Eight Decades of Jewish Life in L.A.

There are some scenes in Martin A. Brower’s book, “Los Angeles Jew: A Memoir,” that bring tears to the eyes of a grown senior citizen.

On a nice day in 1950, Brower, then in his early 20s, takes a walk along Wilshire Boulevard’s Miracle Mile, stops in at the famous Carnation ice cream parlor, passes Du-par’s Restaurant & Bakery and then the Van de Kamp Bakery.

Along the way, he picks up a copy of the B’nai B’rith Messenger, one of four Jewish weeklies, and checks out the Jewish singles dances slated for the upcoming Sunday.

Gone, all gone, in the city that constantly reinvents itself and rebuilds on the ruins of the previous generation’s work.

Brower was born in 1928 to working-class parents, both Latvian immigrants, who lived in Boyle Heights and thought they had found the Garden of Eden amid the sunshine, palm trees and clean air.

In the intervening 81 years, Brower became a kind of one-man road map of the west and northward movements of the Jewish population, as his parents, and later his own family, moved from one Los Angeles enclave to another.

While his father prospered modestly as a hard-working sheet metal worker, the growing family moved from cramped quarters to another part of Boyle Heights and to the American dream of a rose-beige colored stucco house with a red tile roof and rolling front lawn.

Then on to West Adams at La Brea Avenue, just when the Depression hit hard and the Los Angeles unemployment rate rocketed to 17 percent.

Brower’s father also lost his job, couldn’t keep up his mortgage payments (does that sound familiar?), found a rental on then-cheap Ocean Park Avenue in Santa Monica and became a fruit and vegetable peddler.

The Browers’ next houses were in Venice and El Sereno, but when World War II brought plenty of jobs for skilled workers, the family could afford to buy a house in the new, upscale Jewish neighborhood around Pico Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.

Following the war, parts of the Brower mishpachah moved to the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, although such places as Glendale (as well as Inglewood) were off-limits to Jews.

After Brower entered UCLA, he became editor of the Daily Bruin and impressed his staff with both his skill and his husky 6-foot-2 frame. Bob English, a fellow student journalist, recalled that Brower was known in the newsroom as “the bear that types like a man.”

At 81, Brower seems to be blessed with total recall, including the Jewish dating protocol of the early 1950s, which has an almost Victorian ring.

For instance, he met his future wife, Tamar, thanks to “my friend Ralph, who had secured a girl’s telephone number, which was given to him by a friend, who had gotten the number from his mother.” Not exactly JDate, but it seems to have worked.

Brower went on to a successful career as a public relations executive with architect Welton Becket and later with the land development Irvine Company, which lured the lifetime Angeleno to Orange County.

As Brower moves from one neighborhood and job to another, he peppers the narrative with observations on the flow and ebb of Jewish life, from downtown Temple Street to the Fairfax area, Beverly Hills, Westside, to the valleys and beyond, and back to Pico-Robertson and Hancock Park.

He notes that during his own lifetime, the Jewish population of Los Angeles has grown from 65,000 in 1928 to 522,000 in 2008.

“Los Angeles Jew” does not pretend to be a scholarly demographic study, but it is no less valuable for that. American literature is replete with research studies, novels and plays about growing up Jewish (and miserable) in New York or Chicago, but the equivalent Los Angeles bookshelf looks pretty bare.

Through his anecdotal sketches, Brower has added the feel and color of L.A. Jewish life in the 20th century, a portrait that future historians will value.

“Los Angeles Jew” is available through its publisher, AuthorHouse.com, or BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com.