The LA fires destroyed countless Jewish heirlooms. A national Judaica drive aims to create new ones.
Multiple efforts to help Jewish fire victims started independently. Now the volunteers are working together.
Since Amy Conroy and her daughter Chloe started collecting Judaica, donations have poured in from more than a dozen states. Courtesy of Amy Conroy
By Louis Keene February 20, 2025
LOS ANGELES – You can hardly see the surface of the Conroy family’s dining room table these days.
A mountain of yarmulkes rises along one edge, next to a column of challah boards. Beyond them, a forest of candlesticks, chimneys of boxed kiddush cups and a colorful array of mezuzahs fill in the spaces in between.
Needless to say, the Conroys have been eating in the kitchen.
“Yeah, we haven’t had Shabbat here in a while,” said 15-year-old Chloe Conroy.
Chloe, a high school sophomore, and her mother Amy have been collecting ritual objects on behalf of the hundreds of Jewish families whose homes burned down in the fires that ravaged Los Angeles last month. And they’re not the only ones collecting: Spurred into action by the biggest catastrophe to hit the Los Angeles Jewish community in decades, volunteers across the city have been working to replenish Judaica items lost in the blazes.
Donations have arrived at the Conroys’ Beverly Hills doorstep from more than a dozen states so far, mostly unused items from families who heard about the drive on Instagram. (They’ve also held four in-person donation drives at their synagogue.) Other collection efforts are soliciting gifts from museum gift shops, artists and Judaica brands.
The Judaica drives shed light on how widespread the loss has been in Jewish Los Angeles, even as only two areas in the sprawling metropolis saw most of the damage. At least 19 synagogues had a member lose their home, according to Tova Larsen, who surveyed dozens of local Jewish institutions following the fires.
Larsen, who works at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, is helping coordinate the donation drives and planning for the objects’ eventual distribution. She said more than 500 Jewish families had lost homes in the fires, though she did not have an exact count.
“The rebuilding of one’s life is going to take a long time,” Larsen, 51, said. “This is just a little bit to help. But it’s my hope that this little goodwill gesture of a beautiful, heirloom quality menorah helps the families who have lost everything to rebuild their lives and re-set their Jewish tables.”
Larsen was not forced to evacuate when the fires, fueled by a drought and record-high winds, swept through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena on Jan. 8. But she had lived through a different catastrophe — the Oakland firestorm in 1991 — and, like the Conroys, was eager to help those she knew were suffering.
As she shared her idea with friends, she quickly learned of others working on similar projects. One was Rachel Steinhardt, a member at Kehillat Israel, the Pacific Palisades synagogue where some 300 families lost their homes. Another was Hanah Cytron, who was launching an organization to re-home old Judaica in Orange County. Hillel Smith, a Jewish artist with L.A. roots, had spread the word to his colleagues.
Smith put them all on an email thread, and the group began meeting weekly over Zoom.
“Many of us had this notion,” Larsen said. “We all found each other.”
One of the first questions was what kinds of Judaica they would be gathering. Quickly they ruled out books, and then mezuzahs, which likely couldn’t be put up at temporary residences. They settled on four objects: Menorahs, candlesticks, kiddush cups and seder plates.
Then there was the matter of distribution. Different communities had different needs, Larsen said. The Conroys, collecting for several dozen families at Wilshire Boulevard Temple, decided to box up and deliver the objects they had collected themselves.
Everyone else — Steinhardt, Larsen, Cytron and the artists — planned to put what they collected toward Judaica fairs next month for affected families to choose from among the donated items.
Of course, everyone soliciting donations has received much more than just the four objects. Steinhardt said she had received tallitot (prayer shawls), tefillin sets, tzedaka boxes, and enough dreidels to fill a giant bowl.
“People are sending really, really lovely things in all manner of styles,” Steinhardt, 43, said.
More than a few of the donations were sentimental. Larsen said a woman in Juno, Alaska, was sending her family’s Judaica that had survived the Holocaust. And the Conroys, who plan to include any notes sent along with the donated items, received a pair of 100-year-old silver candlesticks and a wooden-and-brass menorah from a couple in New York who shipped three boxes of Jewish family heirlooms.
The menorah, the couple said, had been a wedding present.
“Our family has used this Judaica over the years,” the couple wrote in a letter with the donation, “and the thought of another family using it in the future is a blessing.”
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