Los Angeles is a remarkable Jewish city. I recently spent a week there while my son was playing in the Steven Glouberman z’l Basketball Tournament for Jewish high schools. Although I live in the very Jewish neighborhood of Kemp Mill, Maryland, I was amazed at the cornucopia of Jewish resources available in Los Angeles.
I am currently in availus (mourning) for my father, and I need to say Kaddish three times a day. In LA, despite a busy and well-traveled schedule, I was able to find minyanim at all hours, from the express 6 a.m. shacharit at Young Israel of Century City, to a 12:45 early Mincha at Congregation Levi Yitzchock, and a late 9:45 Maariv at Beth Jacob that allowed me to take in the election returns after I landed on Tuesday night.
Attending the Glouberman tournament allowed me to see some of the remarkable educational institutions in LA, including YULA, Shalhevet, and Yavneh. It was thrilling to see 1,000 frum Jews cheering on the semi-finalists Saturday night — including my son’s terrific Berman Cougars — at the daunting Shalhevet gym. The one discordant note was seeing the intense security at these institutions, which subjected visitors to almost an embassy-level scrutiny. The synagogues were similar, with multiple armed guards with magnetometers and bulletproof vests. I was privileged to speak at Beth Jacob on Shabbat and made the point that this level of security should not be normal. Angelenos, like many Jews across the country, may have gotten used to it, and they should appreciate the efforts by the terrific security teams to keep the community secure. But Jews should never lose sight of the fact that it’s not right that it requires this level of security to keep Jews safe in 21st century America.
In addition to schools and shuls, LA also has many excellent kosher options, the volume of which unfortunately puts my own Silver Spring to shame. I greatly enjoyed meals at LA Burger, Lenny‘s Casita, Schwartz’s, Pico Cafe — twice — and Dr. Sandwich, but there were so many other tasty places I could have sampled.
Beyond these basic — and well-served — Jewish needs is also a vibrant intellectual life. Nearly half a century ago, Woody Allen in Annie Hall said dismissively of Los Angeles, “I don’t want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.” This sense of intellectual superiority has long been the prevailing view of LA in northeastern cities like New York, Boston, and Washington. But LA gets a bad rap intellectually, and its Jewish community includes an impressive assortment of writers and thinkers.
While on my short trip, I met with a host of folks shaping our nation’s intellectual trajectory. Joel Kotkin, whose work I’ve been reading for years, had me on his excellent “Feudal Future” podcast with Marshall Toplansky to discuss my new book, “The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.”
On Friday, I had a fascinating Shabbat dinner at the lovely home of the Free Press’ Abigail Shrier and her trivia-loving husband Zachary. Other guests included the Free Beacon’s Noah Pollak; the Free Press’ tireless pro-Israel advocate Brianna Wu; intellectual dark web theorist Eric Weinstein and his wife, the economist Pia Malaney; Jacob Savage, author of the high-profile Tablet article “The Vanishing”; and Triggernometry’s Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster. These current-day stars all eschew the traditional mainstream media for new or non-traditional platforms. Even though LA is a liberal city, its distance from the northeastern mainstream media capitals allows conservatives to thrive on these alternative platforms, something Democrats learned about to their cost in the recent election.
The next day, my friend and uber-LA-connector Craig Lewis brought me to lunch at the home of Alan and Sharon Gomperts. I had no idea going in that Sharon was one of the Jewish Journal’s “Sephardic Spice Girls.” Sharon’s cooking and recipe partner Rachel Emquies Sheff was there as well and the meal was, as you might imagine, heavenly.
On Saturday night, Breitbart’s Joel Pollak, an old friend, joined me at the Glouberman tournament. Joel is a prolific author and his August book, “The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First Hundred Days,” seems especially prescient now.
One additional enjoyable element of LA intellectual life is that there are always smart people visiting. In Shul on Shabbat, we saw the redoubtable Hillel Neuer of UN Watch. Neuer was in LA because a brave pro-Israel actress, when asked who in the world she would most like to dine with, said Hillel. Good call. On Saturday night, Craig and I went out to LA Burger, where he spotted Shabbos Kestenbaum and invited him to join us. Kestenbaum was in LA on a speaking tour while he tries to figure out what do now that he’s been liberated from Harvard. Any employer would be smart to snap up this talented and brave go-getter.
On Sunday, I spent time with my brother Gil Troy, in town to promote his own new book, “To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream.”
Gil invited me to breakfast with Jewish Journal editor David Suissa, whom I’d long admired and was excited to finally meet. Gil had been having his own LA sojourn, hanging out with Suissa, radio host Dennis Prager, the Polak Foundation and intellectual salon host David Blumberg, who was visiting from Miami. Gil told me that while walking on Santa Monica Boulevard he spotted a short Russian man with an IDF hat. “Mr. Sharansky!” Gil exclaimed. Natan Sharansky looked up, wary of having to entertain a starstruck fan, but relieved when he recognized Gil, his friend, Jerusalem neighbor, and co-author.
I capped off my trip by having coffee with my old friend Craig Turk, TV producer of the successful “FBI” series. As influential as some of the other people I had met with had been, none could approach the reach of Craig, whose shows are watched by nearly 20 million people weekly.
A vacation for me is going to a place with kosher food, cultural institutions, and lots of smart thinkers to meet with. LA has all of those in spades. I can’t wait for my next visit.
Editor’s note: Since this story was written, the news came out that Dennis Prager was seriously injured after an accidental fall and underwent surgery. We join everyone who is praying for his recovery.
Tevi Troy is a Senior Scholar at Yeshiva University’s Straus Center, and a former Deputy Secretary of HHS and senior White House aide. He is the author of five books on the presidency, including “The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.”
