Los Angeles as the Center of American Jewish Life

If Hertz hadn't screwed up my car rental reservation, I never would have seen how much my old hometown, Los Angeles, had changed. There were no cars at all at LAX, so I had to Uber to my hotel in mid-Wilshire. I lived in LA for nearly two decades. I go back when I can. But I've never not had a car there. The architecture critic Reyner Banham said you have to learn Italian to understand Dante and you have to learn to drive to understand LA. But this time I walked, which is how I came to notice the differences I might otherwise have missed.