It was dicey being Jewish in a Russia that was tolerant of pogroms, and then came the threat of conscription into the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese War, so one of Mayor Eric Garcetti's great-grandfathers headed west to America. Another Garcetti great-grandfather married a Mexican woman who, fleeing revolutionary ferment there, headed north to America. Which is why Garcetti, a fourth-generation resident of the world's most polyglot city, is as American as a kosher burrito, a delicacy available at Mexikosher on Pico Boulevard.
Trim, natty — colorful socks are, alas, fashionable — and with the polish of one born to public attention (his father Gil was L.A.'s district attorney who prosecuted O. J. Simpson), Garcetti, like dozens of Democrats who have noticed recent presidential history, is asking: Why not me?
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