A synagogue that survived the Palisades fire has become a ‘refuge’ for many who lost their homes
“You could fill the sanctuary with your congregants who lost their homes,” a reporter told Kehillat Israel’s clergy.
Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation in Pacific Palisades, California, as it appeared in May 2024. (Google Maps)
(JTA) — Two blocks away: a school reduced to ruins. Across the street: rubble. Under the door: ashes. And yet at Kehillat Israel, things look much the same as they did at the beginning of the week, before the fires.
That’s what the clergy found when they reentered their synagogue’s building on Thursday in the wake of the blaze that devastated Pacific Palisades.
A reporter with NBC News who himself grew up at Kehillat Israel accompanied Rabbi Amy Bernstein, Rabbi Daniel Sher and Cantor Chayim Frenkel as they took stock of their synagogue’s remarkable survival amid a swath of destruction that has effectively razed the Los Angeles neighborhood.
“Surreal,” said Sher. “Unbelievable,” said Bernstein, gazing at the Reconstructionist synagogue’s undisturbed hedges and unmelted security fence.
Kehillat Israel’s remarkable survival amid the capriciousness of the fires has transformed it into a symbol of hope and resilience for Pacific Palisades, nestled between the beach and the mountains whose 25,000 residents include a number of Hollywood celebrities.
“This is now a refuge for the entire community, not just the Jewish community,” Frenkel told the reporter, Jacob Soboroff, inside the synagogue’s modern, sunlit sanctuary. The building was dedicated in 1997 after Kehillat Israel’s membership — now over 1,000 families — swelled beyond what its old home could accommodate.
Among the thousands of structures destroyed in Pacific Palisades were the homes of all three clergy members, as well as of the synagogue’s emeritus rabbi, Stephen Carr Reuben, and those of hundreds of Kehillat Israel members.
“You could fill the sanctuary with your congregants who lost their homes,” Soboroff said. “Correct,” Frenkel replied.
“At least this home is standing for so many people,” Bernstein said through tears. “For so many of us, this is our home.”
Blazes are ongoing in several parts of Los Angeles County, and conditions continue to stymie containment, though firefighters have made progress. On the other side of the city, in Pasadena, a historic synagogue was destroyed early in the conflagration; the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center was still burning on Thursday, as a GoFundMe began to circulate to collect donations to help the community regroup.
Now, Los Angeles is approaching its first Shabbat since the fires began, with synagogues that are functioning throwing open their doors to evacuees and hosting meals for anyone who needs one as part of a broad Jewish communal relief effort. Congregation Or Ami, located in Calabasas near a new — but quickly contained — Kenneth Fire announced that it would hold services at de Toledo High School, a Jewish school located several miles away from the forests that have fueled the fires.
On his Instagram page on Thursday, Reuben, a one-time professional percussionist who retired from Kehillat Israel in 2014, said he already had plans for the evening.
“I say a blessing for all of us who still have ourselves and our loved ones, and gratitude for all of those who spent the last couple of days from all over California and beyond to try to fight these fires and save people’s lives,” he said from his hotel room, where he showed a single suitcase that held all he took from his home. “Tomorrow, I’ll be playing drums — not mine, because they burned up — at Temple Isaiah at 6:15 in Los Angeles for their jazz service, and that will probably give me some joy and some peace.”
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