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‘From a shtetl to a diaspora’: How a Palisades synagogue exiled by fire forged through
Jewish tradition carves grief into discrete periods of time. Shiva lasts a week. Shloshim — the post-funeral period when one does not receive a haircut — is 30 days. For the death of a parent, one says kaddish for 11 months. After a year, mourning officially concludes.
But what of the destruction of a home — or a whole neighborhood? At Kehillat Israel, some 250 families lost theirs in the Palisades fire that ignited last Jan. 7, including three members of the synagogue’s clergy team. Another 250 or so families were displaced. And as the first anniversary of the fire arrives, the vast majority remain dispersed across Los Angeles County and beyond, unsure if or when they will return to the place they call home.
“The pace of healing is different in a situation in which we haven’t been able to fully move on,” Rabbi Daniel Sher, Kehillat Israel’s associate rabbi, said in an interview. “When you add infrastructure and city conditions and all the different nuances and circumstances, a year becomes very short.”
One of the few Pacific Palisades institutions spared by the flames was the synagogue, a fixture of the seaside community since the 1950s. But that, too, has been inaccessible to the congregation; with the building closed anyway for smoke damage remediation, Kehillat Israel — formerly Reconstructionist, now unaffiliated — broke ground on a planned interior renovation that is expected to be complete in March.
So for the last year, as hundreds of congregants wrangle with insurance companies and homeowner associations, await construction permits or weigh rebuilding, they have met in smaller, often makeshift settings. Weekly services are held in a children’s museum in nearby Santa Monica; a synagogue close by has been hosting KI’s religious school. Sher and senior rabbi Amy Bernstein, both of whom are still living with their families in temporary housing, have traveled around town to serve — and preserve — their community.
“We went from a shtetl to a diaspora,” Sher said. “So our members are still members, but our gathering points feel different.”
An unimaginable disaster
The blaze, one of the largest in the history of L.A., killed 12, destroyed nearly 7,000 structures and left the Pacific Palisades, an upscale town known for its coziness and exclusivity, virtually unrecognizable. Whole neighborhoods were wiped out, with countless iconic local landmarks badly damaged or reduced to rubble. KI members who lost their homes will never recover the ketubahs, menorahs and kiddush cups that infused their Jewish lives with meaning.
Yet the people whose homes were damaged, but not destroyed, have struggled as well. Thousands of Palisades residents had their insurance policies canceled months before the fire after the California insurance commissioner blocked an attempted rate hike; In lieu of private insurance, those homes were covered under the California FAIR Plan, the state’s last-resort insurer, which covers physical damage but not smoke damage, debris removal or alternative living expenses.
“Almost everybody was underinsured,” said Matt Ross, the president of KI’s board of trustees. “It’s a much more expensive process to rebuild than I think almost anybody realized.”
In the first days following the fire, the synagogue was able to help cover incidentals for congregants who were struggling to get money from their insurers. And with the support of members and the local Jewish federation, KI covered membership dues this year for everyone displaced by the fire.
Still, the months that followed have been an ongoing nightmare for many congregants. People described fighting with their insurance adjusters, navigating inscrutable municipal bureaucracy and being at the mercy of their neighbors — who hold the power to block new construction in some HOAs.
While Kehillat Israel escaped the flames, it did not dodge insurance trouble. Ross said that last summer, with remediation ongoing — and with the synagogue’s claim still open — the building’s insurer informed KI that it would not renew its policy. When they finally found replacement coverage, it was many times more expensive — taking a five-figure annual premium well into the six figures.
“It’s absolutely outrageous. It is really stunning,” said Ross, who also lost his home in the fire. “These are the kinds of challenges that not only individuals, but a synagogue or other house of worship faces.”
Community in exile
With congregants spread out across the Southland, the synagogue’s programming has moved to meet them, often in far-flung or esoteric locations.
A congregant hosted a Sukkot gathering in Hermosa Beach — nearly 20 miles away (and a lifetime in traffic) from KI’s main sanctuary — and other events as far east as Hollywood and north in the San Fernando Valley. The synagogue threw a Purim party at a bowling alley and celebrated Hanukkah at a brewery. It didn’t hide from joy.
“There are moments where you’re laughing,” Bernstein said, “and actually for a second forget that you’ve been through this horrible, horrible ordeal.”
The most emotionally fraught Jewish event on the calendar was Passover. “I think for a lot of our folks, they had hosted Seder in the past, and they weren’t quite ready to figure out how to host not in their home,” Sher said. The synagogue hosted a Seder at a Bel Air hotel, where 300 people ate matzo and maror and shared the story of Jewish redemption.
And while no family heirloom can ever be replaced, new ones were being created. A national Judaica drive allowed L.A. wildfire victims to pick out ritual items from a veritable trove of donated candlesticks, prayer shawls and mezuzahs. Separately, KI organized a ketubah-and-vow-renewal ceremony, in which around 20 couples who had lost their Jewish marriage contracts in the fire signed new ones — and bore witness to each other’s marital vows.
That event was hosted at Leo Baeck Temple, one of countless local synagogues that have lent support to KI and other affected congregations in the past year. Sher said he and Bernstein had helped lead bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies in more than a dozen different sanctuaries in the last year.
“Anyone who’s going to pretend that this year hasn’t been weird, they’re being inauthentic,” Sher said. “But the fact that I still get to see that same bar and bat mitzvah family — just a different location, in a different venue, at a different moment — shows that we’re not going to be held back from these limitations. We’re still going to find ways to be together.”
Grieving alone, together
For the rabbis of Kehillat Israel, the scale of the tragedy could be hard to wrap one’s head around. On the one hand, no congregants perished in the fire — a clear blessing, or even a miracle. But there were well over a thousand who needed comforting — as did the rabbis themselves, who had been rendered homeless.
Bernstein, the synagogue’s senior rabbi, said that at first, she was just happy there was something she could do.
But days turned to weeks turned to months and she had barely been able to grieve her own losses: generations of family photos and correspondence; a lifetime of fine art collected from all over the world; a pair of shoes for every occasion and mood; and, of course, the home where she had raised her daughter.
When she finally took time off last August — seven months after the fire — she realized she had waited too long.
“When we’re being of service, that alleviates some anxieties and sense of vulnerability,” Bernstein said, “but it masks other ways that you’re exhausting what few resources you have left.”
For the last year, Bernstein, her daughter and their German shepherd have been living in Santa Monica, in the home of a generous congregant. The insurance money for her former home went to her HOA, which is approaching a vote on whether to rebuild it; Bernstein said even she wasn’t sure it made financial sense.
Like many congregants in the Palisades diaspora, she’s stuck in a holding pattern, wanting to buy new things but having nowhere to put them, as the rest of the world has seemingly moved on. The only people who get it are going through it themselves.
“There is this sense of belonging to a club no one wants to belong to,” she said. “But also it’s a real sense that we’ve been through something together, and we feel a little different than others who have no clue about what’s happened to us.”
Sher’s family, which has been living in Brentwood for the past year, is currently debating whether to rebuild on the lot that previously held their home, or find a different one.
He wasn’t sure how he’d be feeling on Wednesday, the first anniversary of the day he, Bernstein and so many others lost their homes.
Sher planned to take the day off work — attending a community gathering in the morning and spending the afternoon with his wife and three children.
“I’m going to give myself space for the fact that I’m not entirely sure where my head’s gonna be,” he said. “Again, this is a slow process, and it’s not over yet, but being gracious and kind to yourself along the way has been one of the main messages that we’ve really leaned on in order to have the wherewithal to do all of this.”
Plotting a comeback
Even as efforts to rebuild homes drag on, there is excitement about the future. Turnout at events has been strong all year, with more than 1,000 joining their High Holiday livestream, in addition to the hundreds who attended in person. In late May, Kehillat Israel will be marching their Torah scrolls back into the main sanctuary for the first time, honoring Cantor Chayim Frenkel’s 40th year at the synagogue.
No synagogue wants to be displaced from its sanctuary. But silver linings abound if you know where to look. The renovation was long overdue, and congregants who enter Kehillat Israel this spring will find a larger Torah ark and an entryway that, according to Sher, “really says you’re stepping into something special.”
Reopening their building will also afford KI another privilege — that of welcoming in Palisades faith communities whose buildings did not survive the fire.
To this day, it remains unclear how much of the congregation will eventually return to the Palisades. One longtime member estimated 80% would be back — another guessed closer to three-fifths. Considering the members who had moved away but wanted to remain part of KI, Bernstein said satellite events and Zoom offerings would likely become a fixture.
Having endured this trauma together, the congregation will benefit from a perspective they could not have gained otherwise. Bernstein and Sher both brought up the resilience they had seen develop in their children over the past year. And the community, pressed into action by their circumstance, had been brought closer to each other and, maybe, to something holy.
Sher joked that he used to see more congregants in line at the farmer’s market than in prayer services. Now, he said, “We’ve had people come to our big events more excited than ever before, because they want to spend that time together and because we understand each other’s hardship. And that is really profound.”
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UK threatens sanctions after Israel opens bids for E1 settler homes
(JTA) — JERUSALEM – The United Kingdom threatened to sanction Israelis involved in West Bank settlement expansion after the Jewish state’s Lands Authority opened bids for 1,234 homes in the largely underdeveloped E1 section of the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.
Construction in E1 “would cut across the heart of Palestine and risks separating the West Bank from East Jerusalem, which would endanger the viability of a two-state solution,” the British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said in a special statement he posted on X on Thursday.
Targeted sanctions, Miliband wrote, would be part of a series of measures his government would take. His office also summoned Israel’s charge d’Affaires Thursday to demand a closure of the bidding process, which first opened on Tuesday, and a withdrawal of the construction project altogether.
“Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution,” he wrote. Miliband has held his position for a month and is part of the new leadership Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed when he took office in July.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar attacked Miliband on X, stating that Britain’s “decision to damage the relationship between our countries is deeply unfortunate.”
He said that the U.K. government’s “systematic policy of blaming only Israel while ignoring Palestinian extremism has already contributed to a massive wave of antisemitic hatred and attacks against the British Jewish community.”
The Jewish people have the same right to “live throughout the Land of Israel” just as the British people have a right to live anywhere in the U.K., Sa’ar wrote.
Plans to expand the built-up area of Ma’aleh Adumim settlement by constructing some 3,400 housing units on a largely underdeveloped hilltop within the city’s boundaries have been in place since 1994 when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister.
Israel mostly froze those plans under pressure from the international community, including the U.S., with many countries warning that building homes in E1 would harm their diplomatic ties with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began to advance the project in earnest in 2012 to protest the United Nations General Assembly decision to grant the Palestinians the status of a non-member state and has since pushed the project forward in spurts, particularly during election seasons.
The publication of the bidding process for the homes was first announced on Tuesday and is set to close on Oct. 19, one week shy of the Israeli elections on Oct. 27. Opening the bids is a move that plays well with Netanyahu’s right-wing voter base, which opposes Palestinian statehood and believes that settlements like Ma’aleh Adumim and the E1 area should be annexed into sovereign Israel.
But the move reverberated globally, with the U.K. signing onto a joint condemnation by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, in which they warned that settlement building in E1 distanced peace and undermined the country’s international standing.
They also reminded businesses who might bid for E1 construction that they could face legal or reputational consequences, given that such companies could be in breach of international law.
Palestinian Authority Vice President Hussein Al-Sheikh said he welcomed the condemnation, explaining on X that such a position “reflects the importance of the international role in confronting settlement activity and safeguarding the two-state solution.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Argentina removes federal judge over antisemitic remarks in historic first
(JTA) — An Argentine federal judge was removed from office Tuesday for a series of antisemitic posts on his social media accounts that constituted misconduct incompatible with his role, an impeachment panel ruled.
Alfredo Eugenio López, who headed Federal Court No. 4 in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, was removed by Argentina’s Jury of Impeachment, a special panel composed of judges, lawmakers and lawyers.
It is the first time in Argentina’s history that a judge has been removed over antisemitic remarks.
In López’s social media posts, the judge referred to the Jewish people as “a brood of vipers,” Israel as a “fictitious state” and Argentinian Jews as “foreigners.” He has also used such terms as “Zionist” and “gay” as insults.
According to the panel, the judge committed acts of “discrimination and the denial of equal rights against the Argentine Jewish community. For the purposes of these proceedings, it is particularly significant that, by acting in this manner, he shattered public confidence in his continued fitness to administer justice impartially.”The case reached the panel through Argentina’s Council of the Magistracy, based in Buenos Aires, the constitutional body responsible for the selection and discipline of federal judges.
The first complaint against López was filed in February 2025 by the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas, which is the umbrella organization representing Argentina’s Jewish community. One month later, the Argentine Forum Against Antisemitism also filed a complaint. In July 2025, attorney Yamil Santoro from Apolo Foundation added another one.
In his defense, López argued that his messages were “ subjective and decontextualized interpretations of exchanges on social media, which in no way affect the administration of justice or his impartiality” as a judge. He added that his remarks were unrelated to any pending case and that he had never been recused or removed from any judicial case.
Neither Lopez nor his attorney were immediately available for further comment.
“He was removed because he simply would not stop engaging in hate speech,” jury member Alberto Maques said during a live interview Tuesday on the A24 news channel. “It is absolutely disgraceful for a federal judge to engage in this kind of conduct.”
Maques said there were 15 social media posts that he acknowledged, but more than 50 posts in which he said “outrageous things that are not worth repeating because they truly constituted hate speech.”
“This is not merely an issue of hate speech against the Jewish community. This is someone who lacks common sense,” he added, interviewed by A24 news channel.
Prosecutors in the impeachment proceedings argued that the messages were not isolated political comments but reflected a pattern of hostility toward Jews, Zionism, and the State of Israel.
“No position of authority can shield hatred. This is not a matter of punishing an opinion. It is about sanctioning repeated conduct involving antisemitism, hostility and dehumanization, conduct incompatible with the impartiality, dignity and public trust required of the judiciary,” DAIA said Tuesday in a statement.
“This case sets a precedent: for the first time in more than a century, DAIA initiated proceedings of this nature against a judge. No office is above democracy.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Argentina removes federal judge over antisemitic remarks in historic first appeared first on The Forward.
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California progressive Wahab defeats AIPAC-backed Hernandez in close race
(JTA) — California progressive Aisha Wahab defeated AIPAC-backed moderate Melissa Hernandez in a congressional runoff this week, capping off a contest that had become unexpectedly tight after the pro-Israel lobby entered the fray.
The Associated Press called the race between the Democrats — who were vying to replace a disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell — a full two days after polls closed, when Wahab secured 53.1% of votes to Hernandez’s 46.9%, with 95% of ballots tallied. The gap between them grew by four percentage points from Tuesday evening, when Wahab had held a narrow 51% lead to Hernandez’s 49%.
“We stayed focused on the people, and I will fight for this district that raised me,” Wahab said in a Thursday statement, noting her journey “from foster care to Congress” in her East Bay community.
Although Wahab ended up victorious, the narrow initial margin on Tuesday shocked California’s 14th District, given that she had secured a double-digit lead in preliminary races two months ago.
But in the past few weeks, an unforeseen variable appeared to influence the trajectories of the two campaigns: a massive spending push from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee aimed at turning the tides for Hernandez.
Since the beginning of August alone, AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, and other affiliated groups spent more than $2.5 million on both boosting Hernandez and denigrating Wahab with negative ads and mailers, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
“This was not a landslide for Wahab by any means,” local Democratic strategist Noah Finneburgh, who is not affiliated with either candidate, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“They narrowed the gap for sure,” Finneburgh added, referring to AIPAC. “They spent millions of dollars attacking Wahab very aggressively.”
These attacks, he explained, did not involve Israel and instead focused on divisive issues for the Bay Area, such as public safety and protecting kids.
“Negative advertising with a persuasive message can be very effective,” Finneburgh said.
In her Thursday night statement, Wahab declared that her “district cannot be bought,” describing the race as “one of the ugliest, most expensive elections we’ve ever seen.”
Prior to this influx of cash and related ads, neither AIPAC nor Israel had played a significant role in this short-lived race — which began in April following Swalwell’s resignation over allegations of sexual assault.
When the district held a special primary to seek Swalwell’s replacement on June 16, Wahab and Hernandez finished as the top-two candidates and moved on to this week’s special general runoff election.
California primaries are “nonpartisan” or “top-two” races, in which the two highest ranking candidates move on to the general election, irrespective of their parties. The top-two in this case were both Democrats, like Swalwell, in a district that the Cook Political Report deems solidly blue.
Even though Wahab will now finish the remainder of Swalwell’s term, she will have to compete with Hernandez again in the November general election for a full term that begins on January 3, 2027.
In a June 16 special primary that preceded this week’s runoff, there was still a massive gap between the two candidates, with Wahab accruing 42.8% of the votes, compared to Hernandez’s 16.8%. A separate primary for the November race, which occurred two weeks earlier, placed Wahab at 38.3% and Hernandez at 17.2%.
Wahab, who will be the first Afghan American in Congress, has focused on affordability, civil rights, education and climate change. Her campaign calls for an end to wars and “prolonged occupations” but only specifically calls out U.S. military activity in “Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and elsewhere.”
Though Wahab has been critical of Israel and its operations in Gaza, she has not been as vocal about the issue as many other progressive colleagues nationwide. She responded “yes” when asked if Israel was committing genocide in a primary debate, but she didn’t include Israel or Gaza in her campaign priorities.
During a recent appearance on far-right influencer Hasan Piker’s livestream, Wahab acknowledged that “it’s not a zero-sum game in the Middle East,” adding that “we can care for all people.” She also referenced a resolution she introduced last year in the California legislature, pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza but also condemning Hamas and demanding the release of the hostages.
“We talk about both Palestinians and the Israeli victims there,” Wahab told Piker. “We talk about holding the perpetrators accountable from both sides.”
Asked if she was in favor of “ending all U.S. aid to Israel,” she responded “yes,” while stressing that “humanitarian aid is important to me, too.”
Wahab has earned the backing of multiple labor unions, the California Democratic Party and Our Revolution, the group formed by Sen. Bernie Sanders to advance the progressive movement. The liberal pro-Israel group J Street also recently invested $108,000 in her campaign, according to the FEC. American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian PAC, also spent at least $200,000 on supporting her.
Hernandez has received endorsements from several police and fire unions, as well as Democratic Jewish Reps. Lois Frankel of Florida and Brad Schneider of Illinois.
Come November, Hernandez will gain one additional asset. Due to statewide redistricting, the 14th District will gain about 26,000 new voters from Dublin, where Hernandez previously served as mayor, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
But Finneburgh said he believes that Hernandez has only a minimal chance of winning that race, especially because Wahab will be heading into that election as an incumbent.
He also suggested that if “she plays her card right,” Wahab could even take some endorsements away from Hernandez.
“There’s going to be people who are going to probably move over from the Hernandez camp and back her,” Finneburgh added. “It’s going to be hard to unseat her.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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