Mississippi’s largest synagogue torched in arson attack

Suspect in custody after Mississippi’s largest synagogue torched – decades after it was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan.

By World Israel News Staff

A suspect is in custody in Jackson, Mississippi, after the state’s largest synagogue was torched in an arson attack over the weekend, leaving part of the historic house of worship gutted.

A fire was reported at Beth Israel Congregation at approximately 3 a.m. on Saturday.

Firefighters dispatched in response managed to contain and extinguish the fire, saving part of the building.

However, the synagogue’s library and administrative offices were gutted in the fire, with two Torah scrolls destroyed and five more damaged. An additional Torah scroll, which survived the Holocaust, was unscathed.

“All contents in that library are destroyed,” Jackson Fire Department Chief Investigator Charles Felton told NPR on Sunday.

“There’s not much that can be retrieved from the library area. The other portions of the building do not have actual fire damage, but they have damage as far as smoke and soot.”

No one was present in the building at the time of the fire and there were no injuries.

The Jackson Fire Department later determined that the blaze was the result of arson, leading the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to join local investigators in probing the incident.

On Saturday night, authorities apprehended a suspect in connection with the arson.

No details have been released regarding the suspect’s identity.

Jackson Police Department Chief Tyree Jones said that the arson division of the JPD was working with the FBI, ATF and the Joint Terrorism Task Force to investigate the fire.

“When a place of worship is targeted, it affects more than one congregation. It shakes the entire community,” Jones wrote in a post to social media. “These acts are not just crimes. They are attacks on people’s sense of safety and their freedom to worship without fear.”

The Anti-Defamation League condemned the arson and noted that this is not the first time the synagogue has been targeted.

In 1967, the congregation was targeted, along with the home of the synagogue’s rabbi in a pair of bombing attacks after the rabbi expressed support for the civil rights movement.