The Breed Street shul, once considered an epicenter of Jewish life in the western United States, has been granted $14.9 million in state funding to renovate its century-old buildings.

California legislators said the state budget allocation will help transform the Breed Street shul into a shared multipurpose space that will honor the area’s Jewish and multicultural history as well as the current neighborhood’s mostly Latino residents.

The shul, established in 1904, encompasses two buildings in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, which was home to about 75,000 Yiddish-speaking, working-class families from Eastern Europe. The shul is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.                Bill Aron photo