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The Forward (spiritually) returns to Boyle Heights, hate speech at USC and hate fliers in Beverly Hills, Joshua Malina speaks out against Mel Gibson, but will it do any good?
Hello, it's us. Again The Forward's Los Angeles office, 1927 I recently made a pilgrimage of sorts to 2129 Cesar Chavez Avenue, where the Forward set up shop a century ago to cover the flood of Yiddish-speaking immigrants like my grandparents settling in the Boyle Heights district of Los Angeles. The corner, depicted in the above photo when the street name was Brooklyn Avenue, is an 11-mile drive from my home in Venice -- or, you know, an hour-and-a-half.
I walked up the back stairs to the second-floor entrance, where my predecessors must have gathered. Pots of red geraniums crowded the landing and the sound of children speaking Spanish filtered from behind a locked door. The old news bureau has morphed into apartments for the new waves of immigrants. Downstairs, the La Monarca Mexican bakery has replaced the long-gone Miller Abromson Furniture.
It’s humbling to remember that I am not the first Forward editor to be based here in Los Angeles. There is, as Ecclesiastes said, nothing new under the California sun
A hundred years ago, the then-Yiddish broadsheet distributed 275,000 copies a day across the country — it was one of America’s largest newspapers in any language. Boyle Heights was for decades L.A.’s beating Jewish heart, as restrictive real estate covenants kept Jews, Blacks, Asians and Latinos from settling in choice neighborhoods. From that second-floor perch, Forward journalists helped legions of Eastern European immigrants acculturate to the new land, connect to and preserve their community, and defend their rights as members of the working class.
In 1950, a New York-based Forward editor named Harry Lang was posted to L.A., and until his death in 1970 Lang, and his wife Lucy, a proponent of worker’s rights and free love, wrote deep, groundbreaking articles.
In March 1963, for example, he went after the California Republican Party for its dalliance with the white supremacist John Birch Society. “One could now see clearly the goal they sought of creating a fascist party in America on a huge scale,” he wrote in Yiddish, “utilizing all the poisonous crops already planted in Europe.”
That was then. In 1990, the Forward launched in English, and in 2019 we became digital-only. Now, as we approach our 125th birthday in April, we are introducing this weekly newsletter, which will provide a California lens on Jewish news, and a Jewish one on what matters to Californians.
In my years running the Jewish Journal in Los Angeles, I noticed that while American Jewish life is tilted East -- where most Jews live and where most Jewish organizations are based -- much of what is innovative and important takes place on the West Coast. Plus, how the rest of the world thinks about Jews is so much a function of how we are portrayed in movies, TV and digital media. The word may go out from Zion, but the image goes out from California.
So, each week, I will bring you stories and opinions from the Forward and elsewhere about some of the most dynamic and exciting Jewish communities on earth, along with very California takes on relationships and—of course— food.
It’s a lot like what my long-dead predecessors were sent to do from that second floor corner office in Boyle Heights.
I went back there on Tuesday night and stopped into La Monarca for a to-go slice of tres leche cake and a package cafe de olla — coffee with brown sugar and cinnamon. The label on the coffee said the bakery is dedicated to supporting its community, the environment and its workers.
Harry and Lucy Lang would be proud.
– To keep getting our 'Letter from California,' please sign up here. And if you know someone who might like it (or someone who needs it), click on the blue button below to forward it to them. Share with a friend
STORIES WORTH YOUR TIME A USC student Tweeted, ‘kill all the motherf----ing Zionists?’I’m not looking to make this a weekly hate blotter, but there were three important stories on antisemitism over the last weeks. Some USC professors and students are imploring the university administration to come down harder on Yasmeen Mashayekh, the graduate student who wrote the offensive tweet and is pictured above, while USC officials say she has already faced sufficient consequences. (Forward)
Critics of Mashayekh accused her of 'Zionophobia,' a word coined by Prof. Judea Pearl. And that, writes Forward's Arno Rosenfeld, spurred more controversy. (Forward)
Meanwhile in the Bay Area, a 25 year-old man was convicted of plotting to kill Jews with an assault weapon. And in Beverly Hills on Nov. 28, a group calling itself the “Goyim Defense League” posted antisemitic flyers on cars blaming Jews for the coronavirus. (Jweekly, Forward)
L.A. just made a Jewish 'superdistrict' The new redistricting map adopted by the City Council this week redrew two districts to include more Jewish residents. Louis Keene, our Los Angeles-based reporter, has all the maps. It's all very wonky, until it's your sidewalk that needs fixing. (Forward)
Shiva call >Bruce Corwin’s license plate read “PEOPLE,” and when you met him, it just made sense. Corwin, a longtime Los Angeles and Santa Barbara philanthropist, died last month at 81. In a 2013 interview with the Jewish Journal, he said that rather than being known as a CEO, he preferred to “have a title as being a leader or a connector, or a spiritual adviser or a people person.” (LATimes)
HOLLYWOOD JEWS Why is Hollywood still hiring a raging antisemite?’ actor Joshua Malina asks in an opinion piece about Mel Gibson being tapped to direct the new installment of “Lethal Weapon.” Gibson has many Jewish defenders, but Malina makes a strong case. “It breaks my heart to ponder how many Jews must have been part of the process that led to Warner Bros.’ announcement,” Malina writes. (The Atlantic)
So why won't Mel Gibson be canceled? Writes Forward cultural reporter P.J. Grisar, "...like all human beings, those who know him personally believe they know him best. They likely think of the way he treats them, and can’t square it with the monster from the mugshot. This bias is human nature, but it’s also misleading and even dangerous." (Forward)
MATCHMAKER, MATCHMAKER If you make three successful matches, the Jewish legend goes, you will find a place in the world to come. I want to believe that, mostly because I’ve made two successful matches so far.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR Judy Chicago, she of the vagina plates and first-wave feminism, is having a first-ever retrospective at the DeYoung Museum. “It’s hard to overstate the exhibition’s significance,” writes Forward culture critic PJ Grisar. (DeYoung Museum, thru Jan. 9)
Ruth Gruber, a pioneering photojournalist who died in 2016 at the age of 105. Gruber “had the knack of being at the right place at the right time to change history,” wrote Benjamin Ivry in the Forward. You can see five decades of her work on display, IRL. (Holocaust Museum LA, Dec. 12, 2 p.m.)
@FOODAISM + FORWARD Khoreshte Sib Persian beef and apple stew,from Persian food blogger Tannaz Sassooni is going to be your new favorite late fall/winter recipe. I use Arkansas Black heirloom apples from Cuyama Orchards, via the Mar Vista Farmers Market. But any tart-sweet variety works. (Forward)
WE ALL NEED SOME INSPIRATION Rabbi Ed Feinstein, Valley Beth Shalom synagogue, Encino.
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