“The building has been razed to the ground. It’s gone,” a devastated Janis Fuhrman tells Jewish News following the destruction of Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center in Altadena, California – razed to the ground in the devastating LA wildfires.
The historic community centre and beloved spiritual home to more than 400 families, is one of more than 100 structures destroyed in the area.
Thousands of fire fighters are still tackling the unprecedented blazes. Speaking to the Associated Press, the Temple’s executive director Melissa Levy, confirmed that staff had been safely evacuated and the shul’s Torah scrolls taken to the home of a community member.
The Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center is shown engulfed in flames on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2024. The temple was destroyed by the Eaton Fire, one of three wildfires raging through southern California.. Pic: Reuters
Janis Fuhrman, 75, lives in the Jewish area of Pico Robertson, half an hour away from the devastation. Whilst it has not been under any sort of evacuation or any sort of immediate danger, she says the wildfires have “affected us, as far as people we know, and as far as the air quality is horrible.
“Yesterday, in the morning, it looked still like the night. Today, it’s clearing up, but the worst thing possible that could happened was the winds we had. A very usual pattern, but a very unusual behaviour. It was like being in cyclones and tornadoes, very high winds, and that’s what made these fires just take over. You can still see the skies black from where we are.”
Janis Fuhrman’s parents were married in the original Shul. Pic: Courtesy family
Fuhrman’s ties to the 100+ year old shul, run deep.
“My family’s been affiliated from the beginning,” she says. “My parents were married, not in that building, but in a prior building, in 1939. I have many, many years of experience with the temple in Pasadena that has burnt to the ground. It’s gone. The building has been razed to the ground. It’s just gone.”
She adds: “Right now, tens of thousands of people, maybe even 100,000 people have been displaced. I have no idea where everybody’s going to live. People have gone to hotels, to Airbnbs, to friends. We’re not talking like this is a forest where there’s a cabin and you expect fires to come. These are residential streets where people walk and children ride bicycles. This is a town that is gone, where randomly here and there, a home survives.”
Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center Facebook page showing food, water, toiletries and nappies being provided by Chabad of Pasadena. Hot meals are also offered for those displaced by the fires.
Fuhrman says she knows three families who lost their homes, “but I’m sure I know over 100 people or more who have been displaced, and they can’t get back into the area to see if their homes are there or not. People were instructed to leave their homes unlocked and unfortunately there’s a problem of looting.”
She’s resolute that she will “continue doing what I do” to support her community. “I work through the Jewish Federation at the food pantry service here in the west side of LA.” She also helps at the Skirball Cultural Center, a Jewish educational institution founded in 1996.
Janis with her family at the shul in 1990 at her son’s barmitzvah. Pic: Family courtesy
“I think what people need more than anything is money just to survive and buy the essentials that they need.”
She describes the wildfires as “very, very unusual. First responders, people who have been here their whole life, nobody has seen anything like it. It’s like Armageddon.”
Pic: PJTC Go Fund Me Page
Sifting through some family photographs, she recalls being asked to go to the shul, to “speak at a ceremony that they had last Sunday to rededicate a stone from one of the original temples in the Pasadena area. I made a point to be there and talk about childhood memories. Now, looking back, it was almost like we were there to say goodbye.”
The rubble of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center after it burned down. Photo by Sandra Haynes-Esenste
As for what future Shabbats will now look like for the community, she says: “Where will people be going? Most of them can’t even go home. You can’t even imagine that this could happen. It’s beyond. I’ve seen the the extent of the damage. And it’s just mind boggling. The sheer scale of it. But you know, Jews wandered for 40 years and moved from place to place. Every time something’s been established and then it’s been destroyed. We’re not through with this story. It’s going to continue. We have our children and our grandchildren, and it’s going to be fine. But people are literally walking around in the fog. They really need time. They really need time.”
- A Go-Fund me page to support the community has raised £23k of a £400k target.
