Thanks Gilad. This is near Arlene and Joan. They must be thrilled. A few
weeks ago my neighbor two doors away was killed in her home. Sometimes I
feel that human laughter, joy, and well-being are no longer significant or
likely to be secured. It took me too many years to understand the magnitude
of surffering. Now escape feels impossible.
For this I'll send a check, even with my stocks in the abyss.
Love to Janet and the boys.
S.
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2000 5:23 PM
To:
Subject: Please send donation
By Angela Couloumbis
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
When Jacob Abraham arrived at Congregation Beth Harambam for morning
services
Saturday, all he could do was watch silently as police and fire officials
carried out the charred remains of prayer books and Torahs that he and other
congregants had worked so hard to acquire.
What he wanted to do, Abraham said yesterday, was fall to his knees and pray
to God - pray to understand why someone had entered his Orthodox synagogue
in
Northeast Philadelphia, piled prayer books on the floor, and lit a match
that
sent fire sweeping through the 11-year-old synagogue.
"We are in shock," said Abraham, who has attended services at Beth Harambam
for almost a decade. "We don't know what to think. We haven't harmed anybody
here. I can't understand why someone would do this, how someone could have
so
much hate."
Police said yesterday that the fast-moving blaze, which gutted most of Beth
Harambam's interior and left its congregation of 300 people without a place
to worship, was set between 4 and 4:30 a.m. Saturday. The fire has been
classified as an arson.
Although there had been no arrests by late yesterday, Sgt. William Ansel of
the Philadelphia police's Northeast Detectives Division said the fire
appeared to be the work of one person who entered the synagogue by breaking
a
back window. Two money containers were also taken, which investigators
recovered with $16 behind Beth Harambam.
Police say they believe the same person set fire to pool furniture, two cars
and a trash bin about 300 yards behind the synagogue. Those fires also were
started with matches, police said.
Ansel said yesterday that there was no evidence that the fire, which was
brought under control within 30 minutes, was an act of anti-Semitism. He
said
no anti-Semitic markings were found in Beth Harambam.
"Right now, it looks like it was a senseless act of vandalism," said Ansel,
who supervised part of the investigation. "The person broke in to get change
and then set [the place] on fire."
He said neighbors reported seeing a teenager wearing a blue hooded
sweatshirt
in the neighborhood shortly after the fire.
But the synagogue's leadership and congregants said yesterday that they
believed the fire was a hate crime.
"This is reminiscent of the times . . . when Jews were persecuted," said Eli
Gabay, president of Beth Harambam and son of Rabbi Amiram Gabay. "When a
person walks through a sanctuary of worship, piles up prayer books, and
torches them, we perceive that as a direct act of hatred."
Gabay, who has been a member of Beth Harambam since before it was
permanently
housed in the converted house on the 9900 block of Verree Road, said that
just in December, the congregation held a ceremony to celebrate paying off
the mortgage on the house. He said the synagogue had only minimal insurance.
Now, Gabay said, the congregation is left with next to nothing. He said the
synagogue's prayer books and prayer shawls were heavily damaged. The
synagogue's sanctuary, study and Holy Ark, in which Torahs were stored, also
were badly charred.
And the congregation's four Torahs were damaged by smoke, fire and water.
One item that remained seemingly intact was a clock on the synagogue's
second-floor wall. But its hands were stopped at 4:27 a.m., another painful
reminder of the fire that destroyed the house of worship, Gabay said.
"This is just so horrible," said Zahava Revah, a congregant and teacher, as
she wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue. "We put our sweat and blood and
tears into building this, and now it is destroyed. This brings back memories
of the Holocaust."
Eli Gabay's wife, Wendie, another longtime congregant, said that the Verree
Road location was the congregation's first permanent home. Before that, she
said, members met at different synagogues in the city and for several years
in the home of Rabbi Gabay.
Rabbi Gabay, who also is a Philadelphia police chaplain, was in Israel
mourning the death of a relative when the fire broke out, and congregants
said yesterday that he was devastated by news of the fire.
"This synagogue was built with our bare hands, and now we have to pick up
the
ashes with our bare hands," Wendie Gabay said. "This is the place where our
children were born, where they were bar mitzvahed, where they were married.
.
. . It brings tears to our hearts to see it in ashes."
She said that congregants had been working since dawn to gather the charred
pages of prayer books, which according to Jewish custom must be given a
burial.
Eli Gabay said that the congregation would temporarily hold Saturday
services
at Shaare Shamayim-Beth Judah synagogue a block away but hoped to rebuild
Beth Harambam in time for the High Holidays in October.
"We will grow stronger from this," he said, adding that area churches and
synagogues had been very supportive of Beth Harambam after the fire. "We
will
recover."
=========
Send contributions to:
Beth Harambam
9981 Verree Road
Philadelphia PA 19115
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