An early morning fire destroyed a library of Torahs at Mississippi’s largest synagogue Saturday, January 11. The blaze began shortly after 3 a.m. local time at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, and no congregants were hurt, according to officials. The ensuing joint investigation, which included multiple federal agencies, resulted in the arrest of a suspect within hours.
“Acts of antisemitism, racism, and religious hatred are attacks on Jackson as a whole and will be treated as acts of terror against residents’ safety and freedom to worship,” Mayor John Horhn said in a statement. The fire mostly damaged an administration office and the library, which might indicate the Torahs themselves were the arsonist’s targets. The name of the suspect has not been released.
Historic Synagogue
Beth Israel is Jackson’s only synagogue and the state’s largest – and it’s no stranger to hateful attacks. Established in 1867, Beth Israel is the Magnolia State’s first synagogue. It has occupied four buildings – initially starting in a converted schoolhouse – in the century-and-a-half since.
Beth Israel is no stranger to religious terrorism, either. According to the Institute for Southern Jewish Life, which operates out of the same building, Beth Israel was the target of a 1967 Ku Klux Klan bombing for the synagogue’s work in the civil rights movement.
One of the Torahs that emerged unscathed also survived the Holocaust. Several Congregation Beth Israel synagogues, from California to Texas and Mississippi and even as far east as Pennsylvania and Connecticut, are home to Torah scrolls that survived the Holocaust. They’re part of a collection of 1,564 Torahs from Bohemia and Moravia (now the Czech Republic) that had been rounded up by Nazis and later rescued by the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London.
