JPost sez the rabbi was injured...
The Associated Press sez he suffered only "minor burns."
RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Several Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices were thrown at a northern New Jersey synagogue early Wednesday, igniting a fire in the second-floor bedroom of the rabbi's residence in an attack that is being treated as both a bias crime and attempted murder, police said.
Wednesday's attack on Congregation Beth El in Rutherford was the fourth bias incident within a month against a Jewish religious institution or center in northern New Jersey, police said. Within the last three weeks, a fire was intentionally set at a synagogue in Paramus and anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered at synagogues in Hackensack and Maywood.
Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said there was no evidence yet linking the four incidents, but they hadn't ruled out that they might be connected. He urged residents to be vigilant, but not afraid.In addition to being classified as a bias crime, Molinelli said Wednesday's intentionally set early-morning fire was possibly the work of more than one person. The incident occurred about 4:30 a.m., when incendiary devices were thrown at various parts of the large Victorian-style home that houses Congregation Beth El on its ground floor, and the rabbi's living quarters on the second level.
Molinelli said it was being classified as an attempted murder, after one of the devices was thrown through a second floor window and into the bedroom of the congregation's rabbi.
"The manner in which this heinous crime has been committed has brought our office to really raise consciousness on this," Molinelli said. "This is certainly a hate crime, this is certainly a bias crime, this is aggravated arson, but most importantly, we are now looking on this as an attempted homicide."
Molinelli said there was nothing to suggest that the rabbi had been personally targeted, but that nothing had been ruled out so far as the investigation was continuing. A wide coalition of law enforcement agencies, including the Newark office of the FBI, is participating in the investigation.
The rabbi, his wife, five children and the rabbi's parents were sleeping when the fire [attack] occurred. No one was seriously hurt. Police said the device thrown through the rabbi's bedroom window did not explode, but ignited, and the rabbi suffered minor burns putting it out.
Rabbi Nosson Schuman of Congregation Beth El told CBS 880 Radio that he saw a flash of fire outside his bedroom window before his bedspread caught fire. The rabbi said he got his wife and five children out of the building safely, and said damage to the building was minimal, in his estimation.
And speaking of attacks on Jews in the middle of the night, Arlene Kushner writes from "Beyond the Pale" - in Israel:
There are legal arguments over Jewish communities -- "settlements" or "outposts" -- in Judea and Samaria. We can take a stand against the government position regarding some (or all) of these. Presumably (ideally) those arguments can be pursued in courts and via negotiation, with dignity. Presumably if in the end the government or the IDF or the civil administration (appointed by the IDF) in Judea and Samaria or the court decides a particular settlement or outpost must come down, that, too, can be done with dignity -- with decent Jewish respect.
But that's not what happened last night in Mitzpe Avichai, outside of Kiryat Arba (which is itself adjacent to Hevron). Police and representatives of the civil administration, after first blocking roads, came in the small hours of the morning, roused families from their beds, ordered them outside and destroyed their temporary homes. There was a light rain falling and the temperature was close to the freezing point.
Ten structures were destroyed, nine of which were inhabited. I believe the tenth was a synagogue. Among the families so evicted were several children and babies. The Flaishman family, by itself, for example, has seven children. Miriam, the mother of these children, said,
"They arrived in the middle of the night. It was brutal. I woke up after they broke down the door and were already in the living room."
This is simply unacceptable....
.... I ask you PLEASE to contact Prime Minister Netanyahu without delay. On this issue especially it is important to keep the message succinct and clear. No speeches, no history lessons. Just a direct statement, which is more powerful....
Fax: 02-670-5369 (From the US : 011-972-2-670-5369)
E-mail: Memshala@pmo.gov.il and pm_eng2@it.pmo.gov.il (underscore after pm) Use both addresses.
This is one of those instances in which numbers count. Netanyahu needs to hear from a great many people -- and before the beginning of Shabbat here, please!
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