During a recent community forum, Los Angeles mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Rick Caruso highlighted their approaches to combating antisemitism and the city’s homelessness crisis. They also spoke about how they’d approach leading the country’s second-largest city if elected.
Appearing during an Oct. 26 event organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Anti-Defamation League, and American Jewish Committee, the two also shared how the Jewish community has impacted the trajectory of their careers.
“It was the Jewish parents that got me involved in politics,” Bass said, speaking of her time enrolled at Alexander Hamilton High School, which had a significant population of Jewish students. “My friend’s parents were Holocaust survivors. So, I remember the first time I saw a tattoo and what that meant. It was a very powerful experience that shaped me.”
“But I also remember during the Civil Rights movement, the alliance between the African-American and Jewish communities,” she said. “So, I grew up making a commitment at a very young age that I wanted to spend my life fighting for justice and that is how I spent my life.”
Photo by Kathy Deninno
Caruso said the Jewish community played an important role in his respective businesses. When he developed the Grove shopping mall, for instance, he sought input from the neighborhood’s Orthodox leaders.
“On a very personal level, I wouldn’t have the success in my life that I’ve had without the Jewish community,” he said.
The virtual forum was held less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 election. Lasting nearly 90 minutes, the program was livestreamed from the headquarters of the Jewish Federation before a small crowd and featured Bass and Caruso in separate conversations with Spectrum News Anchor Alex Cohen. Neither candidate was in the room for the other’s discussion.
Bass, 69, a Democratic Congresswoman, represents a district that includes Pico-Robertson, Cheviot Hills and Baldwin Hills. If she were elected mayor, she would draw on nearly two decades of public service when facing issues including homelessness, crime and housing affordability.
“I think that it is inhumane to allow people to die on the streets,” she told Spectrum’s Cohen. “The fact that homelessness has exploded the way it has is the reason why I decided not to run for Congress again.”
Caruso, 63, is a successful shopping mall developer who has managed to stay competitive in this race despite never holding public office.
The businessman’s candidacy is his first attempt at elected office – and would be his last, he said.
“I feel very fortunate that I can run for mayor,” he said. “The greatest advantage I have is I am beholden to nobody. People will criticize and say, ‘Maybe you are spending too much money.’ That’s not the issue in my opinion. The issue is, every day I am going to be able to wake up, go to my office in City Hall and not worry about a political career I don’t want. This will be my one and only election, I promise you. My one and only candidacy.”
Caruso said his success in business has proven he can handle seemingly insurmountable challenges, including homelessness and the rise in crime.
“I’m somebody that is solution-oriented, and I want to bring that attitude to the homeless population,” he said.
Both candidates denounced the rise in antisemitism and shared how they’d combat it… The two also shared how the Jewish community has impacted the trajectory of their careers.
Both candidates denounced the rise in antisemitism and shared how they’d combat it. They called out widely criticized remarks from rapper Kanye West, whose antisemitic comments in recent social media posts and interviews have inspired anti-Jewish incidents around the country.
“I have devoted my life to fighting for social and economic justice and part of that fight means always fighting against antisemitism and recognizing what is happening right now in our country, as we’ve been experiencing this for a few years now,” Bass said. “And I believe that the only way that we deal with it is by coming together and being very, very aggressive.”
Caruso, meanwhile, focused on crimes targeting the local observant community, saying, “We have to have more officers visible in the Orthodox neighborhoods while giving a safe passage to worship.”
At the start of the evening, Jewish Federation of Los Angeles CEO and President Rabbi Noah Farkas, one of a handful of Federation leaders in attendance, encouraged everyone watching over Zoom to exercise their civic duty and vote.
“Jewish Angelenos inhabit nearly every corner of this city. We, a diverse, Jewish community, are deeply vested in the outcome of this election.” – Rabbi Noah Farkas
“Jewish Angelenos inhabit nearly every corner of this city,” Farkas said. “We, a diverse, Jewish community, are deeply vested in the outcome of this election.”
