Match Made in Heaven : Religion: Woodland Hills temple, South-Central L.A. church celebrate bonds of friendship.

Rabbi Steven Jacobs received some help from a few friends at a special celebration at Kol Tikvah Temple Saturday.

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The rabbi had begun singing the song “Shalom, Shalom” in a

voice that did not exactly ring the rafters of the temple. As for the key, he had as much luck finding it as scholars have had in locating the lost tribes.

His friends, whom he invited up to join him part way through, may not have known Hebrew, but they certainly knew singing. In a few moments, these members of Calvary Baptist Church had made the song a rousing celebration of the shared spirit these two religious institutions enjoy.

More than 100 members of the church, located in South-Central Los Angeles, had come to the temple to celebrate a friendship formed “in the ashes of this city in the riots of April,” as Jacobs described it.

They joined 200 members of the Ventura Boulevard temple for the event that celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas. Wide smiles and warm handshakes were waiting for Calvary congregation members as they filed in the front door.

Children from both congregations performed skits that explained symbols of both holidays--the tree and manger for Christmas and the menorah and dreidel for Hanukkah.

The temple and the church formed their bond in April of last year when Jacobs, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, met the Rev. John Bowie in a South-Central Los Angeles parking lot during the Los Angeles riots.

“I extended a hand and he embraced me, and that’s all that was needed to begin,” Jacobs said.

Bowie left Calvary later in the year to take over a Houston church, but the relationship has remained intact.

“We would have been disappointed if the relationship hadn’t lasted after Rev. Bowie left,” said Shirley Neal, an officer with an auxiliary organization that coordinates cultural affairs at Calvary.

Judging from the spirit and exuberance of the celebration, it seemed a match made in heaven.

People jumped up out of their seats when the music began. Some of them, seated according to the month in which they were born, clasped hands while others just smiled and took part in the celebration of friendship.

At one point during the program, Alma Williamson, who attends Calvary, stood up to tell the crowd about what the celebration meant to her.

“I don’t think there is anyone who could do something better than we’re doing right now, and that’s loving each other,” said Williamson, a member of the Calvary choir. “And I hope we don’t stop until we can show Los Angeles what love is all about.”

Several other Calvary members stepped forward to bear witness to the importance of strengthening and extending an alliance in the spirit of the bond forged between Jews and African Americans during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

And at a time when concerns about crime plague residents on both sides of the Hollywood Hills, Jacobs told the crowd that indiscriminate violence doesn’t occur merely according to one’s ZIP code.

“You should know that what you experience, we experienced right next door to this temple,” he told his visitors.

Last month, the abduction and slaying of 8-year-old Nicole Parker took place at an apartment complex adjacent to the temple.

“The assault against our children--white, black or Jewish--is something we must respond to, “ Jacobs said. “In that, there is nothing that divides us.”

During the program, children drew a mural outlining their hands, and used colored markers to distinguish all the hues of all the people of the world, plus blue and green for alien beings who may someday appear.

Don Dubin, a Beverly Hills resident who attends Kol Tikvah, said he had found meetings at the church especially inspiring. But he admits that the first time he and his family motored east on the Santa Monica Freeway toward the church, less than one month after the Rodney G. King verdicts sparked a full-blown riot, he found the experience unsettling.

“I was scared for my safety, scared to be in this black, black place,” Dubin said. “And I think I’m pretty typical, but most people don’t talk about it.

“When I got there, I got a reward.”