Torah scrolls are rescued

The spiritual leader of a Reform temple in Thousand Oaks, California, risked his life to save the Torah scrolls in his synagogue, snatching them before they were burned in one of two massive wildfires that have claimed more than 6,800 homes and killed more than 40 people.

When a neighbor roused Barry Diamond from sleep to let him know that their neighborhood was under a voluntary evacuation order, instead of putting his personal effects together to escape, he drove 20 minutes to Temple Adat Elohim in one of the areas most threatened by the fires.

When he arrived, he found fire approaching the building.

“There’s a hill right across the street from our temple — it was fully engulfed — and there was a raining down of sparks onto our property,” he told JTA on Monday.

But that didn’t deter Diamond, 56, from dashing into the building to save his congregation’s holiest objects. Setting off an alarm, he entered the sanctuary and grabbed two of the congregation’s Torah scrolls — one had survived the Holocaust, the other was dedicated only six months earlier.

He then ran in a second time and, with the help of the synagogue president, Sandy Greenstein, brought out the remaining two scrolls as well as the Megillat Esther.

“I would say I was a cross between nervous and determined to get these out,” Diamond said. “Sometimes you just have to put your head down and do the work and worry about your feelings later.”

As he loaded the Torahs into his car, Diamond looked back and saw that plants behind the sanctuary were ablaze. A photo shows Diamond carrying a scross as a wall of red-tinted smoke is visible nearby.

Diamond and his wife, as well as most of his congregants, have had to evacuate their homes. As far as he knows no one has been hurt, but the congregation’s building sustained damage.

The fires hit the community at an especially trying time: Only a day earlier, congregants learned that a deadly shooting at a nearby bar left 12 people dead. Diamond said two congregants were at the bar at the time of the shooting and know people who were killed.

Diamond is trying to be there for congregants affected by either or both tragedies.

“There are people who lost their homes, there are people who are displaced, and we have to acknowledge and recognize them and be there and support them,” he said.