“It was really shocking,” said a local resident who had witnessed the scene. “All of the walls were blackened with soot, the bimah was singed, and the prayer books were burned. The Aron Kodesh, sifrei Torah, and paroches were not damaged, boruch Hashem.”
Rabbi Avner Chacham, gabbai of the shul, later reported that around midday, the shul cleaner discovered the fire when he arrived there to work. “He called me immediately, and I got in touch with firefighters and the police. When they got there, they found a bottle of flammable materials inside the shul.”
Rabbi Daniel Ben Saadon, leader of the local Religious Council, and Lubavitcher Rabbi Daniel Edrei came to the scene to help the gabbaim reorganize the shul. Local residents are hoping that matters will not deteriorate the point that they reached in Akko, where riots recently broke out between the Arabs and the Jews.
