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In January 2025, Los Angeles faced unprecedented wildfires, with the largest and most destructive being the Eaton fire in Altadena and Palisades fire in the Pacific Palisades. The inferno caused the single worst loss of properties in L.A. history, torching more than 57,000 acres, destroying over 16,000 homes and structures and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.
Among more than 30 historic sites reduced to ashes was the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (PJTC), which served the surrounding community for more than 100 years. Members of the congregation were able to save the community’s Torah scrolls, but everything else on the two-acre campus was lost.
Fortuitously, UCLA Library, in its quest to fulfill its mission to grow the Los Angeles area’s history and communities(opens in a new tab) collections, acquired the PJTC’s extensive records in 2019. The materials document the history of the congregation and various synagogues that previously merged with PJTC. This year, the Library processed 47 linear feet of these records, which add to existing Library collections that document the history of Los Angeles’ Jewish communities(opens in a new tab), with PJTC materials focusing on the western San Gabriel Valley. These records(opens in a new tab) are now accessible for use by community members, students, faculty and public scholars.
Founded in 1921 as Temple B'nai Israel, the temple first opened in 1923. In 1949, the temple was renamed the Pasadena Jewish Community and eventually became the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center in 1956. The collection, which spans 1932 to 2019 and is under UCLA Library Special Collections’ care, includes newsletters, yearbooks, board minutes, membership directories, financial reports, booklets, photographs, video and audio recordings that would have otherwise vanished in the Altadena fire.
Jan Pais has been a member of the PJTC congregation since her family's move to Pasadena from Chicago in 1960. "PJTC has provided community, home and security for me and my family, and also much content and meaning to my life — a place where we care for and celebrate with each other," she said.
Ruth Wolman first became a member of the PJTC congregation with her family in 1950, attended religious school there for nine years and later studied at UCLA. Wolman moved to the East Coast for 45 years and immediately returned to the congregation after moving back to Pasadena several years ago. “That the collection is preserved at UCLA Library is an extraordinary blessing for our community,” she said. “Had it been at PJTC last January, all would have burned!”
“For many in the congregation,” she added, “learning about its long history, religious and youth activities, educational opportunities and community events will be a source of information, inspiration and awe.”
As the Library works to preserve community memory in the greater Los Angeles area, collections like the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center records are of vital importance. Lizeth Ramírez, librarian and archivist for the Library’s Los Angeles Communities and Cultures collections said, “These records provide a rare look at the cultural and religious activities of the Jewish community in Pasadena from the 1930s to the present day. That we were able to acquire them and preserve them prior to the fires that ravaged the area earlier this year points to the importance of the work UCLA Library Special Collections is doing to save the history of communities throughout Southern California.”
Additional collection materials documenting Jewish life in Los Angeles can be found in the community history collection From Small Town Congregation to Suburban Survivor(opens in a new tab), held by the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research(opens in a new tab). This rich collection features 18 interviews with PJTC congregants recorded between 2000 and 2012, including Zev Yaroslavsky, former Los Angeles City councilmember and Los Angeles County supervisor. The interviews focus on the history of the Pasadena Jewish community from the 1920s to 2012 and are part of the Mapping Jewish L.A. Project(opens in a new tab), launched through a partnership with the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies and other community archives.
“For people in other religious communities and researchers, the disaster of the January 7 fire may be an impetus for their interest in PJTC,” said Wolman. “The congregation has rallied and persevered with incredible energy. Membership has increased, as has excitement about the future. The collection at UCLA, with the extensive documentation of what went into creating and sustaining such a thriving, resilient Jewish community should serve as inspiration to others.”
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Hero image: (left) The Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center burns during the Eaton fire in Pasadena, California on January 7, 2025. Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP via Getty Images; (top right) PJTC before the fire. Courtesy of Ruth Wolman; (bottom right) Materials from the PJTC records, UCLA Library Special Collections. Photos by Iris Lim.
