The Jewish community in Pasadena, Calif., is experiencing a “mix of emotion” as the first anniversary approaches of the Eaton Fire, which broke out on Jan. 7, 2025, and killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 structures, including the more than 100-year-old Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.
Melissa Levy, executive director of the Conservative synagogue, told JNS that the community is feeling “resilient and hopeful, but also still in a period of mourning.”
“It’s a mix of emotion,” she said. “We’re mourning the loss of this really important space. Thank God, people are safe, but we’ve lost these memories and this place that meant so much to so many generations in our community. It really was a community hub.”
According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the fire, which impacted more than 14,000 acres, injured nine firefighters and damaged more than 1,000 structures.
Levy said that last year, when the fire was approaching the synagogue, staff and leaders scrambled to load Torah scrolls into cars and move them to safety “as ash was falling on our parking lot.”
“That’s how close it was to not being able to save our Torahs,” she said. “That’s because the fire spread so quickly.”
The only other items congregants managed to save from the synagogue were “what you could pick up from the rubble, which wasn’t much,” Levy told JNS.
Prayer books and other scrolls, like the Book of Esther, were impossible to save, and much of what remained in the rubble was looted, according to Levy. The congregation was able to recover some things after the fire, including a yahrzeit plaque and a painting made in memory of a former education director, who died from breast cancer, Levy said.
The synagogue has been holding its religious schooling at a local K-12 school. “They’ve been very, very generous with us,” Levy said.
First United Methodist Church in Pasadena has been “absolutely amazing” to host the congregation’s prayer services, according to Levy. The church also let it put up a sukkah and a nine-foot menorah for Chanukah and has hosted the synagogue’s social events, she said.
Synagogue staff members worked out of the church building until recently, when they moved to a different office nearby. “This is what is going to be for the next three years, maybe a little longer,” she said.
The synagogue’s High Holiday services, which required more space, were held at the California Institute of Technology.
CalTech “moved part of their orientation so that we could be there for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which was really, really meaningful,” Levy told JNS.
Membership and attendees for synagogue events have been “steady” since the fire. “There were people who had to move away because of the fire, so we do have some loss there,” she said. “They try to Zoom in for services when they can.”
Of the synagogue’s 430 member families, 70 were displaced from the fire initially, and 20 were able to go back a month later, according to Levy. Some 35 families remain displaced either because their homes burned down or local authorities say that it’s unsafe for them to return.
“They’re fighting with insurance, who won’t reimburse for a total teardown or a teardown to the studs,” she said of the 35 families. “They just want to clean things up and get out of there, but that’s not what the research is showing is needed.”
Some families, which suffered a “total loss,” have moved away, while others are still waiting for designs, permits or insurance to go through. “A few of them have broken ground and are rebuilding,” Levy said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, cleared the site that housed the synagogue in the spring. Levy told JNS that they needed a waiver since the federal agency wasn’t initially clearing houses of worship. The synagogue hired architects in the summer to begin the rebuilding process.
The architects are scheduled to present a first draft of their plans for the new building at a board meeting late this month. Levy told JNS that the community will be able to comment at the beginning of next month.
The synagogue will subsequently launch a capital campaign to raise funds to rebuild at the original location, according to Levy.
She told JNS that the California governor, Los Angeles County supervisor and local congresswoman “have all been extraordinarily helpful and supportive.”
“It’s not easy. There are so many moving parts to this,” she said.” But we do feel supported.”
