Jews With Altitude

Every December, my wife and I used to pack up our winter gear, load the snow chains into the trunk of our car, bundle up our two young children and brace for a motor expedition through the desolate suburbs that seem to stretch interminably eastward from Los Angeles. On the map, Washington, D.C., and Paris, France, would appear much more remote than the San Bernardino Mountains, but in our experience, those localities — where we occasionally visited our respective families — were infinitely closer. You hop on a plane, catch a movie, snooze for a while and voila, you’re dashing around in another bustling metropolis full of automobiles, department stores and fellow Jews.

Big Bear Lake, now that was exotic. Sure, there were some passenger vehicles and maybe a half-dozen clothing shops, perhaps even one or two landsmen — probably tourists like ourselves — but mostly, there were lofty evergreen trees, the cleanest air in Southern California, water that tasted delicious right out of the tap, and this curious white stuff that our boots sank into and that made our children fall down.

“This is snow,” we would tell them. “This is what it’s like in the rest of the world.” And that guy with the buffalo-check plaid flannel shirt, who might be missing a few teeth — “Sweetheart, he’s American” — we say, hastening to add, “just like us” — only confused the children further.

But then something strange started happening. Ariel, our older son, who must have been 5 at the time, starting asking why we couldn’t live in Big Bear. “How are you supposed to go to Hebrew School?” was our knee-jerk answer. “How are you supposed to, God willing, get Bar Mitvahed? Who would you socialize with? And what’s so terrible about West Los Angeles, anyway?”

Unfortunately, where we had rhetorical questions, Ariel had further rhetorical questions. How did we know there were no Jews there? Couldn’t he have friends that weren’t Jewish? And what was so great about West Los Angeles? What was so great about cars and department stores?

It wasn’t the cars or the department stores, we tried to explain, it was the schools. But on a subsequent trip to Big Bear, Ariel pointed out that the educational establishments there bore the same California Distinguished School designation as those in Beverly Hills. And he learned from a friend in L.A., whose family also visited Big Bear on occasion, that there was a minyan that met weekly in the mountains. Our excuses were wearing thin, but our son’s idea fixe wasn’t.

Our last defense was that, as screenwriters, we had to live near producers’ offices and movie studios. But Ariel pointed out that one of our dearest friends and mentors, an Oscar-winning screenwriter, lived in Idaho. And then, ironically, we sold a screenplay to a director-producer who was moving his entire company from the Universal lot to Santa Barbara. “I’ve had it with the traffic,” was his terse explanation.
We were house shopping at the time and, frankly, we didn’t see anything in West Los Angeles for under $2 million that seemed, well, livable.

During one of our annual excursions to Big Bear, we visited a couple of open houses just for fun. We walked right into a spacious fixer-upper with a view of the ski slopes, a huge library, and an adorable master bedroom-office suite in its roomy, gabled attic. By L.A. standards, the price tag was as astonishing as the scenery. We fell in love on the spot. After confirming that there was indeed a Jewish community in Big Bear, and that Hebrew lessons and even Bar Mitzvah training were available, we bought that house.

Without knowing it, we also bought into the loveliest Jewish community we’ve ever encountered. B’nai Big Bear officially comprises some 40-odd families, about half of whom dwell on the mountain year-round. The others live “down the hill,” in places like Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, and maintain secondary residences in Big Bear.

B’nai Big Bear doesn’t have a star-studded annual fundraiser, a famous rabbi or an imposing building designed by a celebrated architect. In fact, we don’t even have a building. But these deficiencies turn out to be a blessing. What the congregation lacks in status symbols, it makes up in warmth and spirit. There’s a sense of personal commitment on the part of every member, in part because we share the same culture. And because that culture — urban, informed, assertive — is in the minority up here, we tend to hang out together, even when there’s no yom tov to celebrate. Ironically, my wife and I — who have lived in New York, New Haven, Paris, Casablanca and Los Angeles — found a more varied, fascinating, embracing community in this satellite village than anywhere else on the globe.

The most Jewishly educated of us, Nancy Freedland, serves as our educational director and lay rabbi. Nancy was raised in an Orthodox household, attended Jewish schools and lived in Israel, so she’s well-versed in the liturgy, the traditions, the folk songs and the language. Five days a week, Nancy commutes from Big Bear to Barstow, where she runs a school for children with emotional and behavioral disorders. The caring and devotion that she brings to that job she also brings to every Hebrew class and Bar Mitzvah up here on the mountain.

Other members of the congregation include an environmental consultant who flies his private plane around the country to inspect Superfund sites; the owner of a music library, who rents recordings to the studios; an Oscar-winning movie star; a retired probation officer; a virtuoso jazz pianist; a retired State Department diplomat and his beautiful, cultivated wife; a hippie single mother/farmer; an artistic glassblower, whose creations are distributed throughout the country; a manufacturer of camera cases for the film industry; and a Black, formerly Christian family, who, through personal reading and meditation, came to the conclusion that the religion they believed in was not Christianity but Judaism.

Every Friday afternoon, we get together for Hebrew lessons, prayers, a reading of the Torah portion, and a potluck dinner at the house of one or another member of the community. our congregation is not affiliated with the Reform, Conservative or Orthodox movement. We’re just a group of Jews who observe the mitzvot in varying degrees but who make a point of conveying an attitude of respect toward every other member, regardless of his or her level of observance.

After all is said and done, my wife and I have to admit that our son was right. Our lives have vastly improved since we moved to Big Bear, and his training in our belief system and culture hasn’t suffered in the least. As for his education — well, his Stanford Nine scores (which, if I may kvell, were always impressive) have actually gone up.

Next time you’re in Big Bear, don’t be shy. Stop by for a Shabbat dinner or a Passover Seder. We’d love to welcome you into our homes.

B’nai Big Bear is a nonprofit organization. Inquiries should be directed to Helaine Cross, president of the congregation, at (909) 584-9445. Shabbat dinners, open to all, take place at 6:30 p.m. Friday. Call to inquire about Sukkot, Passover and the other holidays and the congregation’s once-a-month Saturday service.