Sponsored message
Audience-funded nonprofit news
radio tower icon laist logo
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Subscribe
  • Listen Now Playing Listen
Explore LA

Yucca and sweet potato latkes? That’s tradition for Jewtina y Co.

A man with facial hair wears a dark suit while bowing and gesturing over multiple plates of food at a table.
(
Courtesy Analucia Lopezrevoredo
)

Truth matters. Community matters. Your support makes both possible. LAist is one of the few places where news remains independent and free from political and corporate influence. Stand up for truth and for LAist. Make your year-end tax-deductible gift now.

Jewtina y Co. is a nonprofit founded for people who are the children of Jewish and non-Jewish parents, Latinos who’ve converted, and Jews born and raised in Latin America.

“I'm from Peru originally,” said founder Analucia Lopezrevoredo.

She grew up Jewish in Tustin. Her mother is Jewish and her father is not. But both traditions showed up during Hanukkah when it came to making latkes.

“Are we gonna make it with camote or sweet potato? Are we gonna make it with yucca? Are we gonna make it with purple potatoes? Like, [to] give it that real Andean like, Peruvian feel,” she said.

More news

The group has hubs in L.A., New York, Miami and other places.

“I come from a very proud Salvadorian Jewish home,” said Kimberly Ariella Dueñas, a founding member of the group and the nonprofit’s director of learning.

Sponsored message

Her mother is Ukrainian-Polish and her father left El Salvador in the lead-up to the country’s civil war.

“My mother and father met at a Passover Seder,” she said.

She’ll be at the group’s Hanukkah gathering in L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood on Thursday.

“Then the following nights I'm actually traveling down to El Salvador to celebrate Hanukkah with the Salvadoran Jewish community,” she said.

Social events are important, but the group has larger goals. Lopezrevoredo said, like addressing how many Jewish Latinos sometimes don’t feel included by Latinos. And the same dynamic, she added, exists with wider Jewish communities.

“For us it's really about solidifying over the next couple of years a stronger puente, a stronger bridge between us and our larger Latin American community,” she said.

Corrected January 8, 2025 at 11:55 AM PST

A previous version of this post said that Kimberly Ariella Dueñas' father left El Salvador during that country's civil war. She clarified that her father left ahead of the civil war.

You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our connected community. We are free to tell the full truth, to hold power to account without fear or favor, and to follow facts wherever they lead. Our only loyalty is to our audiences and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen our community.

Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive before year-end will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.

If this story helped you today, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.

Your tax-deductible donation keeps LAist independent and accessible to everyone.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief

Make your tax-deductible year-end gift today

A row of graphics payment types: Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and PayPal, and  below a lock with Secure Payment text to the right