Vanity Fair car columnist Brett Berk made it to LA, and we followed up on the original story, of my car dilemma. Read the first article, if you haven’t, in order for this one to make even more sense. I ended up riding in the Acura, a Cadillac, and the new Buick Lacrosse. The Lacrosse is the best GM car I ever drove. Read below for more:
What Should a Rabbi Drive II: Test Ride Edition
by Brett Berk
You should remember my high school friend Rabbi Yonah Bookstein from this recent piece where you, my delicious readers, voted him in the direction of some new wheels. Your top picks, in case you’ve forgotten, were a Cadillac and an Acura. Since I was in L.A the other week, where Mr. Seymour Torah resides, I contacted the folks from these brands, did a Hebe-gathering drive-by, and hit the test-ride circuit with the Rebbe for a little U.S. vs Japan playoff.
Our first stop was a kosher restaurant in what Yonah refers to as the ’Chood—the Jewy West Side neighborhood where he lives. Since it was Sukkot, a holiday meant to “celebrate” our peoples’ four decades of wandering in the desert, we ate out in the sun inside a flimsy hut. Joining us for lunch was John Kiewicz, Acura’s p.r. mensch, and he brought his full-on Aleph-game: an RL for us to drive, a corporate card to buy our meal, and a Letterman-style Rabbi-Ride Top 10 list, including gems like “the RL’s active noise cancellation will allow the Rabbi to better hear advice from his back-seat-sitting mother-in-law”. Yonah was plotzing before we even got behind the wheel.
Gershon
10/30/2009
You should be like me and drive a diesel. 45+mpg, and the new Jetta is quiet as a mouse.
Larry
10/30/2009
Speaking of southern california and autos and rabbis…. what is up with that shooting at the North Hollywood synagogue on Thursday morning? Was it taregted? anti Jewish motivated? random? a bad business deal? Did the victim know the shooter? And what about the postponed bar mitzvah?
You should get a safe car. After reading all the antiJewish comments in the LA TIMES as replies to the shooting story, u gotta watch your back.
themiddle
10/30/2009
Larry, do you have a link to those comments?
themiddle
10/30/2009
You know, I kinda skipped your first post on this, so I only got around to reading the Vanity Fair articles for the first time now. What fun and well written pieces! I would have narrowed it to the Infinity and the Acura, although I have rented the Buick LaCrosse and it’s a mighty fine car as well.