California
Where some came for gold, we came for America.
San Francisco · Sacramento · Los Angeles · Lake Tahoe · Napa Valley
The Journey
California is too large and varied to feel like one state.
Visiting Los Angeles and Hollywood was a cultural experience in itself, adding another layer to my already large bucket of American pride and curiosity.
In San Francisco, standing with the girls overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge gave us one of those noteworthy California views. The bridge, the hills, the water, and the city stretched out around us in a scene we had seen countless times in photographs, yet somehow felt completely different in person. The girls ran around freely while I stood there taking in the view, with them in the middle of it.
At Fisherman’s Wharf, we spent time watching the sea lions gathered along the waterfront. It felt like an underrated wildlife experience hidden inside one of America’s great cities, and we loved it.
Then there was nature. The national parks, mountains, coastline, and enormous open landscapes were an experience of their own. California constantly seemed to change around us.
Our time in Napa Valley was especially memorable. We tasted fresh grapes straight from the vine, experienced the vineyards and local wineries, and took in a landscape that felt almost magical.
In Sacramento, we visited the State Capitol, continuing our journey through every capital in America.
Everywhere we went, California seemed to become another California. Enormous cities, quiet towns, vineyards, mountains, coastline, desert, culture, nature, history, and innovation. We left knowing that we had barely scratched the surface.
Jewish California
Jewish California felt as varied as the state itself.
In Los Angeles, we spent Shabbat at Young Israel of North Beverly Hills with Rabbi Pini Dunner and his wife. Around us were people whose lives had crossed very different corners of American Jewish life, including Judge Alex Kozinski and Alan Dershowitz. Sitting together, talking about California, Jewish history, law, community, and the Jewish experience in the West made the story feel much more alive than simply reading about it.
That story goes back to California’s earliest days. Jews arrived during the Gold Rush as merchants, entrepreneurs, and community builders. In San Francisco, Congregation Emanu El was established in 1850, the same year California entered the Union.
Walking through San Francisco and later encountering Jewish life there through Chabad, I was struck by how far those early roots had grown. Today, California is home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the world, with major communities in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento, and beyond.
What stayed with me was how naturally the Jewish story fit into the larger California story. People came west from somewhere else, planted roots in unfamiliar ground, and built something that eventually became part of the identity of the state itself.
What Stayed With Me
California is difficult to reduce to one takeaway.
There was simply too much. Rugged desert mountains, the snow covered peaks around Lake Tahoe, metropolitan Los Angeles, quiet little towns, the vineyards of Napa Valley, and even the mud bath in Calistoga I had been dreaming about for years, letting me feel like Louis Litt from Suits for a minute. Everywhere we went was filled with color, culture, nature, and life.
But one moment comes back to me most clearly.
Standing above the Golden Gate Bridge and watching Rachel and Leah run around in front of me, I thought about how far this journey had taken us. We had started from home in New York, at the edge of the Atlantic, and now we were standing with our children at the other edge of the country, looking out toward the Pacific.
For a moment, the entire distance of America felt real. And it was beautiful.
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