Suspect in Mississippi synagogue arson attack chose target over its ‘Jewish ties’: FBI

JACKSON, Miss. — A suspect in an arson fire at a historic Mississippi synagogue admitted to targeting the house of worship because of its “Jewish ties” and was turned in to authorities by his father who had observed burn marks on his son’s ankles, hands and face, the FBI said Monday.

Stephen Pittman was charged with maliciously damaging or destroying a building by means of fire or an explosive. The suspect 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. District Court in Mississippi on Monday.

There was no attorney listed for Pittman in the court docket Monday.

The fire ripped through the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson shortly after 3 a.m. on Saturday. No congregants or firefighters were injured. Security camera footage released Monday by the synagogue showed a masked and hooded man using a gas can to pour a liquid on the floor and a couch in the building’s lobby. More than five decades earlier, the synagogue was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan because of its rabbi’s outspoken support for civil rights.

The weekend fire badly damaged the 165-year-old synagogue’s library and administrative offices. Five Torahs — the sacred scrolls with the text of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible — located inside the sanctuary were being assessed for smoke damage. Two Torahs inside the library, where the most severe damage was done, were destroyed. One Torah that survived the Holocaust was behind glass and was not damaged in the fire, according to the congregation.

The suspect’s father contacted the FBI and said that his son had confessed to setting the building on fire. Pittman had texted his father a photo of the rear of the synagogue before the fire, with the message, “There’s a furnace in the back.” His father had pleaded with his son to return home, but “Pittman replied back by saying he was due for a homerun and ‘I did my research,’” the affidavit said.

During an interview with investigators, Pittman said he stopped at a gas station on his way to the synagogue to purchase the gas used in the fire. He also took the license plate off of his vehicle at the gas station. He used an ax to break out a window of the synagogue, poured gas inside and used a torch lighter to start the fire, the FBI affidavit said.

The FBI later recovered a burned cell phone believed to be Pittman’s and took possession of a hand torch that a congregant had found.

Yellow police tape on Monday blocked off the entrances to the synagogue building, which was surrounded by broken glass and soot. Bouquets of flowers were laid on the ground at the building’s entrance — including one with a note that said, “I’m so very sorry.”

The congregation’s president, Zach Shemper, has vowed to rebuild the synagogue and said several churches had offered their spaces for worship during the rebuilding process.

With just several hundred people in the community, it was never particularly easy being Jewish in Mississippi’s capital city, but members of Beth Israel took a special pride in keeping their traditions alive in the heart of the Deep South.

With the exception of the cemetery, every aspect of Jewish life in Jackson was under Beth Israel’s roof. The midcentury modern building not only housed the congregation but also the Jewish Federation, a nonprofit provider of social services and philanthropy that is the hub of Jewish institutional life in most U.S. cities. The building also was home to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which provides resources to Jewish communities in 13 southern states. A Holocaust memorial was outdoors behind the synagogue building.

Because Jewish children throughout the South have attended summer camp for decades in Utica, Mississippi, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Jackson, many retain a fond connection to the state and its Jewish community.

“Jackson is the capital city, and that synagogue is the capital synagogue in Mississippi,” said Rabbi Gary Zola, a historian of American Jewry who taught at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. “I would call it the flagship, though when we talk about places like New York and Los Angeles, it probably seems like Hicksville.”

Beth Israel as a congregation was founded in 1860 and acquired its first property where it built Mississippi’s first synagogue after the Civil War. In 1967, the synagogue moved to its current location where it was bombed by local Ku Klux Klan members not long after relocating. Two months after that, the home of the synagogue’s leader, Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, was bombed because of his outspoken opposition to segregation and racism.

At a time when opposition to racial segregation could be dangerous in the Deep South, many Beth Israel congregants hoped the rabbi would just stay quiet, but Nussbaum was unshakable in believing he was doing the right thing by supporting civil rights, Zola said.

“He had this strong, strong sense of justice,” Zola said.