Altadena: One year after the conflagration

This terrible year began with the LA wildfires. To close out the year, I visited Altadena last week where, despite endless blocks of empty lots, I found sparks of hope in the most unexpected places.

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During a recent visit to California, I asked my host, a long-time Pasadena resident, to show me the damage from last winter’s devastating Eaton wildfire. Nearly one year later, the damage can clearly be seen throughout the community. in the singed trees, chained link fences and rows upon rows of vacant lots.

We stopped at the address of a Mid-Century Modern home that was one of the many historic houses for which Pasadena and Altadena are noted. As you can see from the before/after photos below, all that now remains of this home is the pool.

I then looked across the street at another vacant lot, and on the hillside was a child’s toy - a headless horse - that had been spewed from the burning wreckage and then, many months later, remained frozen in place as a macabre marker of tragic loss.

Elsewhere in Altadena, signs of renewed life strained to break through along with defiant indicators of concern that greedy moguls will try to grab vacated parcels at rock bottom prices.

But most of all, there was a vast emptiness, so lacking in life that not even vultures dared to circle. Altadena - or at least a large part of it - remains a ghost town.

Even McDonalds has checked out, though they, like Douglas McArthur, have vowed to return.

At first, the devastation appeared random, with some blocks totally destroyed and adjacent neighborhoods virtually untouched. But on closer examination, there was some logic behind which areas were destroyed and which ones spared.

Look at this map of the impacted area, extending southward from the San Gabriel range, from the Eaton Fire website.

Now, let’s move in a little closer.

Notice where the area of greatest destruction, marked in red, abruptly stops. It’s at the Mountain View Cemetery, which I passed, and, with some prompting from my guide, immediately I could see the dramatic shift from utter destruction to entire blocks completely undamaged. Without the cemetery to block it, the Eaton fire could easily have continued its rampage southward to Pasadena.¹

In this High Holidays of the eastern hills, entire neighborhoods were asking, Who shall live and who shall die? And that line was drawn literally by the abode of the dead, which, protecting the living, walled off the flames, metaphorically proclaiming, “Thou Shalt Not Pass!”

The living were actually saved by the dead!

Cue exploding brain gif.

It reminded me of a selection from the Zohar, a seminal book of Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah). In this passage, Rabbi Yehuda bar Shalom is conversing with a man who called to him from the grave.

אָמַר לֵיהּ וְאָתּוּן יַדְעִין בְּצַעֲרָא דְּחַיֵּי. א”ל, שָׂרֵי קִבְרִי, אִי לָאו בָּעוּתָא דִּילָן עַל חַיֵּי, לָא יִתְקַיְּימוּן פַּלְגּוּת יוֹמָא בְּעָלְמָא, וְהָאִידָּנָא אִתְעָרִית הָכָא, דַּהֲווֹ אַמְרִין לִי כָּל יוֹמָא, דִּלַעֲגָלָא יֵיתִי בְּרִי הָכָא, וְלָא יָדַעְנָא אִי בְּחַיֵּי אִי בְּמוֹתָא.

He (R. Yehuda) said to the dead man, “Do you know the pain of the living?”

He said to him, “I swear by the minister of my grave that were it not for our (the dead’s) prayers for the living, they would not survive in the world for even a half day.”

Jewish belief does not necessary hold that the dead intercede on our behalf, but it is a common practice to visit the graves of relatives or teachers to seek guidance, comfort and connection. The merit of our ancestors (Zechut Avot) can bring benefit to us. I visited my parents’ graves in Boston just today (Wednesday) to mark the anniversary (Yahrzeit) of my dad’s passing, and I prayed for their help during these perilous times.

But never could I imagine that the deceased founders of Altadena could stand together to save their descendants from total destruction. At the risk of cultural appropriation, the name “Altadena” in Hebrew/Yiddish means “Old Justice,” and these old timers stood strong in holding back the flames.

We then passed what used to be the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, also completely destroyed. I wrote about that synagogue last January, admiring how congregants had rushed in to save the Torah scrolls, as Jews have done for centuries. Now the scrolls are safe and the congregation has moved to a new temporary home, in a church on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena.

They plan to rebuild on the same lot where the old building stood.

I couldn’t get near the ruins of the temple because it is well-protected by a security barrier and the entire side street was blocked off. Given the concerns Jews justifiably have these days, we didn’t want to attract attention by stopping to investigate further.

I consider it a sign of the times that even a synagogue that has been totally destroyed needs extra security.

There is absolutely nothing left to destroy, but instinctively, there is fear of = I don’t know…a swastika, perhaps, or other offensive vandalism.

You know times are tough for the Jews when we even have to have an extra layer of protection even for our ruins. It reminds me of how even after the Holocaust, when Jews staggered back to their former shtetls in Poland, some were greeted with pogroms, the most infamous taking place in Kielce. Talk about kicking a people when they are down.

But passing the ruins of a former temple in Altadena does carry wisps of hope.

In the Talmud, Rabbi Akiba saw foxes scampering among the ruins of the destroyed temple and he laughed, because Jeremiah had prophesized in Lamentations 5:18, “Mount Zion lies desolate and the foxes walk upon it.” If that prophecy was now coming true, Akiba reckoned, that means that prophecies of Jerusalem’s restoration will also come to pass.²

And they did, though it took 2,000 years. And just a few years ago, in August of 2019, foxes were recorded scampering on the ancient stones by the Western Wall.

People took it as a sign that the temple will soon be rebuilt. I don’t subscribe to that vision, nor do I wish for it.

But I see something else in the imagery of wildlife bringing vitality to a place of devastation.

The temple in Altadena, like so many blocks around it, lies desolate. It is a metaphor for our world right now (and certainly our country in this Trumpian era). But life is returning to Altadena.

Animals in their habitats suffered perhaps even more than people in the Eaton fire. We’ll never know how many lost their homes and loved ones due to a climate catastrophe that they did not cause. Unlike in ancient Jerusalem, there are few foxes in Altadena - though one of the casualties of the flames was Fox’s, a local eatery for decades that will sadly not reopen.

But sure enough, animals have begun to return, and the locals, like Rabbi Akiba, have found it comforting. And when they were first spotted, just weeks after the flames were extinguished, they brought with them the hope that the people could emulate nature’s resilience and also come back.

Below we see a bear and coyote keeping each other company as they return to the ashen, forever-altered terrain.

And so, saved by a cemetery and inspired by mountain lions, coyotes and bears, Altadena is heeding nature’s call to return and replant. It’s a hopeful message for us to end a year that began with such despair.

And maybe, for Hanukkah or Christmas, some bereft child will be getting a new horse.

1. Read more about the Eaton fire here. According to Wikipedia, as of July 22, 2025, the death toll from the Eaton Fire included 19 people with 22 people missing. All but 1 of the 19 victims confirmed dead lived west of Lake Avenue, the predominately black neighborhood in Altadena that received emergency evacuation orders hours after those in east Altadena.

2. Here’s a totally different take on the meaning of foxes on the ruins of the 2nd temple, from the Berean Study Bible: The presence of foxes among ruins emphasizes the opportunistic nature of the false prophets, who thrived in the chaos and took advantage of the people’s vulnerability.