Key Highlights
- “Does history change?”The historic Beth Israel Congregation, the only synagogue in Jackson, was set ablaze shortly after 3 a. m.
- on Saturday.
- The fire badly damaged the 165-year-old synagogue’s library and administrative offices.
- Two Torahs — the sacred scrolls with the text of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible — were destroyed, and five others were being assessed for smoke damage.
- Stephen Pittman, 19, confessed to lighting a fire inside the building, which he referred to as “the synagogue of Satan,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in U. S.
