Jewish Temple Leaders Recall Harrowing Race to Save Torahs as L.A. Fires Crept Over the Hills (Exclusive)
"The smoke was unbearable, and I couldn’t see my husband, so I screamed at him, 'Do you have all the Torahs?' And he screamed back, 'Yes, I do,' " says Ruth Berman Harris
Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center; JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty
Torahs from the Pasadena Jewish Temple and CenterIt was Tuesday, Jan. 7, when Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater stepped into his front yard and saw the flames of the Eaton fire, just a short walk from his house, raging over the mountain. He drove a few minutes up the block, hoping to get a better sense of what was happening. As he watched the fire creep closer, he turned around, went home and told his wife they should start packing.
While gathering some of their things, Grater called Ruth Berman Harris, the cantor at Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (PJTC), where Grater, 54, had served as rabbi for 12 years before leaving in 2015 and becoming a congregant.
"He called me on Tuesday night and said, 'Ruth, I think the fire is getting stronger and the winds are ramping up,' " Harris tells PEOPLE. "I was at home, getting ready to wind down for the night, and I said, 'Okay, I'm on my way.' "
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater
The view from Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater's house when the wildfire in Pasadena exploded.As Grater watched smoke fill the air, he got in his car and drove the short distance to PJTC, located at the base of Altadena. There, he met the temple’s caretaker, and together they gathered the 11 main Torahs, along with a few smaller ones, from the two sanctuaries and brought them into the building’s lobby.
A little while later, Harris and her husband arrived after sneaking through a back alley, since the roads were already closed. When they got there, they started loading the Torahs into their white Subaru Outback along with a gray Volkswagen Tiguan.
But by 8 p.m. local time, they noticed the smoke getting worse and quickly drove off.
"The smoke was unbearable, and I couldn’t see my husband, so I screamed at him, 'Do you have all the Torahs?' And he screamed back, 'Yes, I do,' " Harris says. "The president of the congregation was also there helping out, and I said, 'We have to go. We have to go. If we stay, we're literally going to get trapped here.' "
"So that’s what we did. By then, embers were flying into the parking lot. Thank God, they didn’t hit us," Harris adds.
JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty
The Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center burns during the Eaton fire in Pasadena, California on Jan. 7.Shortly after Harris and Grater retrieved the Torahs, Melissa Levy, the temple’s executive director, got a call while at home with her kids. While on speakerphone with those at the temple as they recovered the Torahs, she received a text from the board president informing her that the synagogue was on fire.
Speaking to PEOPLE, Levy says that while she knew firefighters and first responders were doing everything they could, she and the others could only watch helplessly as the fire unfolded.
From there, Levy recalls everything being a "bit of a blur." But she estimates that about 10 to 15 minutes later, she watched in disbelief as the 84-year-old building, which housed 435 member families, burned to the ground on her television screen.
"As our synagogue was burning, I kept thinking about our neighbors, with whom we stay in close touch and who ended up losing their homes," Levy says. "We sometimes get calls when someone they don’t recognize is walking on the property, and we send them little honey sticks before Rosh Hashanah because we know how busy that time can get for them."
"It’s devastating," she adds. "So much has been lost. I’m thankful that most people are safe, but it’s just so overwhelming. So many of the leaders who are usually the ones supporting others are the ones impacted this time. Our sisterhood president, who usually leads our 'sisterhood army' of volunteers, lost her home. And our past sisterhood president had to evacuate because she lived nearby."
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater
The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center after the Los Angeles wildfires.Among those in the PJTC community who also lost their homes was Grater. He says his neighborhood only had about five houses burn down, scattered randomly across different streets.
On Wednesday, Jan. 8, when he went back with his wife to see remained of what once his family’s home of 22 years, he found an Obama poster and the book Sacred Fire by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, a rabbi in Poland during the Holocaust.
"I was pretty much still in shock," he says. "We were in the house for just a little bit. I don’t even remember exactly how long, but I think my wife saw it first."
"I don’t believe this happened for a reason, or that God specifically saved that book," he adds. "I don’t think that at all. But I believe there is something greater than ourselves, something beyond us. As a friend of mine said to me yesterday, 'We make meaning out of life.' And that’s a central part of our religious tradition: the act of creating meaning."
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Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater
Sacred Fire by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, a rabbi in Poland during the Holocaust.While the PJTC community has lost so much from the fires, both Levy says that with the help of Grater — who sacrificed time to evacuate his own home — Harris, and a few others, they were thankfully able to save all of the congregation's Torahs.
Right now, she says they are housing a few of them at one of their congregants' homes so they can be used for services until a long-term rental space is found. However, most are being kept in a vault at a local nonprofit institution.
"We can create a sanctuary anywhere, as long as we have the Torahs." Harris says.
"This congregation has been through a lot," Levy adds. "Everyone had to deal with the pandemic, but just a little over a year ago, we lost our director of education to cancer. She was 40 years old, and over a thousand people gathered in our sanctuary and social hall to mourn her. We're also in the middle of a rabbi search to round out our senior staff, and our new director of education, who is also a rabbi, has been covering both roles at once. This past weekend, a candidate was supposed to be here for the rabbi search."
Levy continues, "The way this community has supported each other through all of these ups and downs — it’s just astounding. What’s most important is each other, not a building."
Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center
Cantor Ruth Berman Harris with Torahs after saving them from the fire.This past weekend, just three days after the fire broke out, Harris says that they were able to hold Shabbat at a local school. They had a big Shabbat potluck in the social hall, followed by Friday night services in the auditorium. On Saturday morning, they held morning services in the same auditorium, using kippot, tallitot (prayer shawls) and prayer books donated by local congregations.
The next day, for Sunday school, they held classes in the same space, where many of the families attending had lost their homes in the fire.
"I am incredibly proud of who we are as a community, both from a leadership perspective and within the congregation," Harris says. "People are stepping up, showing love, offering their homes, their spaces, their food, and their resources. We're a strong community, and it's been amazing to witness."
"I’ve lived in several places — Argentina, Israel for five years, Milwaukee, and Phoenix — and when I came here to interview, my family was still in Phoenix," she adds. "I remember telling them, “I don’t know what it is about this shul, but they’re incredibly warm and welcoming. There’s something here that I think I can really be a part of. Even then, I could feel that this community had a deep sense of extended family running through its veins. And now, in moments like this, it's becoming so clear how that spirit is coming to life."
Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center
Torahs after being saved from Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.While the community is already rebuilding spiritually, both Grater and Harris note that the physical reconstruction will likely take years. In the meantime, they are actively scouting locations for a semi-permanent campus.
"In Jewish tradition, mourning is a process that begins once we bury our loved ones," Harris says. "In a way, I had to go back to bury that building myself — to plant the seed in the ground, to start mourning what I no longer have: the community space, my office, my books, everything."
"It was important for me to physically let go of that place," she adds. "Not that it makes the pain any less, but it officially marked the start of my mourning."
Grater adds, "I saw it yesterday for the first time, and it’s pretty unimaginable what lies ahead. But the community is strong. We will find a place. We are known to be a wandering people. A temple, a synagogue—it’s not just a building, it’s the community. It’s going to be hard, but we will figure it out."
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