 Fellow Common Council members chose him as the first Jewish president of the city's governing body, during his term.Doria Deighton-Jones was an organizer of the Ladies' Hebrew Benevolent Society of Los Angeles in 1870, the city's first philanthropic organization, and served as its treasurer.Doria Deighton-Jones built the Simpson-Jones Building in 1894 at the #1 Olvera Street site of the family's 1840s adobe house on the Plaza, which had been torn down in 1886 when Bath Street was widened to make an extension of Main Street.