Night had fallen on the Pasadena temple.
The community had braced for high winds; Hebrew school had been canceled earlier. But no one had prepared for a fire to erupt and tear their synagogue apart.
Laurence Harris and his wife Ruth, the longtime cantor, raced to Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center as embers started to rain down , attempting to rescue what they could. They saved 13 Torahs before they had to flee.
When Harris returned the next day, fire still smoldered as he approached. The roof of the synagogue had collapsed and most walls were destroyed. The fruit of charred citrus trees clung to their branches.
But at the banquet hall, one wall still stood.
Climbing atop bricks and nails, Harris took in the scene: A mural was etched into the wall, spanning its width. It had been hidden by a brick wall that covered it for decades. Semitic men and women walked the desert with animals. Some played instruments. In the center was a lone palm tree — a symbol of triumph in the Bible. Though the imagery was faint, it shone bright in the sun.
As word traveled about the discovery of the mural, some members thought the image in part portrayed the Jews’ 40 years of wandering through the desert as a test of their faith in God. To make this discovery now, as the community faced new displacement, felt profound.
“I don’t know how, but the fire took away the stucco, took away the sheet rock, and has left this mural undamaged,” Harris said. “And nothing else in this entire [area] is left except for that mural.”
“I think it’s trying to teach us a lesson,” member Monica Levine said about the mural and her belief that it’s a representation of overcoming hardship.
The synagogue has served the Pasadena area for more than 100 years and moved to Altadena Drive in 1941, taking over a former warehouse space. Kristine Galloway, a longtime member with an archaeological background, believes the mural could date to the 1920s and may have been transferred to the wall via tapestry. But its origins remain a mystery. So far, no member has been able to recall its history.
“How in the world could this have survived?” Galloway, 48, said in disbelief. “The scene is so hopeful and joyful … and it’s just in the middle of all of these ashes.”
Galloway, a professor of Hebrew history, and others believe the depictions are supposed to evoke a Biblical scene, such as the exodus from Egypt, but don’t know for certain what is displayed.
Galloway considered the Pasadena Temple her second home since she moved to the area in 2011 from the East Coast. Her kids have grown up there. Her older sons were some of the last members in the space after playing basketball there the Monday night before the fire, and her youngest son was supposed to have his bar mitzvah celebration there later this year.
The loss of the synagogue weighed on Galloway and her family. But the discovery of the mural offered solace in one of the community’s darkest times.
“It feels like this is a phoenix that’s risen up out of the fire,” she said.
The Eaton fire has destroyed thousands of structures and burned more than 14,000 acres in Pasadena and Altadena. Not far from the Jewish center, some of the earliest footage from the fire depicted residents of a senior home who made a harrowing escape and a McDonalds that had been consumed and damaged by flames.
At least 20 members lost their homes, including a temple rabbi who lives minutes away.
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater evacuated when the Eaton fire erupted. The next day, as he drove back to the area and saw that so much was safe from the flames, he believed his home would be too. Then he found his house had been destroyed — one of five homes in his neighborhood that had burned.
“It’s tragic,” he said. “It’s kind of a double shot to lose our home of 22 years and the synagogue that we’ve loved for the same amount of time.”
The community is still determining where its services will be held in the long run. In the days after the fire, a local Catholic high school offered space to the clergy. The rabbi addressed the members:
“Our community is shattered, both spiritually and physically. It’s OK not to be OK.”
Grater, who is currently staying in downtown Los Angeles, has yet to see the mural. But he believes its discovery embodies Jewish ideology.
“We’re a people of history. We know in Jerusalem and the land of Israel that you find murals on top of murals and stones on top of stones,” Grater, 54, said. “The fact that this was a hidden mural … is a very Jewish idea.”
The temple’s preschool burned down and the synagogue that once could hold 1,000 people was gone. Thousands of books were also lost.
Days after the fire, Amy Whitman Richardson brought her daughter Quinn to see what was left. Whitman Richardson, 45, grew up at the temple — part of a third generation family of devotees. At her daughter’s bat mitzvah last year, she reflected on her own celebration years before, and envisioned what it would be like to see her child’s future children there in years to come.
“I’ve been at the temple since birth and the same with my children,” she said, surveying the wreckage. “I still haven’t processed it.”
Sunlight had begun to fade, casting a shadow on the space. But the mural remained illuminated. With arms wrapped around each other, the mother and daughter made their way to the spectacle.
In awe, Whitman Richardson took in the sight.
“It’s a small miracle.”
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