In the aftermath of the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles last year, I found myself reflecting on the growing incidence of climate catastrophes impacting some of the country’s largest Jewish communities. The fires that tore through L.A. not only left thousands without their homes but also destroyed institutions deeply woven into the fabric of the area’s Jewish communities, including the historic Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. In that instant, I found myself worrying not only about those directly impacted by the fire itself but about the American Jewish community more broadly. 

Americans are facing a new reality of heat waves, flooding, fires and superstorms. How many more times will climate disasters wreak their havoc on Jewish communities? How many institutions will be shattered by fire or flood? How will we restore not just the buildings, but the spirit of community and history that are fostered therein?

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Congregants search through the remains of Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center, which served Pasadena for over 100 years and was destroyed in the Eaton Fire, on Jan. 11, 2025 in Pasadena, Calif.

American Jews are disproportionately located in regions of the country that are highly vulnerable to climate disasters. Southern California, Florida and the California coast are perhaps the most obvious, but even New York is exposed to rising sea levels that — as we saw with Superstorm Sandy in 2012 — threaten to overwhelm its basic infrastructure. 

Our communal leaders and institutions must develop the infrastructure to not only prepare for these threats, but to shepherd people through such disasters when they inevitably occur.

Watching the aftermath of the L.A. fires occur from afar, I saw a Jewish community that mobilized with strength, fortitude and collective responsibility towards those impacted most directly. I watched with awe, even inspiration, as those on the ground got to work amidst their grief. They made sure that the spirit of their communities stayed alight, and they also supported the frontline communities who were hardest hit.

The intensity and scale of the L.A. fires made it clear to me that no community should have to bear such catastrophes alone. But here’s the reality: Jewish communities generally, and Jewish clergy leaders in particular, are not typically trained to guide their communities through climate-induced disasters. I vividly remember the time that we spent exploring pastoral care in my own rabbinic education — its demands, intricacies, and nuances. But no training in pastoral care can prepare a rabbi for seeing their literal beit tefilah destroyed or damaged, or for having hundreds of congregants lose their homes simultaneously,  or for having whole institutions wiped out by climate catastrophes. 

It is a gap that the Jewish community must identify, discuss and address quickly. We cannot simply move these conversations into the future, in the hope that climate change will spare us. For that would mean disavowing the clear and present danger that climate change already poses, and has extracted, from us. It would mean not preparing for what we now know will arrive, in one way or another, on our doorsteps. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The emotional and spiritual implications of climate catastrophes cause scars that can last for a long time. We need to take these effects seriously and build resources to help communities move through them. 

My organization, Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, recently developed and published one such resource: a spiritual resource guide for clergy, focused on the immediate aftermath of a climate catastrophe. Our guide is only one document, but our hope is that it can be the seed for a broader infrastructure of spiritual care and support that Jewish institutions can have ready to deploy the moment disaster strikes. Like a rapid-response team in an emergency, but for the neshamah (soul) of the community and its members.

This work is especially timely as we approach Tisha B’Av. The holiday is one that we usually associate with grief, mourning, communal narrowness, tragedy and uncertainty about the future. But Tisha B’Av is also a story about Jewish communal rebirth and renewal: the destruction of the Temple also marked the beginning of the rabbinic Judaism we now call our own. In a moment when the threat of climate disasters is only growing, we must implement the spiritual infrastructure that can support us towards growth and renewal. 

To be sure, this infrastructure will take time to build. But we can start by initiating frank, public conversations within our communities about how to tailor this infrastructure to our specific needs. For it is far, far better to start now than to wait; to confront the future and plan for it in advance, so that we may move towards a better future.

Rabbi Laura Bellows is the director of spiritual activism and education at Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action.