On Christmas, Jews Give of Themselves

Uzzi Raanan rose early Christmas morning, let out the dogs, savored his coffee and donned his grubbiest jeans and sweatshirt for a joyous day of heavy cleaning, sanding and house painting.

“Obviously, I don’t celebrate Christmas,” said Raanan, an American Jew who grew up in Israel. “This is a great opportunity to do something on a day when you don’t usually get to do very much.”

Raanan and about 400 other members of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles descended on about a dozen sites from the San Fernando Valley to Santa Monica to Pasadena on Monday to distribute food and toys, entertain the homeless and repair worn buildings. Although for them, Christmas is no different than any other day, they decided to put free time to good use and do something more meaningful than, as Raanan put it, go for Chinese food and see a movie.

“Though [Christmas] doesn’t have any religious significance for us, we can still invest in our community,” said Irene Weibel, an organizer of the event that began at the federation’s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters with an address by U.S. Rep. Howard Berman, a Panorama City Democrat.

Here in North Hollywood, Raanan and 15 other volunteers gathered at a one-story house that serves as a neutral, low-key place for foster children to visit their biological parents and for the parents to take homemaking classes.

The bright, well-kept home run by the Children’s Bureau of Southern California was in need of a fresh coat of paint. So as the rock music of Counting Crows blared on a boombox, the volunteers set to their task--taping the edges of windows and laying protective plastic sheeting over furniture and floors. In no time at all, the whisper of paintbrushes synchronized with the pounding beat of the music, and a day that can be rather isolating for non-Christians turned into one of pure teamwork.

“I think it’s a gift--that’s what it is for me,” said Beth Comsky, Raanan’s girlfriend.

A handful of volunteers weren’t Jewish at all but self-described refugees from seasonal madness.

“This is the best way I know of to celebrate Christmas,” said Terry Koken, who came with his Jewish girlfriend, as he sanded down the mantel of the living-room fireplace. “It beats the hell out of kids screaming at each other, wrapping paper on the floor, football on TV and drunk relatives.”

Elsewhere in the Valley, volunteers served up traditional Christmas dinners to the poor and the frail. While more than 700 people benefited from a food and toy giveaway sponsored by Don Ricardo’s restaurant, the Northridge Fashion Center and the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division, a far more intimate group sat down to turkey and prime rib at the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital.

It was the family of Orbra (O.J.) Gandy Jr., celebrating his survival after a September lumberyard explosion in Lynwood burned nearly 90% of his body. After three months of grueling skin grafts and a series of life-threatening infections, a rail-thin and trembling Gandy joined his father, three brothers, 8-year-old daughter, Melody, and a couple of in-laws for a feast provided by the Smokehouse restaurant of Burbank.

Gathered around a cramped table in a small hospital conference room, surrounded by news crews, medical staff and publicists, the Gandys tried their hardest to relax, say grace--”Father God on this Christmas Day we sit down at this table . . . “--and dig in.

“Look at that smile,” Orbra Gandy Sr. said of his 43-year-old son, who still has difficulty speaking and said more with his brimming eyes than with his mouth.

“It feels great, it feels great, it feels great,” O.J. Gandy said.

Charlie Gandy, one of his brothers, cut some meat for “O.J.”, whose nickname has nothing to do with the famous athlete and everything to do with the fact that he is Orbra Jr. As Charlie cut, he, Billy and Dwight, the other brothers, spoke of how the family took turns keeping a 24-hour vigil at O.J.’s side. When his skin was too tender to touch, they simply talked to him and prayed with him. When one relative became tired, another took his or her place. Their mother came from Mississippi and stayed for a month, sleeping four nights out of seven at the hospital.

“Statistically speaking, his chances for survival were close to zero,” said Dr. Peter Grossman, one of Gandy’s plastic surgeons, as members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles began caroling up and down the hospital corridors.

“But something else, something higher, intervened, and O.J. not only made it, he’s going to walk out of here.”

Gandy, who was a rip-saw operator before the sawdust explosion nearly killed him, is scheduled for release from the burn center on Jan. 11. He still faces months of physical therapy, psychotherapy and possibly dozens more skin grafts. But Gandy’s family only marveled at his recovery Monday as they ate together and heard the voices of the carolers:

“May God bless you and send you a happy New Year . . . “

Times staff writer Josh Meyer contributed to this story.