Temple Beth Am is a Conservative synagogue south of Beverly Hills and some 15 miles due east from the Pacific Palisades, the Los Angeles neighborhood largely destroyed by one of several wildfires that broke out in LA County in early January. The congregation has fifty families in evacuation zones and four congregants who have lost their homes. One of them attended a recent minyan, says Rabbi Adam Kligfeld, and when the tzedakah box was passed around, he recalls, this person who had just lost everything still put money into the box. Even after such a “cataclysmic loss,” as Rabbi Kligfled called it, this action speaks to the generosity of the Temple Beth Am community.
The recent wildfires in Los Angeles have caused extreme damage and disrupted the lives of so many. Rabbi Amy Bernstein of Kehillat Israel, a Reconstructionist synagogue in the Pacific Palisades, spoke about how her community has been affected. “It’s been devastating for our community, about one-third of the congregation has lost their homes, which means that we’re all displaced and we’re all over the city,” she said. “The Palisades is very much a village where everyone lives close to each other. Now we are scattered and everyone is different distances from the synagogue.”
“It has been terribly moving to be connected to the Jewish people and our Palisades interfaith community, helping each other during this devastating time.”
Those who have lost their homes are starting from scratch. Rabbi Bernstein explained just how devastating this can be, as she and fellow Kehillat Israel Rabbis Daniel Sher and Steven Carr Reuben (rabbi emeritus), along with Cantor Chayim Frenkel, all had homes destroyed by the wildfires. “Some people have lost every article of clothing,” she says. “We are starting from nothing. We need shoes, we need T-shirts, we need basics.”
Cantor Daniel Friedman currently works at Temple Ramat Zion, a Conservative synagogue in Northridge, located in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles. Some Ramat Zion Congregants have been evacuated from the Hurst Fire, which burned 799 acres in the San Fernando Valley. He lived in the Palisades for seven years prior and his children attended preschool at Kehillat Israel. “A lot of our childhood places we went to are gone. It’s very emotional for all of us. Either directly or having friends and family members that have been affected. Many of our congregants were affected by the Hurst fire.”
Throughout all of this devastation, there has been an outpouring of support from Jewish communities across Los Angeles. Cantor Friedman says he’s taking his lead from the Jewish Federation in their recommendation to donate money. “Money is the biggest need. So people can go out and buy the items they want.” In addition his synagogue has been collecting clothing and toiletries.
Cantor Lizzie Weiss at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills is head of their Mitzvah Corps. It’s a program she created that is dedicated to tikkun olam by helping both those in her community and beyond. “I wanted to provide an opportunity for hands-on action,” she explains. Her congregation has been creating kits for firefighters containing chapstick, lotion, face wash and deodorant, making sandwiches for the Hollywood Food Coalition and has delivered over 50 boxes of donations to an organization called Big Sunday, an organization with the goal to “connect people through helping.” In addition, she says, “almost every person [at Temple Emanuel] has taken in family and friends who have been evacuated.”
Rabbi Joshua Kalev spoke about the generosity of his community. Congregation Tikvat Jacob, which lies about 25 miles south of the Palisades in Manhattan Beach, partnered with Baby2Baby to collect items for young families: diapers, kids activity books, diapers and so on. “Within 24 hours we already had a truckload,” he says. “Five days later, we put four truckloads together.” He also mentions that with congregants hosting family and friends from the Palisades, there had been more than ten new children attending their Hebrew School the previous weekend.
The urge to return to normalcy, or at least to hold onto some of the routines such as Hebrew school, Shabbat, and Torah study, is something Cantor Weiss has witnessed in the past few years. She describes it as “a drastic pivot, especially after October 7 and the pandemic of people realizing just how important community is.”
Kehillat Israel, in the Palisades, miraculously is still standing, but congregants have not been able to return to the synagogue because it was deemed uninhabitable. On Friday, January 10, Shabbat services were held at Sinai Temple in Westwood. More than 250 people were in attendance with even more joining virtually. The temple plans to hold Torah study as well as provide opportunities for the community to come together in the upcoming weeks. Temple Beth Am in Beverly Hills also planned a Shabbat dinner for displaced families to give them “a place to be with other Jews and have a nice meal, our treat,” Rabbi Kligfeld explained. “Los Angeles is a big city and a small town in some ways. The Jewish community makes an enormous town much smaller. We are impacted at large because we care about fellow Angelinos and we have a particular soft spot for the other Jewish communities who are suffering.”
Kehillat Israel’s Rabbi Bernstein has been featured in national news stories, making more people aware of her, and her community’s loss. “We are incredibly appreciative of people calling from all over the country to ask how they can be helpful,” she says, adding that it has “been terribly moving to be connected to the Jewish people and our Palisades interfaith community, helping each other during this devastating time.”
Top image: Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills held a Day of Action to collect donations and make sandwiches for those displaced by the LA fires (Credit: Lizzie Weiss).