Once Again, Oldest Mississippi Synagogue is Attacked With Fire

A suspect was in custody and charged with arson for setting the Saturday morning fire. It’s not the first time the Beth Israel house of worship has been attacked.

A suspect has been arrested and charged with arson for setting fire early Saturday morning to a Mississippi synagogue, authorities said.

The fire, which occurred at approximately 3 a.m. on Saturday, caused extensive damage to Beth Israel, the only synagogue in Jackson, Miss., said Charles Felton, chief of investigations at the fire department. No injuries were reported.

The suspect, whose name was not released, was arrested and charged at a nearby hospital on Saturday evening, where the person was recovering from non-life-threatening burn injuries, Mr. Felton said.

Once released from the hospital, the suspect will be taken into F.B.I. custody. The F.B.I. and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are working together with the Jackson Fire Department, and are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime, Mr. Felton said.

“The community here is very outraged,” he said.

The synagogue’s library, where the fire originated, and surrounding rooms were severely damaged, Mr. Felton said, reduced to blackened, charred ruins. There is smoke damage throughout the building.

Two Torahs in the library were destroyed, Zach Shemper, the congregation’s president, said through text messages on Sunday. The building’s sanctuary was also harmed by the fire and five Torahs in the sanctuary were damaged.

An eighth Torah that was rescued during the Holocaust and is kept on display in a glass case survived. Many places of worship in Jackson have offered to share building space with Beth Israel while the synagogue is rebuilt. The congregation expects to hold services next week, Mr. Shemper said.

Beth Israel, founded in 1860, was the first synagogue in Mississippi and is the largest in the state. This is not the first time the congregation has dealt with fire — in 1874, a wood frame building went up in flames. While a new, brick, building was being constructed, the congregation held services at a nearby methodist church.

And in September of 1967, the synagogue was bombed by local Ku Klux Klan members. Its rabbi at the time, Perry Nussbaum, was outspoken against racism and segregation.

That attack heavily damaged offices and a conference room in the synagogue’s administrative wing, and caused an estimated $25,000 worth of damage, The New York Times reported at the time. No one was inside at the time. The sanctuary was not affected.

Two months later, Rabbi Nussbaum’s house was bombed by the same group, the synagogue said on its website. Although the rabbi was home with his wife at the time, no one was seriously hurt.

Cases of antisemitism have surged in recent years, according to the Anti-Defamation League. It recorded 9,354 incidents across the United States in 2024, the highest since records began in 1979 and a 5 percent increase from 2023.

In June of last year, more than a dozen people in Boulder, Colo., were injured — with an 82-year-old woman later dying from her wounds — after a man threw Molotov cocktails on participants at a march to call attention to the hostages taken by Hamas militants in the attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. In May, two Israeli embassy aides were shot and killed in Washington. And in April, a man set fire to the residence of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who is Jewish.

Jeffrey Planchard is a congregant of Beth Israel and lives in Madison, a suburb north of Jackson, with his wife and five children. More than just a place to worship, Mr. Planchard said Beth Israel was a community center for the small Jewish population in Jackson and surrounding areas. For his children, it served as a regular gathering place with friends. They had been planning to attend a bat mitzvah there this week.

Mr. Planchard said he doesn’t know where the next closest synagogue is located. “There’s not really another option,” he said.

Even though the house of worship had been targeted in the past, Mr. Planchard did not fear an antisemitic attack, saying he had never personally experienced any hatred.

“This was the last place I expected it to happen,” he said. Now, he added, “that illusion is shattered.”

Jackson Mayor John Horhn said in a statement that he visited the damaged synagogue on Saturday.

“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,” he said. “Targeting people because of their faith, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation is morally wrong, un‑American, and completely incompatible with the values of this city.”

Georgia Gee contributed research.

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