June 21, 2018

A European chef has dedicated his career to raising the bar when it comes to kosher dining. Today, he’s using those skills to revamp the well-known Pico-Robertson upmarket French kosher steakhouse, Shiloh’s. 

Speaking with the help of his translator and General Manager Laurent Masliah, Chef Ange Benisti told the Journal, “I knew kosher food had a bad reputation, and I wanted to try and adapt what I’d learned to make great kosher food.”

The secret, he said, is that even with the limited ingredients that a kosher meat meal demands, “the techniques evolve, so with the same ingredients you can make something completely different and new.” 

Benisti, 43, together with his partner Samuel Wrobel, took over Shiloh’s in December. They’ve spent the past six months making gradual changes, while still keeping the establishment open. 

Born in Israel, Benisti moved to France at the age of 4, and then to Belgium when he was 6. By 13, he was working with his father, who ran a kosher catering company. He then went on to study at Institut Emile Gryzon in Belgium. After returning to Brussels, he worked at Bruneau La Villa Lorraine, Comme Chez Soi and La Maison du Boeuf at the Brussels Hilton, which at the time were the only Michelin-starred restaurants in the country. 

At 22, together with a friend from cooking school, Benisti bought out his father’s catering company and worked on refining the menu. Five years ago, the duo started a kosher patisserie in Miami but they parted ways when Benisti decided he didn’t want to stay in Miami. 

“I knew kosher food had a bad reputation, and I wanted to try and adapt what I’d learned to make great kosher food.” — Ange Benisti

Today, he splits his time between Beverly Hills, where he lives with his second wife and two young children, and Europe, where he still has a catering company, and two teenagers from his first marriage. 

Benisti said working in the United States was always a dream, and when he and Wrobel visited Los Angeles in the fall 2016, he knew they’d found the perfect location in Shiloh’s. 

“The location was great, the reputation was good and we didn’t want to start from scratch,” Benisti said. “It was something to build on.”

Benisti said he knew rumors that the owners wanted to sell, “but they weren’t actively looking for a buyer.” Undaunted, Benisti spent a year in conversations with the owners and eventually bought the restaurant. They brought in an entirely new kitchen staff from France, as well as a new pastry chef. Minor changes have included new light and dark gray paint and removing the curtains to create a more open space. 

Specialties on the menu include the chef’s Cut Calotte and the Cote de Boeuf for two. “But,” Benisti said, “It’s important [for me] to continue to upgrade the menu, and I encourage patrons to try new food experiences.” 

Consequently, he puts a special French dish on the menu each week. “For example, you might have a spoon with a green sphere,” he said. “You put it in your mouth and then you can taste, for example, peas with meat, so you have explosions of flavors.”

He’s also thinking ahead and said hopefully, beginning in September, he’ll launch a pop-up restaurant one night a month with a six-course meal. He and Wrobel also have plans to open a restaurant in Las Vegas and a dairy restaurant in Los Angeles. 

Benisti said he’d also like to get back to his roots by opening a catering business.

“Catering is a great job because, when you do your parties, most of the time it’s for good events — a simcha,” he said. “You share the happiness of the people. You are part of it. The fact that you feed people and you see how happy they are when they eat, it makes you fulfilled.”

Citing an ongoing failure to regularly make up a quorum of 100 members at its biennial meetings, The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles (JFGLA) on June 12 voted to eliminate membership from its organization.

The vote, which marked the first amendment to Federation’s bylaws since the 1950s, means the organization no longer is required to hold biennial meetings, which, among other things, allow members to vote for the board of directors. 

“We believe this is a change that is in the best interest of the Federation and the community,” President and CEO Jay Sanderson told the Journal before the vote. “The Federation remains an organization that serves the best interests and needs of the community. We don’t think this element of the bylaws has been helpful toward the goal.”

The Journal was at the meeting during the vote, which was held at Federation’s headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard. In a show of hands, 104 people voted in favor of the amendment, which stated: “This corporation shall have no members.” Nine people opposed the vote. 

Federation members are defined as those who have donated a minimum of $100 to the organization’s annual community-wide fundraising campaign sine June 12, 2017. They have the right to elect directors, set the size of the board and amend the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws. 

Pini Herman, a demographer and former Federation employee, opposed the passage of the amendment. He organized people to turn out to the meeting with him to express their opposition. Before the meeting, he raised awareness on social media about the amendment, which, he argued, ran contrary to Federation’s community-oriented obligations.

“The way the system is currently set up, it is not a positive thing for the community and not a positive thing for us. It is a vestige of the ’50s and does not make sense anymore.” — Jay Sanderson

“I was trained to work in a much more democratic, transparent community, and this attempt to disenfranchise donor members from the corporation is an undemocratic trend,” Herman said.

Federation emailed members in April, informing them of the upcoming vote, and simultaneously posted a notice of the meeting in the Journal. Sanderson said in doing so, the organization had fulfilled its legal responsibility. However, Herman argued that Federation’s efforts weren’t enough and that it should have done more to make the community aware of the meeting. He argued that the vote was a foregone conclusion, given that Federation employees participated in the vote.  

“If the Federation has convened a meeting at the initiative of the board, there is only one item on the agenda, and it’s the Federation’s proposal, and the voting is by show of hands — do you expect any employee to vote against it?” he asked.

Membership meetings have been “a major waste of time,” Sanderson said, defending the amendment. “The way the system is currently set up, it is not a positive thing for the community and not a positive thing for us. It is a vestige of the ’50s and does not make sense anymore.”

Israeli Maj. Gen. Doron Almog fought in several of Israel’s wars and has lost family members to illness and military conflict. Yet he remains hopeful as he embarks on a huge project to make Israel and the world a kinder, more inclusive place. 

Almog, 67, recently was in Los Angeles as part of a trip to the United States to raise money for ALEH Negev-Nahalat Eran Rehabilitation Village, a  facility in southern Israel that provides support to children and young adults with multiple disabilities. 

Founded by Almog in 2004, the village sits on 40 acres and supplies more than 700 children throughout Israel with services that include medical care, special education schooling, cultural activities, therapeutic sports and outpatient treatment. 

“ALEH-Negev is a role model for the world and shows [us] how to treat the weak, disabled and wounded,” Almog told the Journal. “We are committed to serving the disabled children of Israel.”

For Almog, the ALEH-Negev project is personal. His son, Eran, who died at the age of 23 in 2007, was diagnosed with an intellectual disability and autism when he was 8 months old. “I swore to love him and raise him, and never to abandon or ignore him,” Almog said. “He never spoke one word or made eye contact, but he became the greatest teacher of my life. He taught me about the place of children like him in our society and about ourselves, and gave me mighty power to begin fighting for children like him.”

Almog has been fighting his whole life in one form or another. Born in 1951 to parents who taught him to love and protect his country, he led an operational task force in Tripoli in 1973 against the Palestinian terrorists who killed members of the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics, and fought in the Yom Kippur War. 

“He never spoke one word or made eye contact, but he became the greatest teacher of my life. He taught me about the place of children like him in our society.” — Doron Almog

During that war, Almog’s brother Eran, whom he named his son after, was killed. Eran was shot in the left leg and bled for seven days before succumbing to his injury. 

“When I discovered the circumstances of my brother’s death, I was frustrated and angry, and at the same time I swore to stay in the military and never, ever leave a wounded soldier behind,” Almog said. “The reason for my long military service is my bleeding brother.” 

After the Yom Kippur War, Almog became the commander of the first force that landed in Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976, as part of the operation to rescue Israelis from an Air France flight that had been hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

Almog also commanded the elite paratroopers brigade in the first Lebanon War in 1982 and led missions to bring 6,000 Jews in Ethopia to Israel from the Sudanese refugee camps in 1984 and 1985. He was the commander in chief of the Israeli Southern Command from 2000-2003 before he left to focus on starting ALEH-Negev. 

Almog recently raised $23 million for ALEH-Negev but said the organization needs more funds to build housing for students, employees, doctors, nurses, volunteers and families to live and work in the village. 

Though Almog still carries the pain of losing his son, he continues to honor Eran’s life through ALEH-Negev. “His spirit spread all over the village,” Almog said. “We are all committed to serving the disabled children in Israel  and making the correction in Israeli society in respect to how we treat our children. We are serving justice to and loving those who are unable to be independent and to be free.”

On July 1, it will be 15 years since 22-year-old Ariel Chaim Avrech died from severe pulmonary fibrosis. In what has become a tradition, family and friends recently gathered for the annual Ariel Avrech Yahrzeit lecture at Young Israel of Century City.

“We all want to remember those who have passed away,” Ariel’s father, Robert Avrech, said of the ongoing tribute to his son, who was pursuing a degree in special education at the time of his death. 

“All [parents] feel that their children are special,” he said. “Ariel was a super special person. He was an unusual person, and we wanted to make sure that he’s not forgotten and do something that was in the spirit of his life.”

Part of that decision he made with his wife, Karen, was to hold a lecture each year and bring in a wide range of speakers who reflected Ariel’s religious convictions. Over the last decade-and-a-half, speakers have included Dennis Prager (“Happiness Is a Mitzvah, Not an Emotion”), Michael Medved (“Shifting Alliances: Why Liberals No Longer Reliably Support Israel, and Conservatives Do”), Larry Elder (“The New Black Antisemitism”), Rabbi Steven Pruzansky (“Conformity in Jewish Life: Virtue, Vice or Affection?”), Ben Shapiro (“How You Can Help Israel”) and Yossi Klein Halevi (“What Is Expected of a Survivor People: Lessons My Father Taught Me”). 

This year’s speaker has a personal connection with the Avrechs. Brand innovator Jackie Danicki’s first contact with the family was through a blog Robert set up barely a year after Ariel’s death.

“Robert and I have spoken about how my relationship with their family and how my path progressed seemed to suggest Ariel has been intervening with God on my behalf.” — Jackie Danicki

Danicki, 41, who completed her conversion to Judaism just three days before her memorial lecture on June 10, was  born in Ohio and raised Catholic. She grew up on a farm and didn’t meet a Jewish person until she was 15. Yet she said even before she began kindergarten, she was drawn to Judaism.

Danicki splits her time between New York and Atlanta but was living in London when Robert ran his first blog post about Ariel in June 2004. She was first person to leave a comment on the site. She also emailed Robert and said as she was running errands in London, “I sat on the top deck of the big red bus and looked out at the clouds and thought about Ariel. I don’t know why. I almost felt like he was sitting next to me.”

“Rereading this, I really cringe,” Danicki said in her talk, “because it could have been insensitive to somebody in mourning or presumptuous of me. [But Robert] simply replied, ‘I’m glad you had a nice ride with Ariel.’ ”

She added, “I felt deeply moved and honored to be asked to speak at Ariel’s memorial lecture. I could never say no to the Avrechs, especially for something done in Ariel’s memory. I love them and am grateful I got to help them honor their son.”

Through her talk, “What’s a Goy Like You Doing in an Eruv Like This?” Danicki shared the story of her conversion. On June 7, the day of her conversion, Danicki took the Hebrew name Ahava Ariel, which means “Love Ariel.”

She spoke about how she’d been interested in Judaism since she was a child, “but when I observed the Avrechs living Orthodox Judaism on a daily basis, and saw how it imbued even the mundane parts of life with meaning, I knew I had to dig deeper.”

Danicki said it was unlikely she would have met the Avrechs were it not for Ariel. “Robert and I have spoken about how my relationship with their family and how my path progressed seemed to suggest Ariel has been intervening with God on my behalf,” she said.  

Robert said, “I’ve known Jackie for 13 years. I met her when she was not Jewish,  and we’ve developed a close relationship and now she is Jewish. And she’s been inspired by Ariel’s holy soul. So it’s very meaningful to us.”

Ariel’s friend Jonathan Beck also spoke briefly at the event and said, “Ariel was such an example of what it means to truly enjoy Yiddishkayt, to be so connected to HaShem, to be so connected to learning.”

Beck also spoke about how “when we think about our own health and we take it for granted, it would be a nice thing to think about Ariel — a person who never took anything for granted.”

Ariel’s mother, Karen, told the Journal following Danicki’s lecture, “Ariel told me that the best joy in his life was not a great pizza, or a great meal, [but] to go through a Gemara or Talmud [passage], figure it out, feel like you understand it, and then drink a tall glass of ice water.”

At many universities, students look to Hillel for a welcoming Jewish campus community. But if there’s no residential campus and students are commuting from home to classes, is there still a need for Hillel? 

“Commuter schools need a strong Jewish heart more than the others do,” said Jay Sanderson, President and CEO of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Federation has been partnered with Hillel 818, which serves Cal State Northridge, Pierce College and Los Angeles Valley College since its reorganization in late 2014. 

Commuter students have different needs than residential students and are often short on time. However, they also tend to be highly motivated, said David Katz, Hillel 818’s executive director. 

“They have the drive and energy to put themselves through school and everything that comes with being a commuter student, and they make the time to be active Jewishly on campus,” he said. “They want a strong Hillel and they deserve it.” 

Hillel 818 serves one of the largest Jewish student populations in the United States, with “more Jews than at UCLA and USC combined,” Katz said. “But the Hillel playbook on a residential campus doesn’t work at Hillel 818. Hillel is a home away from home. We need to reimagine what a Hillel is when the student lives at home.” 

A core component of that reimagined Hillel model is finding out what is important to students and meeting them where they are. For instance, because 26 percent of their students identify as Persian, 12 percent as Russian and 11 percent as Israeli, Hillel 818 has three programs aimed at these “micro-communities,” which also provide a chance to build entry points into Hillel and into the greater community, Katz said.

A Russian restaurant event featuring Russian food, music and dance planned by a student intern drew 126 students, only 40 percent of whom were Russian, according to Katz. A Persian dinner drew over 100 students for Mizrahi (Jewish Eastern) music and Persian cuisine, and a post-Passover Moroccan Mimouna event attracted 70 students. Katz noted these as opportunities “to celebrate the richness of our Los Angeles Jewish community.”

When Sandra Faramarzi graduated from Milken Community High School and began her studies at Northridge, she was “startled” by the transition from a close-knit community to a university environment. But Hillel 818 and its “homey feel” made her believe she had found her place. Faramarzi sees the micro-community events as a chance to learn about new cultures but said that smaller events create a “nice, friendly circle” of people — in her case, other Persian students — who understand her cultural background. “It brings more people in because they can find a smaller group within a larger community,” the incoming junior said.

A core component of that reimagined Hillel model is finding out what is important to students and meeting them where they are. 

“Having grown up with a Jewish dad and non-Jewish mom who were both atheists, I didn’t start learning about my own Judaism until my 20s,” said board chairwoman Kathi Mangel, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley and whose husband and daughter both graduated from Cal State Northridge. “There are a lot of students like that out there, who need a place to go to start learning about their own Judaism.”

Katz said that some students may have minimal Jewish knowledge or background. Hillel 818’s “unbiased pluralistic view” provides students with the opportunity to explore Jewish identity, including studying with an Orthodox rabbi and a female rabbinic intern. 

Hillel at Cal State Northridge was founded in 1960, and for over 50 years, Hillel was the Jewish address at that school, Pierce College and Los Angeles Valley College. Hillel was restructured in late 2014, and in April 2015, Katz began his role as executive director for Hillel 818. 

When he came to Cal State Northridge, Jonathan Goldenberg wanted to connect to an inclusive Jewish community, explore his own Jewish identity and find student leadership opportunities. 

“Hillel 818 did an incredible job addressing both of those points for me,” the alum wrote in an email, crediting Hillel 818’s support with enabling him to serve as the president of CSUN Students for Israel, the pro-Israel student organization on campus. “The institutional and moral support given to me by Hillel 818 allowed me to blossom in my role and truly grow as a person.”

Hillel 818 will  finish the 2018 fiscal year with a budget of $600,000, including a $206,830 from Federation. They are also receiving over $100,000 in grants from Hillel International for programming and staff support. And thanks to Federation and Hillel 818’s community donors, the Hillel building has been refurbished to the tune of $110,000, with renovations of the social hall, kitchen, a prayer space/conference room and a student lounge.

“Students come and study, bake challah, cook Shabbat dinner, do their homework, play PlayStation,” Katz said. “It’s home base where they can park their car, hang out and walk to campus for class. They’ve turned our space into their space.” 

“At Hillel 818, there’s something for everybody,” Faramarzi said. “If you like to hike a lot, or like to go bowling, or want a gym buddy, you can find whatever you need within this community. Even if you don’t know what you are looking for, you can find something for you here.”

Sanderson is pleased with what he called a “significantly dramatic increase in engagement” since Federation began its investment in Hillel 818, whose efforts have increased student engagement from 300 in 2015 to more than 1,400 at the close of the 2017-18 academic year. Staffing has also increased, Katz noted, from three to six full-time professionals, and Hillel 818 will likely add two more this year.

Looking ahead, the team is thinking about sustainability, including improvements on the 30-year-old building and a potential future endowment. Alumni identification and engagement will play a huge role. 

For Katz, this is about more than today’s campus engagement. Because 98 percent of Hillel 818 students are from, and likely to stay in, the Los Angeles area, “this is an investment in our community. They will make up the future leadership. If we don’t engage them now, we won’t be able to engage them in the future,” he said.

 “We’re only scratching the surface of what this Hillel could be.”