You don't have to worry as much about parking your car overnight west of Robertson. There are fewer break-ins. The streets are safer.

Most of the big shuls, including all of the Modern Orthodox shuls in the hood are west of Robertson.

After living east of Robertson for the past 14 years, I'm now staying west of Robertson and the air is great. It seems cleaner! The homes and yards are nicer. The people are nicer. You don't find the nasty ghetto west of Robertson.

I was walking Robertson Blvd tonight, coming home from the library. And it felt great to be on the safe side, the nice side, the respectable side of the great divide.

I looked in at the parking lot at YULA today and all the cars but one were nice. They were new and clean and some were luxury cars.

I want to belong to the respectable set. Now I just have to live a respectable life and hold down a respectable job and bingo! I'm there.

Once every ten years, new district lines are drawn for our representatives in Sacramento
and Washington. For decades, Orthodox Jewish voting power has been diluted because
our two largest neighborhoods – Hancock Park/Beverly-LaBrea/Fairfax and Pico-Robertson/Beverlywood/Beverly
Hills – have been placed in separate Assembly Districts.
The Opportunity . . .
A new Commission has been created to draw fair district lines without backroom deals.
We finally have an opportunity to unite our community into a single Assembly District
- and to increase our influence with our representatives in Sacramento. The would
mean more respect and assistance for our unique community.
In the first few draft maps, our two largest neighborhoods were placed in separate
districts. After receiving testimony and documentation by Agudath Israel, and letters
from organizations such as the Orthodox Union, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Hatzalah,
the Commission adjusted the lines to unify parts of our community.
But the current draft map chops Pico-Robertson/Beverlywood in half, with Beverlywood
and South-of-Pico placed in a District with Culver City, Baldwin Hills and the Crenshaw
area. We want to unite our community in a single district, BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP!
votersfirstact@crc.ca.gov [mailto:votersfirstact@crc.ca.gov].
The Commission resumes work soon, so please act quickly!
What to say . . .
1. Tell them where you live – Pico-Robertson, Beverlywood, Hancock Park, Beverly-Fairfax,
Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood, Santa Monica,
the Valley. Emails from Beverlywood and South-of-Pico are especially important.
(We are blessed to have significant communities in the Valley
and the far Westside. Geography prevents placing all in a single district. But
even those areas will benefit if our two large City neighborhoods are in
a single district.)
2. Tell them: The Fairfax/Hancock Park neighborhood and Pico-Robertson/Beverlywood
neighborhood constitute a single, integrated
community-of-interest (COI) with many shared institutions. The only way that the
Orthodox community will have a voice in the Assembly is if
Fairfax/Hancock Park and Pico-Robertson/Beverlywood are all in the "LAMWS" district.
3. Tell them your personal connections between these communities. Do you live
in one neighborhood and send your children to school in the
other? Shop in the other? Use a hospital in the other? Community activities?
Tomchei Shabbos? Hatzolah? Classes? Be specific. We need to
show that the neighborhoods interact and form a single community!
4. Tell them: Uniting our community in a single district will not weaken the
representation of any other minority group or community of
interest.
5. Thank them for putting some of Pico-Robertson into the "LAMWS" district,
but ask that they not divide Pico-Robertson/Beverlywood in half.
All of Pico-Robertson/Beverlywood should be in the "LAMWS" district, along with
Beverly-Fairfax, Hancock Park and Beverly Hills
6. Be respectful and appreciative. The 14 Commissioners must divide the whole
state, and none of them live in our neighborhoods. They do not
know us, so we need to educate them.
Supported by concerned Orthodox Jewish organizations in the Los Angeles Area.

Adeena Bleich and former Assembly Speaker
Bob Hertzberg at a bar mitzvah in Hancock Park.

If you want to really annoy Adeena Bleich, just ask her what it feels like to be a young Orthodox woman running for City Council. I know, because when we sat down recently for lunch at Shiloh's, the first thing I asked her is what it felt like to be a young Orthodox woman running for City Council.

She rolled her eyes like my teenage daughter Shanni does when I show off my knowledge of the latest music.

It's clear that Bleich is leery of being stereotyped, or worse, becoming some kind of political curiosity whose main calling card is her youth (she just turned 31), gender and Orthodox religion.

What she is, she says, is something a lot less dramatic: A hard-working individual who knows how local politics work and who wants to bring a new, practical attitude to serving the people.

All the people, of course.

Although she estimates that nearly half of the registered voters in her 5th District (which cuts a wide swath from West Los Angeles through Westwood, Pico-Robertson, the Fairfax area and right up to Sherman Oaks) are Jewish, she's savvy enough to realize that Jews alone won't carry her to victory. So Bleich, who is single and belongs to three Modern Orthodox shuls in Pico-Robertson (Young Israel of Century City, Beth Jacob Congregation and B'nai David Judea) wants to reach out.

She's not exactly a novice at this game. She spent years as City Council Deputy to Councilman Jack Weiss— and was knee-deep in the local dramas of neighborhood groups, pro-business groups and the maze of City Hall politics. She was also in the trenches with former Speaker of the California Assembly Bob Hertzberg when he ran for mayor of Los Angeles.

So she knows the lingo, and she also knows that she's up against some serious competition — from, among others, former city councilman Paul Koretz and neighborhood activist Ron Galperin. But she has no qualms about asking for your vote, because, as she says, she's got some great things cooking for your district and your neighborhood.

7. Pico-Robertson, Los Angeles

For decades, Jews have congregated near where Pico Boulevard meets Robertson Boulevard in West L.A. Of late, the community has grown exponentially, yet it still gives off the comforting sense that you are among brethren. Clustered within a mile-long strip between Beverly Drive to the west and La Cienega Boulevard to the east are a slew of synagogues, kosher markets, and eateries from fast food to fine dining. There are also Judaica stores, wig and dress shops, countless schools—even, a few blocks farther, the Museum of Tolerance and Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Most shuls are Orthodox, with every variation represented from Persian Chabad to the Carlebachian Happy Minyan, which meets in a Jewish-owned karate dojo. There are both old-school frum-from-birthers and a growing wave of ba'alei tshuva, newly observant returners to the faith who congregate at Aish HaTorah and several Modern Orthodox shuls. Housing is relatively expensive: Glamorous Beverly Hills starts one block north, and Beverlywood, an equally exclusive area, begins several blocks south; in between are "modest million-dollar homes," small in size but big in price, as well as apartments popular with singles and young families.

At-a-Glance Essentials:
• Epicenter: Roughly the intersection of Pico and Robertson boulevards.
• Downside: Pico is a somewhat unsightly boulevard that becomes highly congested during peak hours. Smart shoppers avoid the pre-Shabbat rush.
• Contacts:
  The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles (www.jewishla.org)
  L.A. Jewish Guide (www.lajewishguide.com)
• More: Click here (PDF) for further information on this neighborhood.

Unfortunately, these new friends did not include the other rabbis in Pico/Robertson.

Rabbi Muskin at Young Israel of Century City (YICC) felt like Rabbi Weil did not give him sufficient kovod (honor) as the senior Modern Orthodox rabbi of the neighborhood.

Rabbi Weil began referring to Rabbi Muskin in uncomplimentary terms, words that I can’t use on a family-friendly blog such as this one.

This absence of a loving relationship particularly gnawed on Rabbi Muskin who often confided to his congregants how much it hurt him that Rabbi Weil didn’t seek him out.

Rabbi Weil didn’t give a flip.

At a meeting with Christian Zionists a couple of months ago, Rabbi Weil said something that caused a fellow rabbi in the ‘hood to walk out.

Rabbi Weil does not have warm relations with any other synagogue rabbi in Pico/Robertson.

Rabbi Muskin is an intense man who likes to run things. His shul does not need an executive director. Rabbi Muskin does that job. Rabbi Muskin runs his shul, not the shul’s board of directors. Rabbi Muskin runs the simchas (celebrations) of his congregants. They get in big trouble if they try to hold a simcha outside the shul. Rabbi Muskin has a particular vision for his community — a community that I loved during my year there — and he enforces it.

YICC and Bnai David-Judea have excellent relations. Even though Bnai David is too liberal for Rabbi Muskin’s tastes, his criticisms are muted at best.

Members of the three Modern Orthodox shuls in Pico/Robertson often hang out with each other, as do members of the two chareidi non-Hasidic shuls — Aish HaTorah and Anshe Emet.

Rabbi Daniel Korobkin, the likely next rabbi of Beth Jacob (which has about 800 member families, many on paper only, and a budget twice that of the other Modern Orthodox shuls in the hood), has excellent relations with the rabbis at Bnai David and YICC.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Weil will run the Orthodox Union. I predict he’ll do a great job. He’s the CEO type more than the pastoral care type. He delegated the visiting the sick type stuff to Rabbi Marc Mandel.

Rabbi Weil has an MBA. He loves to run things by delegating. He prefers to concentrate on the big picture and the big donors.

Beth Jacob now has four minyans on Shabbat. A year ago, Young Israel of Century City added a young professionals minyan and a few months later Beth Jacob followed suit. For a while it had an age limit (35 or something), but that’s been dropped. Beth Jacob is going to hire an assistant rabbi to cater to this minyan.

Most of the young single women go to the Happy Minyan or Bnai David (and a few at Aish, almost none to Beth Jacob and YICC).