Ramona, CA (special) -- Al Wollner, the railroad man, loved to sing and not only from his perch inside the locomotive. He liked to give concerts with selections from light operas and musical comedies. And he so loved cantorial music that he studied with some of the great chazans in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Wollner and his wife, Marcia Mercer Wollner, moved to Ramona from Palmdale -- having encountered the mountain town one day after visiting Tijuana then deciding to return to their home in California's high desert via San Diego County's back roads. 

When they drove into Ramona, recalls Marcia, "I looked around and the people seemed to be very friendly, and I sat down in a restaurant, and I went out and got a local paper... and I said to Al 'we are going to retire here.'" 

That was in 1973, and by 1976 Marcia and Al made good on her prediction.

Down the hill, in Poway, at what was then a fairly new Reform congregation -- Temple Adat Shalom -- Al found an outlet for his singing. He backed up Rabbi Sheldon Moss as the chazan during the High Holy Days. On some Shabbats, Wollner also would go over to Camp Pendleton to help out with cantorial duties there because Railroad Al ... He was a singing man.

In 1981, as part of its annual fundraising campaign, the United Jewish Federation was trying to contact and involve as many San Diego County Jews as possible. At one meeting, when it was realized that Wollner lived "out there in Ramona," he was given the names of about 60 people who resided in that general area and was urged to solicit them in behalf of UJF. As he did so, he carried the news to each of those Jews. Imagine, he said, there at least 60 of us living in the Ramona area. The news caught everyone by pleasant surprise, remembers one of those residents, Luann Rivera.

CHAI CELEBRATION--Al Wollner displays a plaque and a shofar presented to him in  honorof his 18th year serving Congregation Etz Chaim as a chazan. He is surrounded by lnge Rosen, who donated the shofar; his  daughter Tziva Wollner and wife Marcia  Mercer Wollner.

Rivera had come to Ramona with her Ecuadorian-born husband Marcello who had "received a public health scholarship when he went to medical school and at the time he was finishing his residency, it was his commitment to work in an underserved area for several years. 

"There was a vacancy in Ramona and we were interested in moving to Southern California and loved San Diego," Rivera said. The couple more than filled out the several year commitment. They became active members of the Ramona community, with Dr. Rivera serving 13 years on the Ramona Unified School Board before being succeeded by his wife, now in her fifth year on the board.

Luann Rivera also serves in San Diego as executive director of Operation Understanding, the program that brings together African-American and Jewish high schoolers for a summer of cross-cultural travel.

Having discovered there were at least 60 Jews in Ramona, the Wollners and others decided to have a "potluck Passover." A notice was placed in the Ramona Sentinel and more people than expected showed up for the celebration at the home of Dr. Fred and Sandy Arsham. 

"We had all these people -- it was so crowded, you couldn't believe it," Marcia Wollner recalled. "They were coming out of the windows practically. We kept bringing more things in, squishing in and squishing in, and (it being big news), the Sentinel people were there too." Nearly 70 persons attended. 

With all the publicity surrounding the seder, an Episcopal priest, Rev. Don Robinson, suggested to Al Wollner that perhaps their two congregations could engage in interfaith dialogue. Wollner replied that the band of Jews could hardly be called a congregation, it didn't even have a place to meet. "You do now," said Robinson. Arrangements were made for Congregation Etz Chaim -- The Tree of Life -- to begin developing its root system in the social hall of a church.

Student rabbis and part-time rabbis, a borrowed Torah, and temporary quarters marked the beginning of this congregation which waxed and waned over the years, with membership varying from perhaps 20 to 30 families. "We've been waning the last few years, but now I think we are waxing again," Mrs. Wollner said.

Eleven years ago, with Rabbi Aaron Gottesman serving as spiritual leader and Marvin Hamburger as president, the congregation obtained a Holocaust Torah through the Westminster Synagogue in London. 

Hamburger's widow, Rhoda, today president of Etz Chaim, remembers the circumstances surrounding the Torah's acquisition quite well.

"It was one of the more than 1,500 Torah scrolls that had been collected by the nazis in Czechoslovakia and made a part of a Judaica collection that they had planned to put in a museum to an extinct race," she said. "It is one of the few Torahs that does not have any known history attached to it. We do not have any idea where it came from in Czechoslovakia. "You know most of the Torahs had very complete backgrounds- information collected by the nazis," Hamburger said. But in the case of this scroll, either the information was lost or never recorded in the first place. Only in Hebrew writing around a disk at the base of the roller is there a legend that the Torah was presented in 1826 in honor of a bar mitzvah. (Coincidentally, the roller of a Torah also is called an Etz Chaim in Hebrew.) "My late husband Marvin was instrumental in obtaining the Torah on permanent loan from the Westminster Synagogue in London who are the caretakers of all of those Torahs that were ransomed from Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s," Rhoda Hamburger said. The Hamburgers traveled to London "and met with the rabbi and we were shown where all these Torahs were kept when they came in and where the scribe sat and restored them,"

173-YEARS-OLD TORAH-- Barry Pasternack holds a  Torah scroll that was  dedicated in 1826 for a Bar - mitzvah celebrated at a now  destroyed congregation in the czech Republic. Etz Chaim congregation is raising funds  to pay a scribe to re-copy the  words of the Torah onto the scroll.

she recalled.  "So many of them were in terrible condition. They were wrapped in rags; they were bloodstained; they were stained by other things, maybe tears, who can tell? But this one was in wonderful condition and it was just such a tremendous feeling of we are carrying on." Nowadays, the congregation routinely recalls to mind the Torah's "unknown congregation" during the recitation of the Kaddish.

Hamburger remembers that ceremonies welcoming the Torah back into the service of the Jewish people were held in the Rotunda of San Diego Country Estates, the upscale golf course and residential development that has attracted many retirees -- including the Hamburgers -- to the Ramona area.

Besides Gottesman, other clergy at the event included Rabbi Erwin Herman and a variety of Christian ministers from the area's churches. Hamburger said that Gottesman, "conducted a beautiful ceremony and various lay persons spoke and it was a full house. We had over 100 people here, which for our congregation was quite a feat."

Gottesman, who today operates the Jewish Counseling and Fellowship Center in San Diego as well as serving as a chaplain for the San Diego police and fire departments, said the day was emotional because not only did the congregation got a Torah, but the Torah received "a living breathing congregation."

Since that ceremony, Rabbi Mark Hurvitz has become Etz Chaim's part time rabbi. Two Friday night Shabbat services are held at the homes of congregants each month -- with Hurvitz coming up to lead one service per month and Wollner, who is now 85, often leading the other service. The parchment of the 173-year-old Torah scroll remains in excellent condition but the Hebrew letters have faded with time. Worried, the congregation took the scroll to Alberto Attia, the local sofer, who told them that it probably would cost far more to repair than to replace.

HOME-STYLE SHBBAT--Rabbi Mark Hurvitz, standing, addresses members of  Congregation Etz Chaim befor beginning  Shabbat services at the home of Barry and  Amilia Pasternack. seated on couch at far  left is Hurvitz's son, Noam

Next, Rabbi Aaron Klein of Klein Brothers of New York City looked the old scroll over during a visit to the San Diego area in which he also helped Congregation Beth El in La Jolla begin writing a new Torah. After unrolling Etz Chaim's Torah totally, he confirmed Attia's judgment -- that it would cost between $13,000 and $15,000 to re-ink every letter. 

"The board sat down and discussed this, all the pros and the cons, but we had a lot of feeling for this Torah," Hamburger said. "We feel that as long as we continue reading from it at services and bar mitzvahs then that unknown congregation lives on. Even though they were probably totally destroyed, their memory continues. Based on that we decided that we are going to take as long as it has to take to raise the money to repair it."

The drive began in June. Now, whenever congregants wants to honor someone else, or memorialize a relative, they make contributions to the Etz Chaim's Torah fund. And other congregations have also decided to contribute to the restoration project. Both Temple Solel and Congregation Beth Israel have made contributions as have congregations in other parts of the country who have read an appeal that Etz Chaim posted over the internet.

"One was from North Carolina, another was from Denver, Colorado, from Connecticut, and from up and down California," Hamburger said. "Individuals have also sent us checks for $5, $10, or $25."

A member of the congregation who prefers to remain anonymous told Etz Chaim that she would match whatever congregations came in for the Torah fund. As a result, said Hamburger, the congregation is about half way towards its fundraising goal. Donations may be sent to Congregation Etz Chaim at PO Box 1138, Ramona, CA 92065.

* * *

Hurvitz came to the San Diego area nearly 11 years ago when his wife, Deborah Prinz, became the pulpit rabbi at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway.

Although the couple were ordained together at Hebrew Union College, their careers have diverged widely. Prinz has focused on the pulpit, while Hurvitz has gone from Jewish communal life to the pulpit and back again. 

Today, in addition to serving as the spiritual leader of Congregation Etz Chaim, he works in Solana Beach as a trouble shooter and problem solver for Nisus Software Inc., which makes the Nisus Writer, a word processing system capable of integrating English and Hebrew script in the same document and has similar capabilities for other languages.

"I test software and communicate with people from all over the world," he said about that job. "A lot of my rabbinic colleagues in San Diego and throughout California -- Reform rabbis -- use Nisus Writer," he said. "So it is a very interesting situation-- very few people who are in technical support have their friends using their software. So I have to guarantee that the software works; my colleagues are the ones who are using it."

He provided a new Nisus-written pamphlet to congregants who attended a recent Shabbat service at the home of Barry and Emilia Pasternack, then collected the pamphlets back up again because in his perfectionist eyes, the selections in the pamphlet weren't quite right yet. (Hurvitz also has been writing, rewriting, publishing and adding to a family Haggadah for many years).

Etz Chaim's Shabbat service included the traditional Hebrew prayers and songs, but also had some avant-garde readings, or at least ones which I had to "catch up" with. (Hurvitz and his brother Jay, who now lives in Israel, once co-hosted a program on Los Angeles radio station KPFK called "Catching Up" in which they played avant-garde jazz. Their title came from a favorite saying that "there is no avant-garde, there are only people who are a little bit late.")

Before singing "Shalom Rav," with congregants seated on couches and chairs in a semi circle in the Pasternack family room and Hurvitz facing them while seated on the floor, the congregation responsively recited this unattributed poem from the pamphlet:

As the daffodil
Does from the mold
May my phrases 
Drain gold

May my lines,
As buttercups do,
Syphon up
A vivid hue.

May my words
As they ply
Like roses, soak up
Richest dye.

I descend
to new heights

enter a room
without walls

In its darkness
white light glows

I close my eyes
to see.

Hurvitz had grown up in Los Angeles in "a Yiddish-Secularist home where Workmen's Circle were right wingers. We learned mostly through singing Yiddish folk songs. The house was filled with objects that depicted the Jewish life of Eastern Europe, both lithographs of etchings, things of that sort--a large collection that my parents (Nathan and Faye Hurvitz) amassed over the years. It was donated to the Magnes Museum in Berkeley in 1991 or 1992 and they had a big show of that stuff."

The rabbi-to-be picked up his parents habit of collecting. "I began collecting Jewish lapel buttons and that grew into bumper stickers, T shirts, patches and other things that I have a technical term for: 'artifacts and ephemera relating to contemporary Jewish popular culture,'" Hurvitz said. "It could also be called 'junk Judaica.'" Following in his parents' footsteps, he donated his collection to the Magnes Museum as well.

Although Hurvitz's father, Nathan, was an atheist, he insisted that his children attend Hebrew school at a Conservative congregation. His son remembered that "we lit Shabbat candles, made kiddush and a Shabbat dinner every week. ... Why was Natie Hurvitz doing all these things? He said 'these are the folkways of the Jewish people. We maintain as part of a folk those actions.' We used to say 'as the world turns toward darkness, the role of the Jewish people is to light candles in the dark.' I learned later that we actually sang songs about Shabbat rather than singing Shabbat songs."

His father worked as director of adult education at the Westside Jewish Community Center on Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles and also taught history at Jewish Sunday schools.

"When I was 11 or 12, I went to Habonim summer camp and my father was an internationalist and an anti-Zionist," Hurvitz said. "I came home a Zionist. He didn't become a Zionist until after (the Six-Day War of) 1967."

In 1964 and 1965, young Hurvitz spent a year in Israel under the auspices of Young Judaea. When he came home, he enrolled at Cal State Los Angeles where, throughout a seven-year student career, he studied music. He finally obtained a bachelor's degree after giving a recital on the recorder, a vertical flute that he had known how to play since childhood.

During the college years, his interest turned from music to left-wing Jewish activism. Inspired by the admonition of Stokely Carmichael of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that young progressives should organize in their own communities, Hurvitz became involved with the Jewish Radical Community.

This was a "growing movement of young Jews who were picketing the Israeli embassy on Highland, just north of Wilshire, telling them that they should negotiate with Palestinians and establish a Palestinian state- otherwise there wouldn't be peace," Hurvitz said. "Gee, imagine that!"

When not picketing, the group spent much time at Hillel at UCLA or at each other's homes. Responsibilities for communal Shabbats were parceled out. They included "preparing the service, candelighting, Kiddush, coordinating the meal which was always vegetarian, being responsible for coordinating Saturday morning and afternoon study activities.

"We would get between 50 and 100 college kids from all over the Los Angeles area, and about 10 of us would stay over in sleeping bags, read the weekly Torah section, go out for walks, have lunch, study some contemporary text in the afternoon and then a number of people would come back and have havdallah."

They not only picketed the Israeli Embassy, they also militated against the Vietnam War and in favor of other liberal causes. Trying to enlist other young Jews, they distributed leaflets at Hamilton and Fairfax High schools suggesting that "to be a Jew on America's terms is to shorten your nose, your name and your history."

Hurvitz also published a Jewish-interest magazine under the auspices of UCLA Hillel called Davka. In one of its more controversial issues, it printed an article by a member of Jews for Jesus, prompting numerous letters about whether or not a Jewish organization should provide the proselytizers a forum.

Deborah Prinz had been attending classes at Hebrew Union College with an eye toward becoming a Jewish educator. She and Hurvitz decided to apply for rabbinical school together. They celebrated the fact they both were accepted by getting married and visiting Israel.

There was much to celebrate, as Hurvitz wasn't at all sure he would be accepted. "I made some silly comments. One of the questions asked of me was 'Do you believe in God?' And I paused, thought about it for a while, and said 'I think so.' My friends in the organizing project around town said if I wasn't going to be accepted they would picket the school."

Prinz proved to be the more diligent student, Hurvitz said. "I had to actually focus and apply -- which is not one of my strong points." It was Prinz who got the first offer of a position, and it was a prestigious one, assistant rabbi to Rabbi Shelly Zimmerman at Central Synagogue in Manhattan. Zimmerman now is a major figure in Judaism as president of the Hebrew Union College.

Hurvitz also had opportunities to associate with some of Judaism's heavyweights. After taking a job at the Jewish Federation in Manhattan, he became the third rabbi at Temple B'nai Abraham in Livingston, N.J., that was presided over by the soon-to-retire Joachim Prinz. An escapee of nazi Germany, Prinz had made a name for himself as an early advocate in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

Rabbi Prinz had a daughter who also was named Deborah, so at first there was confusion at the congregation whether the new assistant rabbi was in fact Prinz's son-in-law. This was solved when "we got the two Deborah Prinzs together," Hurvitz recalled.

"I would take advantage as much as I could of being near Prinz, spending evenings there. ... I wanted to know what his life was like; I wanted to know about the community from him; I wanted to know what he had done. You sit at the feet of an old man, you are not necessarily going to learn how to live life, but you are going to soak up all kinds of wonderful stories ... To be near a guy who had done such things was wonderful."

Later, he would work as an assistant to Rabbi Yitz Greenberg at the National Jewish Conference Center, which "was on its way to being transformed to CLAL -- the Center for Learning and Leadership. I worked with him in his adult education programming ..."

Greenberg articulated the philosophy "that after the Holocaust, every Jew is a Jew by choice," Hurvitz said. "The contemporary issue that Judaism has to struggle with is that of powerfulness--not powerlessness, which was the case until 1948 if not 1967. I ran a conference...of Jewish scholars and rabbis from all flavors of Jewish life who would gather together to share...at Brandeis-Bardin. It was held the week before our daughter (Avigail) was born."

Then it was to Montclair, N.J., where he served as a pulpit rabbi at an unaffiliated congregation called B'nai Keshet. Simultaneously, Hurvitz began studying for a master's degree in library science at Rutgers University in New Jersey. His wife, meanwhile, became the rabbi of Congregation Beth Am in Teaneck, N.J.

When Prinz succeeded Shelly Moss as rabbi of Temple Adat Shalom, Hurvitz accepted the part-time position at Etz Chaim. On a daily basis, he rises early to go to his job with Nisus Software, so that he can return by 3:30 p.m. to be home after school with daughter Avigail and son Noam. 

* * *

Before and after the Nov. 19 Friday night services at the Pasternack home, the two dozen congregants in attendance were abuzz with the news of the board meeting of the Ramona Unified School District the night before.

For some years, the Calvary Chapel has distributed Christian Bibles to the graduating seniors of Ramona High School. No one inquired too closely how the church got the names of the seniors. Then it was revealed that a staff member of the school district , whose identity has not been disclosed, gave the list to the church without authorization from the school board.

The employee left the district's employ, and when Calvary Church asked for the list for this year, Superintendent Peter Schiff declined, saying such distribution was against school board policy. That prompted Mick Cupples, a board member who also is pastor at San Vincente Community Church, to bring a motion to the board to add "religious institutions" to the list of groups which may receive the names of graduating seniors. The motion failed on a vote of 1-4.

If companies which want to sell caps and gowns or photographs to the students may have the list of graduating seniors, religious institutions also should be permitted access, suggested some of the several hundred people who packed the school board meeting in Calvary Church's behalf.

Others said that the Bible is healthy for students and will provide them comfort, while a more emotional member of the audience likened refusing permission to distribute the Bibles to that time when acommunist government in Poland tried to eliminate religion altogether.

Luann Rivera, the Etz Chaim congregant who is the only Jew on the board, said she felt a lot of hostility from some in the crowd. "Actually one person accused me of being anti-Christian," said Rivera. "She didn't mention me by name though; I have to say that and want to make that very clear. She just said that some of us were anti-Christian... She was looking right at me. "

Marcia Wollner and Rhoda Hamburger of Etz Chaim and a Methodist minister were the only members of the audience who spoke out in favor of keeping church and state strictly separated. 

Wollner likened Calvary Chapel's request to continue distributing the Bibles to that of a man who asks for permission to continue parking at a red curb because he has been doing it for so many years.

Hamburger explained that although her grandson and her whole family were very religious, the Christian Bibles were perceived by the Jewish community as attempts to proselytize. 

"What was really wonderful was that two women from Calvary Chapel came up to me after the meeting and wanted to apologize to me for the tone with which some of the speakers had spoken." Another woman said she hadn't believed her pastor intended the gifts for proselytization "and that she understood now totally why I was opposed to it and she thought I was very brave for having spoken out.

"I took her by the hand and thanked her and told her I thought she was a truly good Christian and appreciated her speaking to me because it was brave of her to approach me in front of all the members."

Efforts to compromise have been unavailing as the controversy swirled over the past few months. Rivera said she told the church leadership that nothing prevented them from announcing in newspapers or newsletters that the Bibles would be available free to any student who wants them. 

Or, she said, the Bibles could be distributed at a private, church-funded baccalaureate service held preceding commencement exercises. But the church officials refused, holding to their belief that Bible distribution over the years had been proper and should be continued.

In the last year, the professional offices of three people who are members of Ramona's Jewish community or married to Jews have been defaced with swastikas. In the case of the office of Dr. Marcello Rivera, a non-Jew, there were not only anti-Jewish slurs but anti-Hispanic ones as well. The other two defaced offices belong to Dr. Arsham and to Pasternack, an attorney. 

Luann Rivera said she permitted neither the hostility of the crowd, nor the memory of swastikas, to deter her from voting opposite from the way desired by the packed audience.

"I think it is unfortunate that there were people at the meeting who were so caught up in their own religious beliefs that they didn't take the time to listen to the board or listen to our lawyer about the legalities of this issue," she said.

"We have a responsibility as school board members to uphold the laws of the land including and most significantly the Constitution of the United States. And that is a fiduciary responsibility because it we violate those laws we open up the district to law suits and the defense of those law suits is money that comes directly out of the classroom. We have been informed that we would be at risk for up to $100,000. That is classroom money.

"I do not feel intimidated because I make decisions on the best interests of the children in the community of Ramona, and I refuse to be intimidated into moving away from that and making a decision that would not be in the children's best interest because of a crowd."

As for the night-time vandalism employed by some anti-Semitic individual or individuals, there are varying reactions within the congregation.

Hamburger said she is glad that Etz Chaim members meet in each other's homes rather than in a synagogue building. "We are really lucky not to have a building because we would be busy cleaning it off every time whoever is doing this horrible graffiti gets it into his mind that it is time to remind the community that he is around," she said.

Rivera said after the defacement of her husband's medical offices, "my husband and I had an outpouring of support from the people in the community. People stopped us in stores and wrote us notes, and wrote letters to the editor and we received a great deal of support. 

"People offered to come and paint the office and volunteered to watch the building. Overall the citizens of Ramona have been completely supportive of us and are rather outraged that this is going on in our town. That is really important to know. This is not a reflection on the entire community; I would say it is the opposite of the way the community is."

In words recalling a sentiment expressed by Marcia Wollner more than a quarter century before, Rivera added: "Ramona is a nice place to live."