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Community impact
Earthquake damages one synagogue, a school and artist’s
studio
By Donna Gordon Blankinship
The Jewish Transcript
SEATTLE, Wash., March 12 — Jewish institutions closest
to the epicenter of last week’s earthquake — synagogues
in Tacoma and Olympia, were miraculously spared, but three locations
in Seattle suffered significantly.
The Seattle Hebrew Academy, Temple De Hirsch Sinai and the studio
of prominent Jewish artist Akiva Segan all sustained serious
damage in the 6.8 magnitude quake on Wednesday, March 7.
Seattle Hebrew Academy’s historic building on the north
end of the Capitol Hill neighborhood was closed by the city
of Seattle for safety reasons. The quake loosened decorative
bricks in “parapets” high above the playground, the
front entrance and the back of the school. Plaster cracked and
fell from ceilings in the auditorium and several classrooms
in the school built in 1909. SHA Headmaster, Rabbi Shmuel Kay,
said three children suffered minor injuries during the quake,
including one girl who was hit on her arm by falling plaster.
She was taken to a hospital, treated and released. Two boys
had minor neck injuries, possibly from diving under their desks
during the earthquake.
Teachers and parents carefully removed essential equipment from
the school at the end of last week and over the weekend. Students
went back to class on Monday at Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative
Congregation on Mercer Island. Rebecca Almo, president of the
Orthodox day school’s board of directors, said the families
and staff at SHA were overwhelmed by the synagogue’s kindness.
“Their community mindedness is really heartwarming. I can’t
thank them enough,” Almo said last week.
Kay said he was hopeful students and staff would be able to
move back to the school in a week or two, after the decorative
bricks on the top of the four-story school are removed. But
Almo and a contractor hired to examine the building said they
were finding it would be more difficult than expected to remove
the bricks, so the process could take longer. A more thorough
inspection this week by a structural engineer will determine
if the school suffered any underlying structural damage and
that determination also will have an impact on the student’s
return date.
The school does not have earthquake insurance, but they have
applied to the federal government for emergency assistance.
A city inspector estimated the damage at $100,000, but Kay said
that was only a rough estimate.
Kay seemed upbeat and hopeful last Friday and was especially
enthusiastic about how much the community has stepped in to
assist the school. He said SHA was lucky that the Samis Foundation
send over a contractor, who was in the middle of some work at
one of the foundation’s buildings, to inspect the building.
After the quake on Wednesday, building contractors with time
on their hands were extremely difficult to find. “Thank
God, everybody’s helping,” Kay said.
A newer part of the building, which houses the Stroum Jewish
Community Center preschool at Seattle Hebrew Academy, was undamaged
in the quake and declared safe by the city of Seattle. That
part of the school has remained open.
About two weeks ago, almost with prescience, the school hired
a contractor to remove four feet from an old, no longer used
chimney with “serious cracks.” Kay said the chimney
most likely would have fallen in the quake and possibly caused
serious damage.
Luck or divine intervention was also in evidence at Temple De
Hirsch Sinai at the south end of Capitol Hill. The earthquake
loosened plaster from a hidden dome ceiling in the “Temple
Center” building, the oldest part of the Reform synagogue,
which was built in the 1920s. The plaster crashed through a
false ceiling in the Jaffe Auditorium. When the false ceiling
was installed in the 1970s, the old dome ceiling was not removed.
Miraculously, no one was in the room at the time, although students
and staff from Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences, which occupies
part of the Temple on weekdays, had just finished preparing
the room for an assembly. Also with incredible luck or foresight,
the damaged part of the synagogue is the only section covered
by earthquake insurance, according to Executive Director Larry
Broder.
“We made a calculated decision because we did an extensive
seismic inventory of our whole facility and we made a calculate
decision a few years back about what were the smartest things
to do,” Broder said.
The congregation has spent much time and money making the Pacific
Northwest’s oldest and largest synagogue earthquake safe.
“Part of the reason we came through it so well was because
of the preventative work we have invested in,” he said.
The Jaffe Auditorium, along with the temple library, kitchen
and some classrooms used by both the religious school and SAAS,
will be closed until repairs can be completed or temporary safety
measures are put in place, according to Broder. Some classrooms
in the religious school, in what Broder called the north building,
were built in the 1950s and were undamaged.
What appears to be minor damage also happened in the TDHS sanctuary.
Broder said cosmetic grouting and caulking around doorways will
have to be cleaned up. Some of the decorative metal lattice
around the sanctuary came loose. The temple will have to pay
to erect a 60- or 70-foot high scaffolding within the building
to fix that problem. The damage that appears to be most serious
in the sanctuary was a slight shifting of 12 marble panels above
the ark.
A structural engineer was scheduled to determine early this
week if the Ten Commandment panels were loose from their backing
and also if a crack in the skin of one of the columns to the
right of the ark was cosmetic or a symptom of deeper problems.
As a safety measure, the synagogue moved Shabbat services out
of the sanctuary and into a chapel in a newer part of the building.
The congregation also canceled its Purim celebration and carnival,
which would have taken place in the Jaffe Auditorium. “It
was a hard decision, but the setup for it was so complicated
and we knew there were other Purim events elsewhere, so the
only prudent thing to do was to cancel it,” Broder said.
On Friday, the temple building committee walked through the
facility with a contractor to “pick a lane to travel to
get the facility up and running as soon as possible,” Broder
said.
There will be no path to reentry to the studio of prominent
Seattle artist Akiva Segan, The city of Seattle declared unsafe
the Pioneer Square building in which he works after the earthquake
created a brand-new entrance — a large hole in the wall
of an upper floor. Segan is best know from his series of Holocaust
remembrance drawings series “Under the Wings of G-D,”
which he has been working on since 1991. He said his artwork
was not damaged in the quake and he and a few friends crossed
the police tape and removed as much as they could from the building
soon afterward. At the end of last week, he was unsure of the
fate of several large pieces and is in need of a new “earthquake
safe” place to store his work.
“I’m afraid the city may condemn the building. My
nerves? Frayed! Nonetheless I’m really thankful I’ve
got most of the “Wings” works out and even though
I haven’t a clue where to get them stored — an earthquake
proof and fireproof safe building is my quest — at least
I’ve got them, well almost all of them,” Segan wrote
in an e-mail to friends and supporters.
Donna Gordon Blankinship is editor of The Jewish Transcript,
Washington state’s only Jewish community newspaper |
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