In January 2025, the Greater Los Angeles area was devastated by wildfires. USCJ asked our community to support the USCJ Emergency Fund, and over 1,000 people made generous gifts.
The Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center was a recipient of immediate support from USCJ. Melissa Levy, Executive Director of the PJTC, expressed her gratitude for all of the support the community received after the fires, including over $170,000 in aid during the initial months.
“USCJ at the very beginning just gave us a huge cash infusion to help our congregants, which was amazing because we knew then between USCJ and a few donations from within our congregation, from some of our wealthier congregants, and then from the LA Jewish Federation, between those three constituencies, we could help our congregants right from the get-go with whatever they needed. And we were able to make sure that they had food, that they had Shabbat supplies, and that they had shelter. Having that money from USCJ really made a big difference because we didn’t have to hesitate about where to get the money from when we didn’t even have our own building.”
One family in the congregation was only a couple weeks from their daughter’s Bat Mitzvah when the fire struck. Like so many, they lost their home and everything inside. They were faced with the dilemma of whether they could still afford to hold the ceremony. Thanks to the support of USCJ’s donors, PJTC was able to support them and enable them to still have the Bat Mitzvah, even as the family waited for their insurance funding.
The community is slowly rebuilding. They had been in the middle of a rabbinical search with the aid of USCJ, when the fire happened. One rabbi was scheduled to come visit that same weekend. They also needed to hire a new Education Director. Both positions have now been filled and they were back to their full staff before the High Holidays.
As you can imagine, High Holiday services looked different this year for Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center without their own building. They now use the offices and host Shabbat services at First United Methodist Church. They will host High Holiday services at CalTech. Levy supervised a team of volunteers and staff that helped prep the CalTech space each day before the High Holiday services, making it as familiar and comfortable as their old space once was. Fortunately, despite the fire, every congregant was able to have a mahzor for the season, thanks to the generous donations from USCJ and Riverside Temple.
All five of the Sisterhood Executive Committee Members were either displaced or lost their homes. Melissa was particularly grateful she could help support these women, who had only ever given of themselves to the community.
Melissa recalled, “These magical women who usually are the ones organizing volunteer efforts for everyone else needed the support themselves and to be able to do that for them and help give them the resources they needed, it’s really meaningful for them because they’re so used to giving and instead they were receiving.”
With their new rabbi, Rabbi Joshua Ratner, they have begun the community conversation of rebuilding. An architect is currently drafting plans for a new building. They talked about their favorite spaces, what they would miss most, and least (everyone agreed: the parking lot!).
Melissa recalled, “It was just really an uplifting day of welcoming the new rabbi. It was so moving, this community conversation that teenagers participated in too. You know, you had teenagers talking to 90-year-olds about what their hopes and dreams were for the new facility.
And people at the end of it said that they felt like the turning point, that it felt like we were not forgetting, but like no longer just in the mourning phase that we were in. Like, okay, let’s go into the true rebuilding phase.”
Melissa is very grateful that the community has reached this point. There are still miles and years to go before they will be settled in their new building. Many congregants are still displaced. The synagogue staff and clergy need to find a more permanent office solution. So many other things need to happen. But they have their new rabbi and their new Education Director, and the community is holding together. They are hopeful for the future and very grateful for all of the support.
If Melissa takes anything away from this whole experience, it’s that “you are never alone in the Jewish world, but also not to forget that you’re never alone in the wider world.”
