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1973 BCC The Tolerant Temple 1
1media/Screen Shot 2023-04-01 at 4.04.10 PM_thumb.png2023-04-01T23:05:09+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a4911L.A. Times photo of MCC fire, January 28, 1973. Shortly after midnight, Milt Jinowsky z”l, was on his way home and heard on the radio that the MCC building was on fire. “With one accord, the entire group of us, about 20 or so persons, left in our cars. We raced to the scene of the fire. There we surrounded the Fire Chief. ‘Our Torah is in that building—we have to get it out.’ We all shouted at him. The Fire Chief, overwhelmed by the sheer number of us and our almost hysterical insistence, finally asked us to select one member to go into the burning building with him. “Unanimously we turned to our new president-elect, Stu. His first act as President was to enter the burning building with the Fire Chief and rescue our Torah. He was gone such a long time, more fire trucks arrived, the flames shot skyward as the spire burned more fiercely, the firemen were pushing us back to the sidewalk—‘Where is he?’ we asked each other. ‘Has Stu come out yet?’ Then, out of the smoke, with his pants legs rolled up—came Stu— tenderly carrying our Torah in his arms! We all broke into tears! “Our Torah was water damaged, but safe. That night, we spent the entire night tenderly unrolling our Torah, both men and women, reverently weighing down the wet corners so that it might dry. Both men and women spent the night on their knees—thanking God silently for our Torah and carefully putting books, papers and weights wrapped in wax paper on the curling sheepskin. Our togetherness was never closer than at that moment…” While the Torah was rescued (although another account said that in spite of these efforts, it was later decided that the scroll was damaged beyond repair and had to be buried), the MCC building sustained $160,000 in damage, was deemed a total loss and ultimately torn down. Although the fire was initially determined to be of suspicious origin, arson was later ruled out by the Fire Department, but doubts as to the cause persist to this day.plain2023-04-01T23:05:09+00:00January 28, 1973Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49