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When Videotaping Goes Bad

Loren Kantor
Los Angeles Stories
13 min readJan 2, 2025
The Beverly Wilshire Hotel, site of Nathan Spiegel’s bar mitzvah reception.

The first rule of videotaping a bar mitzvah is learn who the parents are. They’re the ones who pay you and they expect to see themselves on video as much as possible. I learned this the hard way while taping Nathan Spiegel’s 1987 bar mitzvah reception. The event took place at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel not long after it was featured in the film Beverly Hills Cop. The location teemed with decked-out guests and tourists all looking like low-level gangsters.

My partner for the day was my old high school friend Julien. We often taped weddings and parties together for extra money. As we entered the hotel, we learned there were three bar mitzvah receptions that day. We asked the concierge about the Spiegel event. He said we needed to get security clearance first. Nathan’s father was an Israeli macher who once served in the Knesset (the Israeli legislature). I got the gig because Mr. Spiegel and my grandfather belonged to the same synagogue.

A security guard took our photos, copied our driver’s licenses and gave us name tags. We entered the main ballroom foyer just as hors d’oeuvres were being served. Guests hovered around the food trays trying to identify the mystery meat. I asked Julien to locate Mr. and Mrs. Spiegel. He dove into the crowd while I sought an outlet to charge our battery and portable light. I stashed our equipment behind a raised platform where a three-piece…

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Loren Kantor
Loren Kantor

Written by Loren Kantor

Loren is a writer and woodcut artist based in Los Angeles. He teaches printmaking and creative writing to kids and adults.

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