When Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis was the eloquent young rabbi of Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland, he gave many uncompromising sermons against the social and economic injustices that afflicted the community.
When I arrived in Los Angeles, I was drawn to Boyle Heights, a Latino community that had once been the home of Los Angeles Jewish radical life.
It wasn\’t that I was looking for Eastside, left-wing Jewish roots. I didn\’t have any. When my grandparents lived in Los Angeles before moving north, they had a grocery store in Eagle Rock and later one near Bunker Hill. My mother commuted to UCLA by bus and streetcar to attend the first classes on the Westwood campus.
The crowd in front of the Jewish Republicans\’ booth didn\’t approach the size of those at some of the better food stands at the Israel\’s Independence Day celebration at Woodley Park in the San Fernando Valley. Still, it was big enough to interest me after having watched the GOP\’s long courtship of Jews; for years, it\’s been a romance that sometimes reached the engagement party but usually fell short of the chuppah.
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