"Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews foiled Nazi Plots against Hollywood & America"- U.S.C. Prof. Steven Ross

(photo: The Daily Beast)

The chilling, little-known story of the rise of Nazism in Los Angeles, and the Jewish leaders and spies they recruited who stopped it.   

No American city was more important to the Nazis than Los Angeles, home to Hollywood, the greatest propaganda machine in the world. The Nazis plotted to kill the city's Jews and to sabotage the nation's military installations: plans

existed for murdering twenty prominent Hollywood figures such as James Cagney, Charlie Chaplin, Al Jolson, and Samuel Goldwyn;  for driving through Boyle Heights and machine-gunning as many Jews as possible;  and for blowing up defense installations and seizing munitions from National Guard armories along the Pacific Coast.

anti-Nazis Leon Lewis (middle) and Charlie Chaplin (right)
were targeted by Hitler and the Nazis. (photo: NY Post)

U.S. law enforcement agencies were not paying close attention—preferring to monitor Reds rather than Nazis —and only attorney Leon Lewis and his daring ring of spies stood in the way. From 1933 until the end of World War II, Lewis, the man Nazis would come to call “the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles,” ran a spy operation comprised of military veterans and their wives who infiltrated every Nazi and fascist group in Los Angeles. Often rising to leadership positions, they uncovered and foiled the Nazi's disturbing plans for death and destruction. 

Featuring a large cast of Nazis, undercover agents, and colorful supporting players, the Los Angeles Times bestselling Hitler in Los Angeles, by acclaimed historian Steven J. Ross, tells the story of Lewis's daring spy network in a time when hate groups had moved from the margins to the mainstream.

Prof. Steven J. Ross, author and U.S.C. professor

Steven J. Ross is Dean's Professor of History and the Marion and Mayron Casden Director of the Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life. Steve's most recent book, "Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America" (Bloomsbury Press), was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History for 2018, and received the Richard Wall Memorial Award, Theater Library Association for 2018. It was on the Los Angeles Times Best Seller list for 23 weeks. Ross is currently working on a follow up volume signed by Bloomsburg Press, The War Against Hate: American Resistance to Anti-Semitism and White Supremacy After 1945.

At Temple of the Arts' Kristallnacht Memorial Service, in November 2019, Prof. Steven Ross introduces the presentation he's about to deliver on L.A.'s civilian spies against Hitler.

 

Introduced by Rabbi David Baron, Univ. of Southern California Prof. Steven Ross delivers at (Beverly Hills Temple of the Arts) his "Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews foiled Nazi Plots against Hollywood & America" presentation 

  

Why did German-Americans embrace and assist Adolph Hitler in his quest? How did German Nazi-collaborators attempt to intimidate Americans into subjugation to Nazism and Axis-powers' fascism? What, if anything, was particular about Nazi-activists in Hollywood / Los Angeles, California? How did Jewish movie studio managers oppose Nazism before Washington entered the war? How did Washington's Movie Code restrict them from producing movies to raise public awareness about the Imperial conquest of Europe and Asia? What were the Nazi-American's plots to conquer America? How did the FBI treat these threats? How did Jews and Gentile American patriots get involved to thwart these plans? To what effect? 

1933 US Nazis plot against Hollywood & America: How civilian Jews & Gentiles foiled them- Steve Ross Interview with author, Prof. Steven Ross. 

  

Film editor, Edward Orshan, 87 (z'l) laid to rest by family and members of The Happy (Carlebach) Minyan of Los Angeles

      Edward Orshan, 87, of Los Angeles

Deaths in the JooTube family (not pictured) have curtailed our publishing on this website over the past 12 months. We have concentrated on Facebook and YouTube, where we have been subjected to censorship,so we will be resuming publishing on the website and other social-media networks (which we will indicate here).  Thank you for your patience in the delay of publishing some 2019 and 2020 anticipated stories this year.

"Grateful" Edward Orshan, 87, who earned degrees from Princeton and Harvard, edited film and television in New York, Israel ("Michael SheLi"/ "My Michael"), and Hollywood, was a beloved member of The Happy (Carlebach) Minyan of Los Angeles.

Happy Minyanaires, Stuart Wax with Ed Orshan

Friends and family gathered on Tuesday, January 26th to celebrate his life with eulogies and prayer. Ed's son Gabriel attended, others participated via Zoom - which will be linked here soon. Ed passed away peacefully in his sleep on the same Shabbos (10th Shevat) as Larry King. That calendar day is also the yahrzeit of the Friediker Rebbe (Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson), and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The funeral was facilitated by Mordechai Freeman, who led the team assisting Ed's healthcare over the past few years.

Mordechai (Marc) Freeman

Rabbi Yonah Bookstein officiated. Chazan Yehuda ("Moshav Band") Solomon led El Male Rachamim and other prayers and chantings.

Eulogists included Geborah Goldberger, Jonathan Boyer, David Sacks, Jeff Rohatiner, Zalman Solomon, and bereaved son Gabriel. Ed is also survived by his former-wife, Nan, and sons Nathaniel and Itai (in Israel) who watched the funeral via Zoom.

Ed Orshan
(photo: Geborah Goldberger)

 

Ed Orshan worked with John Avildsen (1977 Oscar for Best Director "Rocky") and also appeared as an actor (with Norman Wexler) in Jack O'Connell's 1961 independent feature,"THE GREENWICH VILLAGE STORY." 

This brief scene was filmed in the Figaro Cafe on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal Streets.