Reseda : Jewish Home Seniors Chitchat With Mayor

The Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda may have just about every on-site service and amenity conceivable, conceded Martha Goldberg as she stood waiting to greet the mayor of Los Angeles on Wednesday. There is a comprehensive medical clinic, a dining hall, a card shop, a hair salon, a bingo parlor.

But that doesn’t mean the 700-plus residents don’t care about the outside world, the 79-year-old Goldberg said.

“We are not an island. We like to know what’s happening on that City Council. We need to know what’s going on,” said Goldberg, the first woman ever elected president of the home’s resident council.

During the mayor’s visit, however, few pressed him on political or social issues, seemingly content to allow the mayor to press the flesh. After he arrived, Goldberg escorted him on a brief tour of the Eisenberg Village campus of the home where about 480 seniors live. They popped into the crafts room, where Riordan posed for a couple of photos. He then turned his attention to 90-year-old Alegre Abrahamy, who proudly proclaimed her recent United States citizenship.

“I’m from Panama,” Abrahamy said. “I used to come here all the time 30 years ago, but I never stayed more than five years. I just got my citizenship in February.” Riordan smiled and got straight to the point: “So who are you gonna vote for for mayor?” he asked her.

“I’m not telling,” she answered, quick as a whip.

Riordan made his way through the medical center, poked his head into a physical therapy room, checked out the dental clinic and a synagogue, and wound up in a large dining hall, where most of the residents were enjoying a meal of low-salt chicken franks and beans.

In a brief address to the lunch crowd--median age, 90--Riordan, who is single and turned 65 in May, joked that he had met “so many beautiful women here today, I put in my application to live here after I’m mayor.”