Yeshiva Building in Brooklyn Gutted; Neighborhood ‘vandals’ Blamed

Police began an investigation today of a fire in a building belonging to the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn which firemen listed as “suspicious.” The building, which was gutted, formerly housed the school, and has been vacant for a year. It contains a large number of books, school records and furniture.

Rabbi Meyer Ziegler, director of the yeshiva, now located a mile from the original site, said the school had been “compelled” to move out of the old building because its pupils were repeatedly attacked and blackmailed for small sums of money by youths in the Brownsville neighborhood which has become increasingly a Negro area. Rabbi Ziegler blamed the blaze on neighborhood “vandals.”