A Trip Whose Time Hasn’t Come : Mayor: Tom Bradley risks alienating Los Angeles’ Jewish community with his wooingof Saudi investment.

Efforts to rehabilitate Tom Bradley’s image, after a year of investigations into his private business dealings, face a tough test in the Jewish community, a loyal constituency of the mayor’s since 1973.

The problem stems from Bradley’s week-long visit to Saudi Arabia (ending today), where he met with business and government officials at the invitation of Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Bandar is currently spearheading a Saudi campaign to obtain billions of dollars worth of U.S. weapons by directly appealing to the American people to pressure Congress to give them to his country. When touring defense plants he has urged union leaders to help him fight the pro-Israel lobby by writing letters to their senators and representatives. The pitch is that a vote for Saudi arms is a vote for American jobs.

The stated purposes of Bradley’s city-funded trip, his first to Saudi Arabia, are to help the Saudis plan a June exhibition at the Convention Center, to stimulate Saudis to invest in the city and to promote more trade. Mark Fabiani, the mayor’s chief of staff and major architect in the efforts to revive Bradley politically, said that Bradley has been “actively encouraging” the Saudis for some time to invest in South-Central and East Los Angeles.

Possibly anticipating Jewish unhappiness with the visit, Fabiani said that “the mayor has been to Israel many times.” Such reassurances are unlikely to placate Bradley’s Jewish supporters, who still chafe at the mayor’s slowness to denounce Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan several years ago for making anti-Semitic remarks.

The risk for Bradley is that the mayor may become an economic pawn in the larger Saudi strategy of acquiring U.S. weaponry by putting pressure on Congress through a public-opinion campaign. Asking the Saudis to do what the American economy or government has not done in inner-city areas may be innovative. But the question is why the mayor waited 17 years to act and did so at a time when foreign investment is an increasingly volatile issue in the United States.

City Councilman Robert Farrell may be the latest politician to read the political handwriting on the wall and seek another office. The handwriting is a proposed initiative limiting city officeholders to two consecutive terms. Should it qualify for the November ballot and pass, Farrell’s 1991 re-election would be moot.

Farrell’s opportunity came when Rep. Augustus Hawkins announced his retirement from Congress. With Assemblyman Maxine Waters going for Hawkins’ seat, Farrell has joined the candidate line to succeed her.

Farrell insists that the term-limit initiative had nothing to so with his decision. It was simply “an opportunity to go partisan, and use my past experience.”

The ultraconservative California Republican Assembly will hold its endorsing convention next weekend in San Diego. Most statewide Republican candidates are expected to show up--except the party’s probable nominee for governor, Sen. Pete Wilson, and its sitting treasurer, Thomas Hayes. Historically, the CRA’s clout with the voters is minimal.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Van de Kamp, meanwhile, will be blessed by the California Teachers Assn. today. He is favored to win the state Democratic Party endorsement next month. The endorsements, though important, may not be decisive among voters.