Orthodox Synagogue, Serving Elderly Congregants, Vandalized Twice in Three Days

An historic 78-year old Orthodox synagogue in the lower East Side, serving mainly elderly congregants with limited incomes, suffered an estimated $50,000 damage this weekend when vandals ransacked the congregation and left in their wake three fire-scorched rooms. According to Irwin Goldman, president of Congregation Beth Haknesses, the vandals were apparently dissatisfied with the damage they had wreaked on the large, brick synagogue. They returned again last night to destroy and abuse the prayer books, “taleisim,” and other religious articles which had been preserved from the fire’s greedy fingers. Goldman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the most distressing element of the entire incident was that many of the 60 daily worshippers who come to the synagogue from low-income housing projects flanking it, are the feeble and partially-handicapped persons who would be forced to worship in their own homes until the synagogue’s interior was repaired. The nearest synagogue which the younger congregants would attend until this synagogue is repaired, he explained, is six blocks away, a walk the elderly could not sustain. Noting that the latest vandalism was the ninth he personally had reported to police in the last two years. Goldman also disclosed that two other synagogues on the lower East Side had been ransacked the same evening fire partially destroyed his congregation’s structure. Only minor damage was inflicted on the others, he reported.

Goldman told the JTA that the worshippers of Congregation Beth Haknesses had struggled for 18 years to maintain mortgage payments and prevent the synagogue from being foreclosed. On February 4th, he said, mortgage burning ceremonies had been held in the synagogue. Rabbi Morris Shisgal, spiritual leader, presided at the ceremony and it was attended by Mayor John Lindsay and Harav Moshe Feinstein, father-in-law of Rabbi Shisgal. “That was a joyous day,” he said bitterly. Goldman described the reactions of the congregants to the news of the fire as one of disbelief. “The rabbi was just dumfounded when he heard -he couldn’t speak for a few moments,” he said,” One of the elderly congregants who is partially crippled called me at my home and cried, asking what he was to do now, as the synagogue had been practically a home to him.” Goldman disclose that the police had found no clues to the identity of the vandals. In response to the increased attacks on synagogues in the area, he said, police were increasing the number of cars patrolling the streets, but were otherwise “helpless. They told me that the best thing would be to station a man in each synagogue,” he revealed. “But they also added that they just don’t have the manpower.”