High Desert Jews a Small, Close Group : Judaism: Membership in the Antelope Valley is barely 250 adults. But many say the tiny size strengthens ties to the faith.

The Passover holiday is a time for Jews to celebrate leavingthe desert. But some have gone back.

Tonight in Los Angeles County’s own high desert region, the Antelope Valley, the holiday will be celebrated at dozens of home Seders by a vibrant Jewish community that supports a Reform synagogue, several social action programs, a preschool, adult classes and even a small but active Orthodox Chabad chapter.

The community is not large--the synagogue’s membership is only about 250 adults in an area with more than 300,000 residents. But with most Jews in this country concentrated in large urban areas and with the Antelope Valley’s reputation as a bastion of fundamentalist Christian groups, it’s surprising that a lively Jewish community exists there at all.

Even more surprising is that the temple, Beth Knesset Bamidbar, was founded more than 40 years ago, when Lancaster truly resembled the desert of the Jews’ biblical wanderings.

“There is Jewish life outside of Los Angeles!” declared Stella Nugent, one of the founding members of the temple, laughing as she took a breather from Passover cooking this week to talk about the community.

“We worked so hard for what we have here.”

The temple’s rabbi, Alan Henkin, acknowledges that Jews sometimes feel like outsiders in the Antelope Valley. Prayers given at such public forums as City Council meetings often include references to Jesus and school concerts during the Christmas season feature devoutly Christian songs.

But he said a small community with only one temple is in many ways healthy for Jewish life. “In the San Fernando Valley, there is a synagogue on every corner,” said Henkin, 44, who previously had a congregation in Arleta. “What appealed to me, here, is that this is the only synagogue in the area. It is the community in the way a synagogue in the San Fernando Valley is not.”

Or, as one of the newer members of the temple, Shelly Ditzhazy, put it, “If you’re Jewish, it’s the only game in town.”

In 1951, when Stella Nugent and her husband arrived, there was no game at all. “It was a small, small town,” said Nugent, 64, sifting through photographs and newspaper articles chronicling the history of the congregation.

“But as small as it was, it seems like there was a church everywhere you looked.”

They had come as newlyweds from New York City so that Jack Nugent could take a job as a mechanical engineer for the National Committee for Aeronautics, which eventually became NASA. Although her family was devout, she said she did not think much about the fact that she would be leaving her Jewish community behind. “I didn’t think in those terms,” she said. “We were starting a new life.”

Soon after arriving in the dusty outpost, they met the handful of other Jewish couples who had come to the area for similar reasons. Nine of the couples founded the temple, appointing one of the men a lay spiritual leader, and meeting in private homes.

The fledgling congregation held its first High Holy Days service in Max Goldberg’s den.

It was not unusual, Nugent said, for Lancaster neighbors to tell her she was the first Jew they had ever met. “We had the next-door neighbor over for dinner and served corned beef,” she said. “He said, ‘That was the best ham I’ve ever had.’ ”

The small Jewish community was low-key, but there were some run-ins with local institutions. “They would not allow our children to be excused from school for religious holidays,” she said. “That was a long fight to get that changed.”

As more Jews moved in, the congregation grew. In 1953, it moved into a small former church bought for $4,500. A building fund was begun and in 1963 the present home of Beth Knesset Bamidbar--Hebrew for “congregation in the wilderness”--was dedicated. Until 1987, however, the congregation was so small it could employ only a part-time rabbi.

Henkin heard about BKB, as the congregation refers to itself, in 1990 when they were seeking a new rabbi. “I liked the people immediately,” said Henkin, 44. “Very down to earth, very serious about Judaism.”

Because he grew up in a small city outside Chicago, the size of the community did not daunt him, but the local politics did.

Shortly after he arrived, Henkin asked the Chamber of Commerce to rename the Lancaster Christmas Parade to include non-Christians. The chamber changed it to the Holiday parade, but then came the calls and letters of protest.

“Both the chamber and I were really taken aback by the reaction,” he said. The parade is now known as the Lancaster Christmas/Holiday Parade.

Henkin said acts of outright anti-Semitism in the area are rare, but he continues to meet with city officials to work toward broader policies. “Our approach is not confrontational,” he said. “We hope that just by being ourselves as Jews, people will come to know who we are.”

The congregation’s most successful annual fund-raiser is a pastrami booth at the Antelope Valley Fair.

The most difficult problem faced by many in the community involves their children feeling out of place. “Kids don’t want to stand out, they want to be like their friends,” said Ditzhazy, 39, who has three small children. One of them once asked her not to let people know they were Jewish. Several parents in the congregation tell similar stories.

It’s a concern they share with members of Chabad of the High Desert, a congregation of about 25 families that holds services in a mini-mall storefront between a Mexican/Cuban restaurant and a print shop. “The children see all the Christmas things and say they want to be part of this beautiful holiday, like their friends,” said the group’s rabbi, Yehudah Lazar.

“We tell them, ‘Yes, they have a beautiful holiday with the lights and everything,’ but we also teach them about the beauty and significance of our own holidays, so they will be proud of them.”

Like other male members of the ultra-orthodox Chabad movement, headquartered in Brooklyn, Lazar, 32, has a full beard and in public always wears a yarmulke or other hat. He was assigned this post by the organization, which actively seeks to expand its membership among Jews. BKB and the Chabad have little contact with each other, but both rabbis say relations are friendly.

Lazar said if people stare at him because of his appearance, he doesn’t notice. “I got used to standing out a long time ago,” he said with a laugh, but he has been received cordially by the community for the most part, he said.

“I was making a hospital visit once and a woman came up to me and said, ‘I’m not Jewish, but I respect you people,’ and she asked me to pray for the person she was visiting,” he said. “So, of course I did. It was a nice thing.”

Both congregations know the lure of assimilation is strong in an area where the vast majority of neighbors and business associates are not Jewish. But for some, it only strengthens their ties to Judaism.

Ditzhazy grew up in a mostly Jewish neighborhood in a Detroit suburb, but her parents were not devout and “the services I went to didn’t mean much to me,” she said, sitting in her kitchen in Palmdale.

She married a Catholic man and only joined the Jewish community center in Orlando, where they had settled, so that her children would have some contact with the religion.

Upon moving to Lancaster, she contacted BKB again for her children. But in the small-town atmosphere of the temple, she felt drawn to her religion as never before.

Ditzhazy is now active in temple activities and heads its outreach program to those, like herself, who are in interfaith marriages.

She is looking forward to tonight when her daughter will for the first time recite the four questions at the family Seder.

“I guess it is funny that I move out to the most non-Jewish place I can find and that’s where I get involved,” she said. “But it’s one of the best things I ever did in my life.”