COASTSIDE JEWISH COMMUNITY ARK; A Home For Our Torah
By Annie Blair – Summer 2020
The history of the CJC Ark has a close connection with the story of our Torah.
As the Torah Celebration was being planned for June 2001, ideas for an Ark started to emerge. Here is where the story of our Ark begins as Debe Bloom starts to look for a furniture maker. She recounts her memories in a phone conversation with Annie Blair in the Fall of 2019.
Debe and Rick Bloom lived in Pacifica for eight years and were both active members of CJC. They moved to Ojai in 2007. During the time that they lived on the Coastside, Debe and Rick made frequent trips to the San Fernando Valley in Southern California to visit Debe’s fraternal twin sister, Carol Lee Marinoff, especially after she had taken ill.
One of these visits coincided with the purchase of the Torah. Knowing that Debe and Rick were visiting Carol during her illness, Grant Ross asked them if they would pick up the Torah in Los Angeles. They borrowed a car and headed to the Pico District to meet the Sofer at his studio. Carol was asleep when they returned to her house so they put the Torah on her dining room table. When she awoke and saw it she said, “Oh there’s a Torah on my table!” Debe asked Carol if it was okay that it was on her table and Carol’s reply was, “It’s an honor to have a Torah in my home.” From that moment, Debe always wanted the Torah to be in Carol’s ‘home’ which was ultimately to become the CJC Ark. Debe and Rick flew back to San Francisco with the Torah, in its blue velvet cover, sitting in Rick’s lap on the plane. According to Debe, “That, too, was an honor.”
Carol passed away in January of 2001. Debe and Rick wanted to honor Carol’s memory with the gift of an Ark for CJC and that is how the Carol Marnioff Fund came about. The fund was created from cash wedding gifts which Debe and Rick received. Maggid Jhos Singer performed a wedding ceremony for Debe and Rick in June 2001 following their marriage the previous year.
The following year, Debe was instrumental in finding Peter Fahler, an artist and craftsman based in Berkeley. He enthusiastically accepted the commission in May 2002 to design and construct the Ark. Debe described him as having “passionate care” as he studied up on the practices of Judaism and different woods which were considered sacred. Examples were Cherrywood and sacred African woods. What was chosen was a combination of African Bubinga Rosewood and Eastern Hard Maple. The imagery of a “Torah holding a Torah” was one idea for the Ark as was the Twin Towers. “The Queen of the Nile” was another image considered for its design. The Ark had to be portable so the frame was created as an integral part of its construction. Ultimately, the shape of a Torah scroll was chosen which, inadvertently, also honored the twin sisters.
The following September, the completed Ark traveled from Berkeley to Pacifica, wrapped in furniture pads in the back of a pick up truck. It graced the Bima in St Edmund’s Episcopal Church for High Holidays. In Debe’s words, “It was a community who worked together to facilitate bringing the Torah and the Ark to the Coastside.”