Rabbi Races Into Temple To Rescue Torahs From Raging California Wildfire

A Southern California rabbi clutches a Torah scroll as fires rage behind him. Image by facebook
Despite fires raging in the distance, a Southern California rabbi ran into his synagogue to rescue its Torahs.
Temple Adat Elohim, a Reform synagogue in Thousand Oaks, sits in the path of two fires, Hill and Woolsey. Rabbi Barry Diamond and President Sandy Greenstein made it to the synagogue before mandatory evacuations to save the four Torah scrolls, according to a Facebook post Friday.
Temple Adat Elohim is in the same neighborhood as the bar where 12 people were killed in a mass shooting on Wednesday. The next day, the synagogue shared a message of heartbreak and peace while urging members to donate blood.
On Thursday, Rabbi Diamond and other local clergy offered messages of unity and hope at a nearby theater.
Most of the town of Thousand Oaks was ordered evacuated, adding to the anguish days the shooting rampage.
President Trump, weighing in on the emergency during a trip to France, said early on Saturday that “gross mismanagement of forests” was to blame.
“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” he wrote in a Twitter post.
Trump has previously blamed California officials for fires and threatened to withhold funding, saying the state should do more to remove rotten trees and other debris that fuel blazes.
State officials have blamed climate change and say many of the burn areas have been in federally-managed lands.
“Our focus is on the Californians impacted by these fires and the first responders and firefighters working around the clock to save lives and property – not on the President’s inane and uninformed tweets,” Evan Westrub, a spokesman for California Governor Jerry Brown said in an email.-With Reuters
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Trump’s plan to enlist Elon Musk began at Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave
-
Film & TV In this Jewish family, everybody needs therapy — especially the therapists themselves
-
Fast Forward Katrina Armstrong steps down as Columbia president after White House pressure over antisemitism
-
Yiddish אַ בליק צוריק אויף די פֿאָרווערטס־רעקלאַמעס פֿאַר פּסח A look back at the Forward ads for Passover products
קאָקאַ־קאָלאַ“, „מאַקסוועל האַוז“ און אַנדערע גרויסע פֿירמעס האָבן דעמאָלט רעקלאַמירט אינעם פֿאָרווערטס
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.