Source: The Press-Enterprise
http://www.pe.com/localnews/sbcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_S_suncity10.4acc100.html
Temple Beth Sholom in Sun City is one of the last links to Lake Elsinore's old Jewish community.
A 400-year-old Dutch-crafted Torah from a now-shuttered Lake Elsinore synagogue sits in a wooden cabinet. A tablet honors the late Lake Elsinore resident whose father-in-law donated money in his name to help build Beth Sholom in 1966.
Now Beth Sholom is in danger of one day closing, as Lake Elsinore's synagogues did before it.
Fewer than 20 years ago, there were 150 members at Beth Sholom. Today, the temple has 40 and is lucky on Saturday mornings to get the 10 adults needed to read from the Torah. Most members are in their 70s and 80s.
It is not the only Inland synagogue to suffer declining membership. Congregation Emanu El in San Bernardino has only about half as many members as it did before the closures of Fontana's Kaiser Steel mill in 1983 and of Norton Air Force Base in 1994 pushed many members out of the area.
Other Inland synagogues are suffering the same problem that led to the decline of Lake Elsinore's Jewish community: Older people died or moved away, and few or no Jews replaced them.