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Pacific Palisades Jews, displaced by fire, reopen their synagogue as part of returning home

JL;DR SUMMARY Congregants of Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades are returning to their synagogue 16 months after devastating fires displaced them. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

SynagogueCommunityDisplacementJewish ContinuityRebuildingKehillat IsraelFireSpiritual ResiliencePacific PalisadesCantor Chayim Frenkel

Places mentioned

Pacific Palisades, California, United States
"Sixteen months after the fires that devastated the Pacific Palisades and uprooted hundreds of Jewish families, congregants of Kehillat Israel are returning to their synagogue."
Los Angeles, California, United States
"On Friday, hundreds of congregants are carrying their Torah scrolls back into the building that became a symbol of the Los Angeles neighborhood that was devastated by fire in January 2025."
Santa Monica, California, United States
"In the months after the fires, Kehillat Israel became what Frenkel jokingly called a wandering congregation, holding services in the Santa Monica mall while its religious school borrowed space from a Los Angeles public school."

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This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 82394
Cairo Source ID 42
Retrieved 2026-05-16 05:31:14 UTC
Curated 2026-05-16 08:30:35 UTC