14-year-old arrested in arson of historic Lower East Side synagogue - no name released, no mention of hate crime charges
A 14-year-old boy has been charged with arson in connection with a fire that seriously damaged a historic synagogue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
The boy was arrested Tuesday night at his home near the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol synagogue, the New York Post reported Wednesday morning. He was expected to be arraigned later in the day in Manhattan Family Court, according to the newspaper. He has not been named because he is a minor.
Surveillance video showed three teens running away from the building shortly after the fire began on Sunday evening. Police reportedly spoke with friends of the teen who were with him at the time of the blaze, and they said he started the fire.
The fire burned for several hours and took at least two hours for firefighters to bring under control. The building was empty at the time; two firefighters were injured putting out the blaze.
Built in 1850 as a Baptist church, the building was purchased in 1885 to become the first Eastern European congregation founded in New York City and served Russian Jews. The congregation closed the synagogue in 2007 after determining it did not have the $3 million to $4 million needed for repairs. In 1967, the building was declared a city landmark, and in 2003 it was designated an endangered historic site.
The synagogue in recent years has sought to “de-landmark” the building, allowing for condominiums to be built on the site, with a small synagogue to be built on the ground floor. The synagogue’s rabbi, Mendel Greenbaum, told the CBS New York affiliate on Tuesday that he was in the middle of plans to renovate and restore the congregation but said that was now in doubt because of the fire.
And they got a minor to do it for both less jail time and sympathetic defense options. Nice.
Cooper Ward
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Nathaniel Martinez
Oy vey, the fire ruined our completely real plans to spend $4 million. Now all we can do is build expensive condos on the lot, this is like anudda shoah
Aiden Powell
wonder if it could only be cleansed holy by fire anyway
Asher Gray
Jewish lightning strikes again.
Angel Powell
It was one of the students his 3 friends ratted him out this is old news bruh
Evan Sanders
I find it amazing that with all the jewish wealth in New York, they couldn't come up with $4 million to renovate muh historic synagogue. Obviously, they didn't want to fix it and were trying to monetize the land.
Adam Clark
I bet their licking their shekel coins at this very minute.
Christian Richardson
they're - translator killed me.
Andrew Brown
Well played Shlomo. "In the middle of plans to renovate and restore the congregation but said that was now in doubt because of the fire." Why would you do that when you want it to be condos?
Julian Hill
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Brayden Robinson
Oy fucking vey
Isaiah Williams
you don't know hebes very well then. Think Smaug a kike of the Third Age sitting on it's treasure.
Adrian Johnson
The kid's name has been released. He's Schlomo Oyvay Shekelson-Goldberg. The "Shalom Times" reports he's a neonazi Christian extremist with ties to the Trump administration & RNC.
Samuel Thompson
Now they can get a few million that they needed for repairs and even some more to help them deal with the stress of this awful antisemitic attack. They'll probably get tons of donations too, maybe they'll even utilize the land for some good like providing housing to rent out to people.
It's great how lucky coincidences just happen to work out for some people.
Hunter Miller
Any bets on whether he's Jewish/Non-white?
Ian Young
Any bets on whether he will be flying to Tel Aviv on an israeli passport?
Chase Mitchell
Jews have a no snitchin' rule: Lashon hara; there's nothing to see here goyim, move along.
That kid should've have gone out blazing, now he'll go out screaming, but not before the meat Tenderizer is summoned to fear-fuck him in a hot shower full of lizards as to make his blood stickier for the Matzos.
