An arrest has been made after a fire heavily damaged Mississippi’s largest synagogue in a pre-dawn blaze early Saturday morning.
Mississippi Today reports the historic Jewish place of worship in northeast Jackson is the same one the Ku Klux Klan bombed in 1967 because the rabbi supported civil rights.
The outlet notes the Jackson Fire Department, the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested a suspect Saturday night in the latest blaze after the fire department ruled it arson, according to chief fire investigator Charles Felton.
The name of the suspect or the charges the person could face have not been released. No motive has been publicly notified.
The fire was reported shortly after 3 a.m. at Beth Israel Congregation on Old Canton Road. No congregants were injured. The outlet set out the reported damage:
The library and administrative offices of Jackson’s only synagogue were reduced to charred ruins.
Two Torahs were destroyed and five were damaged in the flames that erupted during Shabbat, the weekly Jewish day of rest, according to temple leaders. One Torah that survived the Holocaust was in a glass case and was undamaged in the fire.
Beth Israel has suspended services indefinitely.
“We have already had outreach from other houses of worship in the Jackson area and greatly appreciate their support in this very difficult time,” the congregation president, Zach Shemper, said in a statement.
Arson is a criminal act of intentionally setting fire to a structure, Felton, the JFD division fire chief, told Mississippi Today.
Jackson Mayor John Horhn confirmed that a person was taken into custody following an investigation that also included the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“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,” Horhn said in a statement seen by the Associated Press.
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