Prayer books, a Moses sculpture and a holy horn are among items damaged or lost after alleged arson at Mississippi synagogue

By Alisha Ebrahimji, Jason Carroll, CNN

Jackson, Mississippi (CNN) — What was once a place of worship filled with precious objects packed with meaning now sits in heavy layers of dark soot, burdened by the pungent smell of smoke after someone set fire to Mississippi’s largest and oldest synagogue.

A 19-year-old suspect confessed just hours after last weekend’s blaze to attacking the historic temple “due to (the) building’s Jewish ties,” the FBI said. He faces federal and state charges and, if convicted, could serve up to 60 years in prison.

Now, the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson – founded before the Civil War and bombed in 1967 amid the Civil Rights Movement – is closed indefinitely as restoration and recovery begin inside its historical walls.

Part of that hard work includes finding important religious artifacts, some dating back decades, that were damaged or destroyed in the alleged arson and trying to revive them or to retire them respectfully.

Some holy texts relocated to safety

On the outside of the Beth Israel synagogue, which serves some 150 families, boards cover windows that stretch nearly from floor to ceiling, and soot stains concrete.

Inside, the fire’s wrath spared nothing, marking nearly every surface with smoke residue.

When Zach Shemper, the congregation’s president, arrived at the temple after the fire, he went straight to the sanctuary, where the Torahs – heavy scrolls of the Jewish holy books – were kept.

“First thing I did when I got here after the fire was remove our Torahs and wrapped them up and put them in my truck for safekeeping,” he said.

The holy texts were moved to a church, Shemper said, where they’ve been unrolled to air out from the smoke.

The Torahs will be stored until a master sofer – a highly skilled scribe qualified to repair Torahs – can evaluate and return them to kosher status, explained Sheila Hailey, the congregation’s executive director.

To be kosher, a Torah cannot have any damage and its letters must all be legible, Hailey said, adding it also must be on parchment sewn together and rolled onto wooden spindles.

Charred prayer books will get a funeral

The fire ignited in the synagogue’s library – where religious texts had filled wooden, built-in bookshelves highly susceptible to fire – and left extensive damage, Charles Felton, chief of investigations for the Jackson Fire Department’s arson division said.

It made the space nearly unrecognizable: those same shelves were left bare as charred, decades-old prayer book pages littered the soot-filled floor and shattered glass rested under a window the suspect broke to get in, according to the FBI’s criminal complaint.

Jewish custom calls for holy texts to get a respectful burial, rather than simply being tossed out. So, after the temple is remediated, the prayer books and what’s left of their pages will be collected, commemorated with a funeral and interred, Shemper said.

Along a library wall, an ornate cabinet with glass doors known in Judaism as an Ark held two Torahs that were almost completely incinerated, he showed CNN this week.

“As you can see by everything,” Shemper said, pausing, “it’s totally destroyed.”

The flames then moved toward the sanctuary, where congregants worshipped. Pews were left heavily soiled in black.

“I want to cry. I’m disgusted,” Shemper said as he surveyed the damage. “I’ve never had to deal with something like this. I’ve never even experienced the feelings that I’m feeling right now.”

An important object still isn’t found

The heat from the fire was so overwhelming, all but one of hundreds of small brass plates that made up the temple’s Tree of Life art installation succumbed to the flames. The display, a common Judaic symbol, represented moments of celebration within the congregation, Shemper said.

Also damaged was a decades-old sculpture of Moses, one of Judaism’s greatest prophets who is often credited with receiving the Torah from God and writing it down.

The sculpture, which survived the 1967 bombing by Ku Klux Klan members, remained intact after the fire, Hailey said. But in short order, its head broke off its body, chipped and got covered in ash.

Repairing this holy space could take at least a year, until which several churches have opened their doors to Beth Israel, Shemper said. Amid the devastation, the synagogue’s congregation is committed to maintaining Jewish community in Jackson and is ready to rebuild, Michele Schipper said, one of temple’s past presidents.

Digging through rubble, Shemper searched for a Jewish musical instrument called a “shofar” that’s used on holy days like Rosh Hashanah. He knew the piece, made from an animal horn, had been on a nearby shelf.

But after sifting through soot on the floor, Shemper could not find it.

“I don’t know how hot something has to get,” he said, “for a ram’s horn to burn.”

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