Posted July 21, 2003.

Library Destroyed by Arson Donates Thousands of Surplus Books

Four years after Congregation B'nai Israel's Sosnick Library in Sacramento, California, was destroyed by arson, the synagogue’s new 16,000-square-foot facility had received more than 21,000 book donations—more than it needed to rebuild the 5,000-item collection it lost.

As a result, the library kept about 4,500 items and offered the rest to other synagogues and Jewish agencies throughout the state. Whatever those organizations couldn’t use was then sold to the public in mid-July, the Sacramento Bee reported July 10.

After the fire, more than $65,000 was raised to rebuild the library, and book donations—including rare and out-of-print sets of the Talmud and Torah, a 190-volume set of the Jewish Heritage Video Collection, and books on Jewish history, the Holocaust, cooking, and holidays—poured in from as far as Ireland.

“Sometimes for a forest to grow, it needs a fire,” commented Librarian Poshi Mikalson. “The heat breaks open dormant seed that might otherwise have stayed closed, and the forest spreads. . . . The fire seemed to have destroyed the library but it really burst open the seeds. The library not only grew back, it grew back bigger and better.”

Posted July 21, 2003.