Handmade challah cover gifted to Pasadena synagogue destroyed in LA fires: ‘You can feel the love’

When last year’s Eaton Fire burned the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, cantor Ruth Berman Harris helped save what she could from the flames.

Despite best efforts, the campus and nearly everything in it was destroyed.

“I had a colleague calling me and asking me what I needed, and I wasn't able to say,” Berman Harris, one of the spiritual leaders of the synagogue, told LAist. “I don't think I was able to say what I needed for about a year.”

In the months that followed the fire, people from around the world stepped up to replace what was lost, including prayer books, clothes and candlesticks. Several donated challah covers, a decorative cloth that’s placed over the braided bread before being blessed and eaten on Shabbat.

A parking sign at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center after the Eaton Fire.

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Josh Edelson

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And while much of the community’s focus is directed toward larger items that need to be replaced — the buildings included — smaller, ceremonial items can make a big difference, too.

Karen Fink, a Van Nuys resident, donated a hand-woven challah cover that she made for the temple. Her weaving guild was already making dish towels for L.A. fire survivors.

“You've got so many things that need to be done and replaced,” Fink said.

“I just always like to think about who it's going towards, what it's going to be used for, that it should be used well and loved,” she continued.

‘Love through the threads’

On Jan. 7, 2025, as the flames closed in on the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, Berman Harris rushed through smoke and falling embers to rescue all 13 sacred Torah scrolls, pieces of parchment with Hebrew text used at services, including weekly on Shabbat.

Berman Harris now works out of an office building in Pasadena, a few miles away from where the center stood.

More than 400 families gathered to worship at the temple before the fire. About 30 families lost their homes, and 40 others were displaced, she said. The congregation has been gathering at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena.

The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, which burned during the Eaton Fire, in January 2025 (top) and in January 2026 (bottom).

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Josh Edelson

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“The silver lining of when you go through a traumatic loss is that you don't realize A, how strong you are and B, how not alone you are,” said Berman Harris, who has been a part of the congregation for 14 years.

She said the temple has received many gifts to help them rebuild, but Fink’s challah cover will be used for communal celebrations and holidays to give it an extra layer of “kavod” — of holiness.

Challah covers, usually embroidered with Hebrew words and symbols, are a traditional sight on a table prepared for a Shabbat meal, where both the bread and a cup of wine are blessed before eating. The decorative cover is a symbolic way of honoring the bread, while the wine is being blessed first.

“Because you say the blessing over the bread last,” Fink told LAist. “It gets to have this lovely cover so it doesn't get embarrassed.”

Fink said she used one of her more intricate patterns, featuring white and blue threads in a repeating pattern of the Star of David.

The challah cover woven by Karen Fink when it was fresh off the loom.

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She said it took a couple of hours to wind the thread, about a day to get the project set up on her small loom and another three days to get through the top six rows of stars.

Once the challah cover was complete, it took a few months to get it to Berman Harris, but Fink said she wanted to help in a way that felt more personal than mailing a check.

“They were able to get their Torah scrolls out,” Fink said. “But all the other things that maybe aren't required, but are helpful in enhancing the spirit of Shabbat, the spirit of a synagogue, you know, that was all lost.”

Starting to settle

Berman Harris said the donations have not only helped rebuild their ritual spaces, they were gifted “with love.”

“They're not things you buy on Amazon,” she said. “These are things that you cherish because you can feel the love through the threads.”

Cantor Ruth Berman Harris showing off the handmade challah cover Karen Fink weaved for the congregation.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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The synagogue has received other challah covers that they’ve distributed to families in the congregation.

On the anniversary of the fire, Josh Ratner, senior rabbi at the temple, told LAist’s AirTalk program that Jewish people have overcome “so much” throughout history.

People embrace inside a tent on the grounds of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center during a commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire on Jan. 6.

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“I think that that gives us some firm foundation to know that we can recover from this as well,” he said. “And not just recover, but really our [history] … is one of rebuilding even stronger than before.

“Each time there's been a crisis, we've been able to reinvent different aspects of Judaism and to evolve."

Students carry lanterns they created as symbols of hope as they enter the grounds of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center during a commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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