SYNAGOGUE, VOLUNTEERS HELP HURRICANE VICTIMS.

Byline: Alex Dobuzinskis Staff Writer

Allison Sagadencky returned home late last week from the Gulf Coast, where she had helped Louisiana hurricane victims, but she was back in relief mode on Sunday at her local synagogue, loading two trucks with supplies.

Stacking food, linens and personal hygiene items onto wooden pallets for delivery to Hurricane Katrina victims in Mississippi was the culmination of two weeks of collection efforts involving about a dozen San Fernando Valley synagogues.

Sagadencky, 36, was joined on Sunday by about 150 volunteers at Temple Judea in Tarzana to get the items ready for the trucks, part of an effort by Operation Jacobs' Ladder. In Slidell, La., last week, Sagadencky, a Tarzana mom, was driving a 24-foot truck full of ice chests, meals-ready- to-eat and flashlights as a Red Cross volunteer.

``A lot of houses are on the bayou on stilts, so what would be left are four stilts and no house,'' Sagadencky said. ``The lucky ones have a tent and somewhere to go to the bathroom. The unlucky ones have nothing.

``I met a man that had 75 people staying in his house, kids sleeping in drawers, closets,'' said Sagadencky, who expects to go back to the devastated area for the Red Cross.

Wearing heavy-duty gloves, Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Judea, a Reform synagogue, directed Sunday's deployment of relief supplies as teens earning school volunteer hours and adult congregants shuffled by.

``There's a Jewish value called tikkun olam, which is repairing the world and the idea that we can put the pieces of brokenness back together,'' Moskovitz said.

Among the supplies sent over were 310 back packs with school supplies, donated by Sunrise Little League to give young hurricane victims what they need to start the school year.

Volunteer Sharon Gerber of Valley Village is originally from New Orleans, and her grandfather founded Anshe Sfard, one of the Orthodox synagogues in the city.

``From what I understand, because it was elevated supposedly that synagogue is OK,'' Gerber said.

``What's really bizarre about it, my friends who have gone back, there's some people who will be on one street and it's fine and there are people who are on the next street who are not.''

Alex Dobuzinskis, [phone]

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Allison Sagadencky wraps a pallet of relief supplies Sunday at Temple Judea in Tarzana. The supplies will be trucked to hurricane victims in Utica, Miss.

(2) Rabbi Dan Moskovitz leads the applause for the efforts of dozens of volunteers Sunday at Temple Judea. The volunteers donated and boxed supplies for hurricane victims.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer