A synagogue that survived

(JTA) — Two blocks away: a school reduced to ruins. Across the street: rubble. Under the door: ashes. And yet at Kehillat Israel, things look much the same as they did at the beginning of the week, before the fires.

That’s what the clergy found when they reentered their synagogue’s building on Thursday in the wake of the blaze that devastated Pacific Palisades.

A reporter with NBC News who himself grew up at Kehillat Israel accompanied Rabbi Amy Bernstein, Rabbi Daniel Sher and Cantor Chayim Frenkel as they took stock of their synagogue’s remarkable survival amid a swath of destruction that ha...