Folks,
“Oh, today will merry, merry be,” goes the classic Purim song. And merry it will be, as on Purim day, a few hours from this writing, I will receive my second dose of vaccine. The Purim story, as I heard again last night, is one of deliverance, and on my drive home after the injection, I hope to feel rescued from the cruelest of Hamans: COVID-19. For those of you working to bring this deliverance to more people: L’chayim.
This publication could use a little deliverance too. During the pandemic, I have continued publishing each month, trying to add a little Jewish light to your days. Help keep that light on— become a paid subscriber. It’s been wonderful having you as a free reader, but I cannot continue without your financial support, nor can I can continue to carry you. If you have been reading each month, even passing MegilLA along to others, I need your support. Please push the SUBSCRIBE button below.
Happy Purim.
Shabbat shalom.
Vintage menu serves up a scoopful of good humor
Edmon J. Rodman
In a Purim season when smiles are hard to come by, a 1940s menu from a chain of Jewish-owned ice cream shops serves up a triple scoop of laughs. In the 1940s, Punch & Judy Ice Cream Parlors, with a selection of frozen concoctions like “Hawaiian Hula Lulu,” “Crocodile Snifter Sundeas,” and “Idiot’s Dream” kept their customers on a sugar and humor high.
Created by restaurateur Art Whizin, one of his ice cream “productions” called a “Moron’s Ecstasy,” even made the cover of Life magazine.
A “Moron’s Ecstasy” consisted of eight flavors of ice cream, “approximately a quart,” and eight fruit and nut toppings. Before ordering one, the menu gives this notice: “The management assumes no responsibility of any kind, shape or manner. Any person moron enough to finish a Moron’s Ecstasy is eligible for membership in the ‘Royal Order of Morons.’ Signed Rigor Mortis.” This exercise in mega-consumption cost $1.00.
Angelenos will probably best remember Whizin today from Whizin’s Cornell Corners restaurant (now closed) located just off the Ventura Freeway, today's Whizin Market Square in Agoura, and through American Jewish University’s Whizin Center for Continuing Education. He will also be remembered as the man who in 1963 made his property available for the Renaissance Pleasure Faire.
The odd ambience of the parlors went beyond the menu. Each was housed inside a roundish free-standing building that was shaped like a chili bowl, and for good reason. In the 1930s, Whizin, a former amateur boxer, and bakery owner had found earlier success by creating a chain of restaurants shaped like chili bowls, that served an Americanized style of chili.
After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he closed them, thinking he was off to war, but he was not able to enlist, probably due to his age. Though he re-opened one location, he grew tired of serving chili, and cast about for a new food service idea.
His new venture was summed up in this verse from the top of his menu “From now on it’s no dream, It’s Punch and Judy ice cream.”
In a time when ventriloquist dummies like Charlie McCarthy and Howdy Doody were popular, Whizin, used Punch and Judy, two well-known and historic puppets as a theme around which to launch his ice cream parlors. The menu builds on the theme with a “Punch Delight,” a “Judy Special,” as well as Constable, Ghost, and Crocodile-themed treats; all characters from a classic Punch and Judy show.
Updating the puppet theme, Whizin added a new character, “Kid Moron,’ a big-eared, goofy-faced hand puppet, to the mix. Available for $2.95 plus tax, “He does everything but breathe,” says the copy on one of the parlor’s menus.
Arthur Whizin was born in Brooklyn January 15, 1906 (He died in 1994), the son of a Jewish Polish immigrant watchmaker. He quit school when he was 14, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. “I stayed in the eight grade two terms before I decided it wasn’t for me. I was too ambitious,” said Whizin.
At age 16, Art and his older brother Charles, packed up their clothes, pooled their resources, bought a used Model T, and headed for LA. After an accident in the Midwest totaled the car, they bought train tickets and arrived in LA in the spring of 1923.
Art looked for work as a mechanic, couldn’t find any, and found a job in the bakery business baking pies. In five years, he saved enough money to buy out the owner. A year later, he sold it, and took a job in a meat packing plant.
With a dream of going into the restaurant business, two years later, he quit the packing plant, and bought a hot dog stand at the corner of Pico and Redondo. Soon enough he had made enough money to open his first Chili Bowl at the corner of Crenshaw and Jefferson. In ten years, he built a chain of 23 Chile Bowls employing 120 people.
Chili Bowl restaurants had no tables, and were arranged with 26 stools around a circular counter. The idea for the restaurant’s design, according to a piece by Steve Harvey in the LA Times, was inspired by a truck driver who slid over a chili bowl and said, "here Whizin, do something with this.” During a time when vernacular roadside eateries shaped like hot dogs, and ice cream cones were very popular, Whizin added a bowl-shaped design to the urban landscape.
What happened to the Punch & and Judy parlors? In the post WWII real estate boom, the property they stood on became more valuable than the business, Whizin sold them, and invested in land in Agoura.
Four Chili Bowl structures survive, with one on Pico Boulevard east of Bundy now housing a Japanese restaurant.
In LA Jewish life, much of Whizin’s work also survives, and thrives. He was among the original 15 members of the Valley Jewish Community Center, which later became Temple Adat Ari El, where he served as president, and was a major donor. He was a founder and key funder of the University of Judaism.
As for those who felt that downing a quart of ice cream plus fruit was beyond their calorie count; not to worry. Whizin also offered a “1/2 Wit’s Pacifier,” which contained half the ingredients of a Moron’s Ecstasy for only 50 cents.
Torah on the Streets of LA
In a time when we can all use a little more light, the opening verses of Tetzaveh, this week’s Torah portion, instruct the high priest Aaron and his sons about the lamps inside the tent of meeting. They are directed to use clear olive oil for this Ner Tamid, and it is to burn before the Ark “from evening to morning,” throughout the ages. You can imagine that this ever-burning light was a source of inspiration–a sign that a higher force was around you–even in the darkest of times. A mural painted on a wall just off of Pico, similarly, lights up your day. With three radiating Shabbat candles and the message to “Spread Light,” the artist Sheina Dorn, projects a multi-colored message of light and joy. And just to make sure you know when to the light your own beacons, she has included a decidedly non-digital way to update the week’s Shabbat candle lighting time. (As time marches on from the time this photo was taken, this Friday it’s 5:28)
Justice, justice, he shall pursue
Will Merrick Garland be pursuing justice as the next U.S. attorney general? With support from several Republican senators, Garland’s confirmation seems assured. “His experience reflects his wide-based legal knowledge and his unbiased application of the law,” said Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) who sits on the Senate Judiciary committee.
If confirmed, Garland would be the fourth Jew to lead the U.S. Justice Department, with Edward H. Levi, (1975-1977), Michael Mukasey (2007-2009) and Jeffrey A. Rosen (Acting AG) 2020-2021, having held the post before him.
Merrick Brian Garland was born in Chicago and raised in the northern suburb of Lincolnwood. He had his bar mitzvah at a Conservative synagogue. Garland and his wife, Lynn Roseman, also a Jewish Harvard alum, met at a rehearsal dinner where they were seated together. They married in 1987 in a Jewish ceremony with Reform rabbi, Charles Lippman, officiating.
Garland’s Jewish heritage has played an important role in his decision to seek public service. During the first day of Senate hearings, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker asked Garland to share a private conversation they had about his family history in confronting hate and discrimination. In response, Garland, fighting back tears, explained why leading the Justice Department was so important to him.
“I come from a family where my grandparents fled anti-Semitism and persecution,” Garland said, choking up. “The country took us in and protected us. I feel an obligation to the country to pay back, and this is the highest, best use of my own set of skills to pay back.”
Remembering Theodore Bikel
rtist/Activist/Idealist, will be presented on Zoom Thursday, March 4, 5 p.m.to 6:15 p.m. PST by the UCLA Hillel Dortort Center for the Arts. Theodore Bikel (1924-2015) was a legendary Academy, Emmy, Tony and Grammy Award-nominated Actor and folksinger; a civil rights, peace, and Jewish activist; and a devoted labor union leader. In a program of storytelling and music, his wife, Aimee Ginsburg Bikel, alongside Peter Yarrow, Arlo Guthrie, Daniel Kahn and friends pay tribute to Bikel "the singer of his people." Register HERE for Zoom meeting.
Seen on the Way/ Pico/Robertson
In English, the Hebrew on the bus bench reads: "Love your neighbor as yourself."