Joshua Kotler made a bittersweet discovery while exploring the wreckage of his family home after it was destroyed by the Los Angeles wildfires last week: the only item still intact among the ashes was his Holocaust-surviving grandmother’s menorah.
Kotler, a 39-year-old occupational therapist and father of two young children, told the New York Post that his entire house burnt down “with everything in it” during the inferno that ripped through the Altadena neighbourhood of LA.
He shared with the Post that after the fire died down, he and his wife visited the mountaintop site where their home once stood to find fire crews wading through the debris.
“I asked one of the firefighters if it’s stupid for me to push things around to try to find anything that was salvaged,” he added, “And she said, ‘No, it’s not stupid — a lot of times things fall on top of other things, and don’t burn’”.
It was then that Kotler and his wife Emily recovered the sole surviving item in the house – his grandmother's menorah.
“It was insanely powerful,” Kotler said. “The night before, I was on the phone with my cousin crying that I had time to grab it and I didn’t. And the fact that I went there and it was the only thing recovered from the scene was just an insane feeling. The firefighters had to hold me up. I almost collapsed.”
Joshua Kotler holds the menorah that survived the LA wildfire which destroyed his family home. (Photo: Joshua Kotler)[Missing Credit]
Kotler and his family initially believed their home would not be impacted by the fire, which also destroyed the Pasadena Jewish Centre and Temple, but detailed how how he and his family ended up planning their escape as eastbound winds moved the Pacific Palisades fire towards Altadena.
“We didn’t think the house would burn down,” Kotler told the Post. “We packed two pairs of clothes for my kids, two pairs of clothes for us and as a weird precaution, I took three pieces of art from the wall through to my trunk, and said, ‘Okay, let’s go to your sisters, who lives like 20 minutes in the city of Glassell Park.’”
But Kotler felt compelled to return to his house as the winds picked up, determined to do what he could to save it.
“The flames were very, very close, maybe 500 yards away. And I started hosing down my roof from my property to try to mitigate any risk of burning at that moment,” he said.
“I’m kicking myself now — I should have ran into the house to grab stuff, but obviously, in that moment, I wasn’t thinking clearly. After about 10 minutes, I started to feel things coming. I got a text from my wife saying, ‘You need to get out of there right now.’
“And then I got a call from my father-in-law, who said, ‘My daughter and my grandkids need you. You need to leave now.’ So I hopped in the car and left.
Joshua Kotler, his wife Emily and two daughters Liberty and Eve managed to escape their LA home before the fire destroyed everything - except Kotler's grandmother's menorah. (Photo: Joshua Kotler)[Missing Credit]
Kotler said driving away from his burning home “was like a scene out of a movie … Embers flying everywhere... It was probably the scariest experience in my life.
When he made it back to his sister-in-law's house, “I hugged my kids, looked at my wife and said, ‘I’ll be surprised if our house makes it.’ We spent the night holding each other and praying. But we’re alive. We’re alive. That’s all that matters.”
