WEST HILLS : Bedsheet Gift Offers Comfort to Preschool

A painted and felt-penned bedsheet sent from a Jewish community center in Oakland has provided a comforting backdrop, literally, to preschool classes at Temple Beth Kodesh in West Hills.

The bedsheet was transformed into a banner by third-graders at Oakland-Piedmont Jewish Community Center who experienced the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the Bay Area.

The children wrote about their feelings about that quake and extended their sympathies about the Northridge temblor to whomever might receive the banner in Los Angeles. It was transported to the Southland by the American Red Cross, which delivered it to teachers at Temple Beth Kodesh. The temple offers preschool to students about the age that the Oakland children were during that quake.

Dot Omens, the temple’s early childhood director, said that seeing the banner was “part of the healing process” for Beth Kodesh students.

“What registers is that these kids are now in third grade and were this old at the time and were fine,” she said.

Few of the preschoolers seemed to take much note of the banner in classes held at the school Tuesday. But teachers, who have mounted it on a rolling chalkboard, roll it from room to room anyway so that all the students can share its presence.

“Love your Neighbor as Yourself” is the message painted in large letters in the center of the bedsheet. All around are scrawled other messages of support: “We were there, we know how scary it was” is typical.

The more plucky “keep rocking” adorns one side.