“I’m moving out,” says an acquaintance. “I moved here to meet girls but it is just too crowded. There are too many lines just to go to the supermarket. Too many cars. I’m moving away. I’ll come here once a month for a social weekend.”
A friend: “I don’t like the perfect Jews. Everybody’s like, the kids are gifted and they go to the best schools. You are in a fishbowl. God forbid you go out on Shabbat outside of your house and you’re wearing shorts. Acch, I can’t eat at your house.
“I know all the people who are in power now. They were always snobby. There are parents at Harkham Hillel who are not observant. We have friends in Pico/Rob who will eat at Souplantation and they’ll drive on Shabbat.
“I have a feeling that the people who are in the power structure at Bnai David are very much into your business.”
Levi: “I didn’t find that. I often wore a suit that had holes in it, or an untucked shirt, and nobody made fun of me. It’s just a bunch of nice people. I don’t think they pry.”
Friend: “Bnai David is suffocating. It’s too much. Pico/Rob is too crowded. There’s no open space. There’s Circle Park and there’s Roxbury Park. And that’s it. You feel like you are in New York.
“Every major synagogue in Pico/Robertson is run to succeed. Bnai David has realized that its charter is married families with kids. Beth Jacob is somewhat Death Jacob though to some extent Rabbi Weil has gotten his share of the young marrieds, the ones not smart enough to make it at Bnai David, the ones who are not lawyers and engineers and run their own businesses.
“You know the three shortest books? Jewish Business Ethics. Italian War Heroes. Blacks I’ve Met While Yachting.
“After viewing that thing in Loma Linda University where your dad was speaking, it’s ‘Blacks I met While Being An Adventist.’ You guys don’t take them? It’s too cerebral?”
Levi: “They have their own churches.”
Friend: “That crowd is the Republican party’s wetdream. It’s not even homogeneous. They even have the same color grey hair. They wear the same crappy clothes from JC Pennys. It looked like the Twilight Zone.
“Why don’t you like that religion?”
Levi: “The chicks are hot. But you’re out of it. There are no great Seventh-Day Adventist politicians, generals, financiers, directors, producers, writers, painters, journalists. When you’re Jewish, you are right in the middle of what’s happening.”
Friend: “Give it some time.”
Levi: “They’ve been around 170 years. They’ll always be out of it. It’s an eschatological religion. It’s about the next world.”
Friend: “They’re waiting for Hale Bob to come down and land and take them away?”
Levi: “Yes.”
Friend: “It seems like a lot of people leave. I have a friend who was an Adventist. To this day, he’s a vegetarian, but he’s like, ‘Ahh, those people, forget about it.'”
Levi: “They’re nice sweet simple people.”
Friend: “But there’s no action?”
Levi: “Yeah. But a lot of hot chicks.”
Friend: “But they’re all white.”
Levi: “No. A lot of Asians. My Yellow Fever was burning up while I was there. I went to the Korean church and I was in shangrila.”
