Like many of you, Robin and I watched the unfolding wildfire disaster in Los Angeles that began last week with shock and disbelief. Robin and I lived in West Los Angeles for about 20 years before coming to New York and many of the homes and business consumed by the fires were only a short drive away. Many of our Los Angeles friends were affected by the flames and smoke, some were forced to evacuate, and others lost their homes. The entire city is reeling from the enormous scope of the destruction, which continue to threaten new homes even as survivors sift through the rubble the flames left behind.
The Jewish community has begun to mobilize to respond to the enormous task of finding shelter for those who no longer have a roof over their heads and, in some cases, finding alternate places of worship after their synagogue either burned down or continues to be inaccessible due to the ongoing evacuation notices. Given the sheer scale of the disaster, surely one of the largest in our history, we can expect this effort to last for years, perhaps even decades. Below, I set forth some internet sites where you can give funds to assist in this effort to support the second largest Jewish community in Los Angeles. I hope you will consider doing so.
As you think about contributing funds, please also reflect on an ominous trend in our political life when it comes to responding to large scale disasters. In the past, when hurricanes struck, earthquakes shook or fires scorched, Americans didn’t ask what party governs the city or state affected or who most of the people voted for in the last election. Regardless of partisan considerations, those victimized by disasters were all considered part of our larger American family. We didn’t ask whether they were left or right, or if they agreed with us on tax cuts or tariffs, we only wanted to know if they needed our help. If they did, we responded as a family does when one or more of its members needs a helping hand.
Today, however, we increasingly consider those who disagree with us politically part of someone else’s family. Today, we say out loud what would have been considered unthinkable a generation ago. “Let those who don’t think like me fend for themselves!’ The glee with which thousands of people online responded to the burning down of people’s home in Pacific Palisades, for instance, should be a wakeup call to us all about the consequences of the bitter rhetoric which increasingly characterizes American political and social life. If we believe that today there is a red America and blue America, and that these are two different families, then there is no America anymore.
In his classic essay, Kol Dodi Dofek (“listen, my beloved knocks’), Rav Solovietchik draws a distinction between an encampment and a congregation. The encampment, he teaches, is created out of a desire for self-defense and thrives on fear. A congregation, a nation, in contrast, is a collection of individuals with a single past, a common future, shared aspirations, and a collective destiny. This idea is expressed succinctly in the Hebrew phrase: Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh (“all Israel is responsible for one another.”). This is also the principle that underlies our desire to help those in the Los Angeles Jewish community devastated by the wildfires, no matter their political affiliation or denomination.
A secular version of this ancient Jewish belief used to unite all Americans. Its weakening in this age of partisan division presages a potential devolution of America from a “nation” to a mere encampment, divided by fear and united only to face a common enemy. When the definition of common enemy includes those who voted for the other candidate, then the future of the nation itself is increasingly in peril.
To be a Jewish American is to belong to two large families, one framed by faith and ancient tradition and the other determined by commitment to the powerful modern idea that people from many places and creeds can still forge a single nation. As we consider how to respond to those who have suffered from the catastrophic fires in Los Angeles, and as we remember that our community was once the recipient of aid in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I hope you will give generously to one or more of the funds set forth below. It’s what family does.
https://www.jewishla.org/wildfire-crisis-relief/ Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Wildfire Crisis Fund
https://secure.lafoodbank.org/site/Donation2?df_id=5260&mfc_pref=T&5260.donation=form1&utm_source=pmax&utm_medium=google-ads&utm_campaign=disaster-relief&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA-aK8BhCDARIsAL_-H9k0-5d1uzl5YT4czvMGXjZOlbQCBNDevIdB3XHt7rvv6jIFsxV8ZvMaAh
Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, Disaster Relief Fund
https://www.cafirefoundation.org/what-we-do/for-communities/disaster-relief
California Fire Foundation, Wildfire and Disaster Relief
Rabbi Michael Howald
