Thank God This Is Almost Over

GONZO

Attending the Jewish Federation of LA Mayoral Forum

By Coast Enjoyer · October 3, 2026 · 6 min read

The 2026 Los Angeles Jewish Federation mayoral forum: Incumbent Karen Bass v. Councilwoman Nithya Raman at the notoriously Jewish Skirball Cultural Center, nestled in the hills above less notoriously Jewish Bel Air.

I had received an email from one of the countless listservs I’m on with an invitation for the event. Despite being far from enthusiastic about casting a ballot for either of the far-left candidates, I knew one of these women would be lording over me for the next four years and felt some sense of civic responsibility to attend. Bass and Raman will go head-to-head three times before the November election, this being the second. The race represents a DNC power struggle between the old-guard establishment far-left progressives and the new, rising far-left DSA. They differ on very few positions but diverge drastically on Israel. This forum could be a preview of the 2028 Democratic primaries.

The 1,000-capacity Guerin Pavilion was packed full. A rabbi gave a short speech asking everyone to remain civil: zero tolerance for clapping, booing, jeering, or holding up any political signage while each candidate was on stage, but that was ultimately not enforced. Both candidates were presented with the same set of questions from the moderator, Alex Cohen (who we were informed several times was “Emmy-winning”), followed by another round of questions from three Jewish community leaders. Cohen emphasized to the audience that this was explicitly not a debate, and with that, the boxing bell sounded, Cohen clarifying that the bell did not, in fact, mean it was a fight.

The audience was entirely Jewish. Attendees were well-dressed, many in suits, arriving straight from their jobs as lawyers, fund managers, agents, executives, or wealthy retirees. It seemed like every other person knew each other. These were mostly not yarmulke-wearing religious Jews, but rather the urban coastal secular Jews that have been a major Dem voting bloc since Woodrow Wilson.

Cohen’s questions focused on affordability, safety, and the Jewish community, but she started by asking how both candidates would appeal to the 30% of undecided voters who were formerly for Spencer Pratt. Both candidates avoided answering that question entirely.

Raman addressed questions about affordability and the rise of hate against Jews with vague platitudes about opening new offices and agencies, peppering in a few equally vague anecdotes about having always stood with the Jews. During her unintelligible circumlocution, talking through her teeth while maintaining her very rigid posture, a smattering of claps were emitted by her own entourage and no one else. Right before Raman spoke vaguely about having LAPD cut ties with ICE and lying about her history of blocking forced cleanups of homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools, Cohen asked her one question she did not ask Bass: What was the deal with her relationship with Hasan Piker? Does she endorse his views? Does she think Israel is committing genocide?

Palpable tension fell over the crowd; the Piker question is what they’d been waiting for. After a failed attempt to dance around the question and being pushed again by Cohen, she confirmed that she does agree with Piker on certain issues, unspecified, and that she does believe Israel is committing genocide. This resulted in the largest outburst of the night: booing, jeering, groaning, a few old men obstinately holding up thumbs-downs in frowny Ashkenazi fashion. Raman had lost the room; a room, again, full mostly of very liberal Jews. Follow-up questions about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which she supports “as a form of free speech,” didn’t help. Raman gave her closing remarks and stated what was clearly her motive for attending this forum: to fight against the DSA’s newfound reputation for antisemitism, something that apparently requires a nationally coordinated campaign.

Thus, the setup for Bass could not have been more favorable. She was lounging on the white cushioned chair, a stark contrast to Raman’s rigidity. At one point, Bass made a bad joke, “Thank God this is almost over,” which Cohen then tried to push her to explain, but Bass just laughed it off without a hitch, disarming the inquisitorial moderator in a way her predecessor couldn’t. Bass addressed her failings in handling the fires of 2025 that destroyed the Pacific Palisades, claiming to have learned her lesson, but staying vague on what exactly the lesson was. Whether Bass is to be believed or trusted ever again felt secondary to how much better an orator she was than Raman. While Bass danced around the genocide question, she did say she would oppose any BDS legislation that came to her desk, and that was good enough to end her segment with an eruption of applause.

I entered and left a fan of neither. Coming into this environment could be considered brave for Raman, but courage without adequate preparation is near to foolishness. Raman’s performance aside, it is clearer than ever that a day of reckoning for Democrat Jews is near. November will indicate which direction the DNC is heading: new-school “anti-Zionism” through gritted teeth, or old-school corrupt glad-handing via laughing minority charisma. American Jews have always been completely fine with the latter, even extremely supportive of it, but it is hard to imagine them ever enthusiastically supporting the former, no matter how stylish it becomes among liberal elites. And thus the American Jew, like the Democratic Party, truly does stand at a crossroads. Will the Dems abandon their cash cow that has made them flush with activist funds for so many decades? Will Jewish liberals one day wake up and realize Trump was right all along? Both seem completely impossible. But here we are.

While Democrat candidates have reliably tallied upward of 70% of the American Jewish vote since the 10/7 massacre, certain publicly “anti-Zionist” candidates like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and recent Michigan DNC Senate primary winner Abdul El-Sayed lost the Jewish vote to their fellow Democrat opponents by substantial margins but still won those elections. The LA mayoral election will be another ideological litmus test for the DNC and for liberal Jews hoping to “vote blue no matter who” while maintaining plausible deniability regarding their chosen candidate’s stance on Israel. Raman may have been brave, but ill-advised in expressing her honest opinion on Israel and Gaza.

Or was she? Jews’ problem has always been a demographic one. They have the influence, but at 5% of the LA population (3% of California, 2% of America), they don’t have the voter numbers for candidates to really care all that much. Bass is savvier, while not necessarily holding different beliefs. But that’s not the question. Disgust with Jews is a magnetic position, whether it comes from ethnic contempt or class resentment. The Dems have learned that it’s a strong motivator for the young, far-left voters like Piker who seem to be ascendant. The question is how much of that will be overt and how much subtle. Thank God this is almost over.