A man from California described the experience of finding a menorah passed down from his Holocaust-surviving grandmother amidst the devastation of the wildfires in the Los Angeles area as “insanely powerful.” Joshua Kotler shared with the New York Post that his family, which includes his wife Emily Kotler and their two daughters, had evacuated their home in Altadena and taken refuge at his wife’s sister’s residence in nearby Glassell Park, just “20 minutes” away. He expressed his gratitude to God that his family was able to escape the danger unharmed.

Before their home was destroyed, Joshua recalled that he had returned to the house to attempt to protect it by “hosing down” the roof, but ultimately left again in the face of the worsening situation.

When he and his wife returned to their neighborhood after the fire, their house had been reduced to ashes. The firefighters were working through the street, assessing homes one by one and marking those that had been “totally destroyed,” as Joshua described to the outlet.

“I asked one of the firefighters if it’s stupid for me to push things around to try to find anything that was salvaged,” Joshua shared, recounting the firefighter’s response that it was “not stupid” because “a lot of times things fall on top of other things and don’t burn.”

“The only item my wife and I recovered from the entire house was my grandmother’s Holocaust-surviving menorah,” Joshua added. “It was insanely powerful.”

Joshua further explained to the New York Post that just the night before discovering the menorah, he had been on the phone with his cousin, “crying” because he “had time to grab it.”

“The fact that I went there and it was the only thing recovered from the scene was just an insane feeling,” Joshua expressed. “The firefighters had to hold me up. I almost collapsed.”

{Matzav.com}