LA Mayor Gets Bar Mitzvahed

By COLlive reporter

A small group of highly motivated Chassidic rabbis were seen walking up the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall on Monday afternoon.

Their objective: Get Mayor Eric Garcetti Bar Mitzvahed.

They came equipped with a new shiny pair of Tefillin with Garcetti’s name and the city’s emblem embroidered on the navy velvet bag.

Garcetti, elected in May 2013 as the city’s first elected Jewish mayor and its youngest in more than a century, was game and welcomed them with an open arm.

Head Shliach Rabbi Shlomo Cunin, Director of Chabad of the West Coast, helped the Mayor don his new Tefillin for the first time in his life and together they recited the Shema Yisrael prayer.

Present were Rabbi Moshe Greenwald, Director of Chabad of Downtown Los Angeles and Rabbi Sholom Cunin, Director of Chabad of Holmby Hills, CA.

The 43-year-old Garcetti was visibly moved and asked to say a prayer for world peace and for “an end to all the chaos we are hearing about today.”

“The Mayor was very appreciative and said this was a special day for him,” Rabbi Greenwald told COLlive.com.

In fact, the Mayor was so proud of the Mitzvah he’s done that he called his mother Sukey Roth who is of Russian Jewish descent. She wished the Bar Mitzvah boy “a big Mazal Tov” and thanked Rabbi Cunin for his good work.