'Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Names Isaias Hellman Created California,' by Frances Dinkelspiel

For that reason -- and because her story is impressively researched and engagingly told -- Frances Dinkelspiel, who is her subject's great-great-granddaughter, should be forgiven the histrionic subtitle of her new book, "Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California." Moreover, while no individual can creditably claim to be the Golden State's creator, Dinkelspiel does make a pretty good case that the pioneer entrepreneur and financier Hellman -- an intriguing and unjustly neglected figure in California history -- certainly was present at the creation of a great deal that came to count for a lot.

An L.A. original

In 1859, Isaias Hellman arrived in the rude frontier town of Los Angeles along with his brother Herman as poor immigrants from the Bavarian village of Reckendorf. (So many men from that place would come to play a role in the California economy that they became known as the "Reckendorf Aristocracy.") Soon, the Hellmans -- and particularly Isaias -- had moved from being employees of other German Jewish immigrants to their own businesses and, from there, into banking. Ultimately, Hellman controlled the West's three largest banks and provided financing -- and significant personal investment -- in such signature California enterprises as banking, water, electricity, transportation, oil and wine. He helped establish the University of California and USC and made a significant contribution to the schools that ultimately became Los Angeles Loyola University and high school.

The latter donation points to one of the singular things about Los Angeles in the mid- to late 19th century, which is that it was a place of unparalleled opportunity for Jewish immigrants. In fact, there were few, if any, social barriers in the rough-and-tumble city's business community. Members of the Hebrew Benevolent Society contributed to Catholic cathedrals and schools; Gentiles of whatever denomination aided the construction of the town's first synagogue. Hellman lent Gen. Harrison Gray Otis the money to buy the Los Angeles Times and became financier and business partner with Henry Huntington in railway enterprises. Unfortunately, other than a passing reference to a "hardening" of anti-Semitism in the 1890s, Dinkelspiel has nothing to say about how or why this era of fellow feeling vanished.