$5-Million Plan for Temple Is No Joke

A Jewish congregation in Simi Valley will have a few laughs this month as a way of beginning the serious business of raising $5 million to build a long-awaited temple.

The Thousand Oaks comedy team Tangent will perform at a fund-raising event organized, according to Carole Fineberg, “to begin priming the pump just a little” before earnest money raising begins for Congregation B’nai Emet.

Fineberg, a Realtor and architectural chairwoman for the congregation, is searching for a way to fund a facility that would bring the temple’s sanctuary, religion school and preschool together on 4 1/2 acres of donated land at Royal Avenue and Corto Road.

The temple now meets at 4645 Industrial St. in a 6,000-square-foot modified suite in an industrial park. The preschool space is also rented and is at a former elementary school site owned by the Simi Valley Unified School District.

Neither site is permanent: The preschool could be evicted if the school district needed the site, and the industrial park has never been considered a permanent place of worship. Over the past 21 years, Fineberg said, the temple has also rented space from various churches.

In November 1998, Kaufman Broad builders donated the land for a temple. Fineberg and other temple members are considering ways to raise money to build a facility that would serve the existing temple community and attract the estimated 1,000 nonaffiliated Jewish families living in the area, she said.

“We’ve been wandering around for years looking for a home. It’s a laughable position to be in. What else can we do? We might as well laugh,” Fineberg said.

So, temple member Keith Levy has organized a second annual comedy night fund-raising event featuring Tangent, a troupe of six community conscious performers between the ages of 21 and 27. The show will resemble an episode of the TV show “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?” but without the competition and, according to member Jeremy Resnick, with more humor.

The group has to be careful to censor itself when necessary during the show, “since it’s for a synagogue and our rabbi is present,” Levy said.

At last year’s show, he said, laughing, there were moments when the audience looked to see if Rabbi Michele Paskow was laughing before they did.

“We do a lot of work to help the community. Sometimes we collect food for Manna [Food Bank of Conejo Valley],” said Resnick, 24, an English teacher at Thousand Oaks High School.

The comedy group was founded by Steve Connell, 24, who studied theater at Moorpark College and UCLA. Connell just returned from New York City where he performed a one-man show he wrote in an off-Broadway production.

Connell organized a group of friends into Tangent to help propel him into show business.

“I don’t believe in sending some head shots out and waiting for someone to call you. I like to do what I enjoy and hope they come and find me,” Connell said.

The group will perform from 7 to 10 p.m. on Jan. 29 at Congregation B’nai Emet. Reserved tickets cost $15 or $17.50 at the door. Seats are limited to 200 people and refreshments will be served.

“We’re not going to be able to build a temple with proceeds from a one-night show, but it’s a way to get people thinking about what we are doing,” Fineberg said.

Fineberg is willing to scale down her dream for now and settle for a $2-million building to start. But eventually, the committee envisions a temple with basketball courts, adult Hebrew classes and other amenities that would enrich the community and attract local families.

Land preparation will cost about $200,000. And before breaking ground, the committee will have to get all the building permits, she said.

“We want a place to house the congregation, the religion school and the preschool under one roof. A place that will be the ultimate community center,” Fineberg said.

For now, she is unsure where all the needed money would come from. But she has no doubt the temple would be appreciated once it’s built.

“When we build it they will come,” she said.