The Flamboyant and Controversial Nir Zilberman Has Left WeHo

Nir Zilberman is gone. For real.

Zilberman, the clothing retailer who made a reputation for himself for his advocacy for the homeless and his sometimes histrionic behavior at West Hollywood City Council meetings, confirmed to WEHOville that he moved last week to Tel Aviv. A neighbor of Zilberman’s also confirmed he had left his house on Havenhurst Drive, abandoning in his backyard some home furnishings and a large amount of bathing suits and other clothing sold in his now-closed ES Collection shop at 8915 Santa Monica Blvd. (which have all been removed).

Zilberman had said many times over the past year that he was leaving West Hollywood, disappointed that the city wasn’t, in his opinion, dealing with issues such as homelessness that he advocated for. In a text conversation, Zilberman said he arrived in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, the day that Shimon Peres, Israel’s former president and prime minister, died. He acknowledged that he had created a reputation for himself in WeHo but was uncharacteristically modest about that.

“I will be forgotten, but it’s not about me,” Zilberman texted. “It’s about those people, young and not, rich or not, sick or not, those amazing men and women that need our voice. Those people that I call my true friends, those who live in amazing homes, to those who live on our streets.”

Zilberman moved to the United States from Tel Aviv in 1981 at the age of 21 and worked as a hairstylist for 20 years, opening four salons over the years and working with Aveda Spas.

In a 2014 interview with AU Magazine, Zilberman said he eventually decided to open a “male Victoria’s Secret.”‎ He opened three menswear shops on Santa Monica Boulevard in WeHo — LA Jock Seduction, LA Jock Athletic, ES Collection — all with a focus on underwear and swimwear.

“I want people to know that fetish wear can be amazing if made with quality fabric,” he said in his interview with AU.

Zilberman also created his own Seduction brand and opened Mantrends Agency, which represented prominent international brands such as Addicted, ES Collection, James Tudor, and Freedom Reigns in the United States.

While Zilberman’s homelessness campaign got the most recent attention, in 2014 he also created a controversy by putting a mannequin dressed as a Nazi concentration camp prisoner in the window of his store on 8915 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood’s Boystown.

The mannequin wore a concentration camp uniform decorated with both a Star of David and a pink triangle, a badge that Nazis used to identify gay concentration camp prisoners.

Rabbi Denise Eger, founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami, a Jewish Reform synagogue that welcomes LGBT people, said the display shocked her. “It’s quite a shocking display, and I’m sorry that the [owner] doesn’t understand the sensitivities of the Holocaust survivors that live in West Hollywood. It’s taking the Holocaust and the memory of those who perished and commercializing it, which is truly an affront.”

Zilberman said he put the mannequin up to raise awareness about anti-LGBT laws in Russia.

Zilberman later launched “Love No Hate,” which he described as the country’s first privately owned LGBT center, in part of the store he leased at 7990 Santa Monica Blvd. Soon he took on homelessness as an issue and began housing homeless people in the Love No Hate location, violating his lease and city laws. Last January he was ordered to stop.

Zilberman’s most dramatic moments include a loud verbal attack on the WeHo City Council during a meeting in April 2015 that prompted Sheriff’s deputies to move down the aisle of the City Council Chambers in case it turned violent. Zilberman’s tirade apparently was over the refusal of city staffers to let him place frightening photos of concentration camp victims in the lobby of City Hall in recognition of YomHaShoah, otherwise known as Holocaust Rembrance Day. Then there was spate of shouting and making obscene gestures at members of the City Council while they were on a float in June’s L.A. Pride parade that led to him being handcuffed and removed from the scene.

In his text exchange with WEHOville, Zilberman reiterated his frequent complaint that West Hollywood needs to improve its image. “WeHo is better then fake image, WeHo is better then just talking and taking and almost nothing is done. WeHo is better then this and so am I, now I’m in a place that I can be just me, show the world, it takes only one voice to make the rest of the world smile.

“Everything is for a reason. The day I arrive to Tel Aviv the world lost a hero, Simon Peres was my teacher of what one man can do. Now, I’m free to be me, to smile and give and not listen to people that the title is more important that their goals. I’m home, and I love it.”