened this spring in Agoura.

``It gives me great pleasure just being in that store,'' he said. ``They no longer feel, oh, I wish I was in the Valley. This is a Jewish community.''

Most are married

The Jews in Simi Valley and the Conejo are mostly Reform and Conservative denominations, as are most Jews throughout the Los Angeles area, with a small Orthodox population, according to the survey.

Most are married couples and statistically follow a bell-shaped curve of older and younger Jews, Prum Hess said.

They're a group that has established services ranging from B'nai B'rith to the Jewish Boy Scouts, opened the 150-student Heschel-West Jewish Day School and is about to have its own Jewish cemetery in northern Simi Valley.

Jewish Family Services, a leading social service agency in Los Angeles, opened a local branch this spring, and is expanding with a $50,000 grant from The Jewish Federation.

Andy and Cathy Weinstein both grew up in the San Fernando Valley and expected to raise their family there. They considered their move to Simi Valley in 1983 simply a stopover on the way to home ownership on the other side of the hill.

``We figured two to three years, we could get into a house, then get back into civilization in the Valley,'' said Andy Weinstein, who has become president of Congregation B'nai Emet. ``We decided we love it here and we're not moving back.''

Occasional hate crimes

But setting down roots hasn't always been easy in a community where hate crimes have targeted the growing Jewish population.

Three times in 1991, arson fires damaged Temple Edat Elohim in Thousand Oaks, and in 1990, on the eve of Hanukkah, swastikas were spray-painted on the walls of that temple and neighboring Temple Etz Chaim.

Concerns over anti-Semitism left Congregation B'nai Emet in Simi Valley with only the initials CBE out front until members agreed about two years ago the time had come to erect a full sign.

``People were a little worried about making a big splash,'' Weinstein said. ``People were afraid to say, we're Jews; we're out here.''

But when the Simi community rallied against a planned Ku Klux Klan gathering in 1993, following the acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers accused of beating Rodney King, Weinstein was convinced the time had come to spell out the temple's name.

Temple members agreed, and now a sign identifies the synagogue.

``We have nothing to fear,'' Weinstein said. ``It seems to be a very tolerant community, contrary to its perception or public opinion.''

Cheri Dekofsky has watched the community grow since 1984, when her young family moved from Westwood to Thousand Oaks. There's something that comes from that nuturing, she said.

``On the Westside of town, the Jewish community is there, it's in front of you, you almost take it for granted,'' said Dekofsky, who is working with the federation's Conejo Valley task force to assess the area for service needs. ``But out here, you had to create that, you had to work a little harder, you appreciate it more.''

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) Eli Sapochinksi, 10, left, and counselor Dovid Lisbon prepare challah bread dough at a Jewish day camp in Thousand Oaks.

(2) (Ran in Conejo Edition only) Jonathan Schrage holds challah bread he made by weaving dough.

Evan Yee/Daily News