replicates

Since opening in December 1958, Congregation Beth Meier has been a quiet, unassuming little staple of Jewish life near the corner of Moorpark Street and Colfax Avenue. The shul — its name honors not Schimmel, but Mishnah writer Rabbi Meier Ba\’al Ha\’Ness — has about 150 families. While Beth Meier\’s exterior replicates the Tomb of Rachel, its brown, wooden interior intentionally was designed to resemble the Little Brown Church in the Valley, the Sherman Oaks church where Ronald and Nancy Reagan were married. Only on the High Holidays was Beth Meier\’s cozy sanctuary traded for the larger Studio City Theater on Ventura Boulevard, now a Bookstar.