A Chabad rabbi and his family escaped a fire that destroyed a synagogue in the New York City suburbs on Friday, NJ.com reported.
No one was injured, but the Torah scrolls were burned in the blaze, according to the outlet.
“I saw flames outside my window. We said, ‘get the kids,’ and ran outside,” Rabbi Yitzchok Lerman told NJ Advance Media. “I turned around to retrieve our Torah scrolls, but unfortunately, the building was already engulfed.”
The cause of the fire at the Bergen County synagogue Beth El Chabad in Rutherford, N.J., remains unknown, but Frank Nunziato, mayor of Rutherford, told The New York Times that there was no indication of arson.
The Rutherford Police Department received calls at around 2:45 a.m. on Friday morning about an “active structure fire” at the synagogue, according to a report from John Russo, the police chief, which the department shared with JNS.
“Within seconds, officers who were in the immediate vicinity were on scene and reported the entire south side of the building was engulfed in flames,” Russo stated. “At that point, the residents of the temple, Rabbi Yitzchok Lerman, his wife and four children were able to exit the structure unharmed.”
The “four-alarm fire” spread quickly throughout the building, which was “later deemed a complete loss,” Russo said. “Fire crews from across the region worked for several hours to knock down the fire, and their actions prevented it from spreading to other homes.”
Russo stated that no firefighters were injured, and a county arson squad and local detectives and fire inspectors concluded that “there was no criminality suspected in this fire incident.”
“Congregation Beth El has been a pillar of the Rutherford community for decades, and our hearts go out to them during this difficult time of devastating loss,” Russo said.
The synagogue, whose congregation was founded in 1919 and whose building dates back to 1953, had been firebombed in 2012 by a person later convicted of several incidents of vandalism against synagogues and other Jewish institutions, including throwing Molotov cocktails at Beth El.
The Jewish Community Center of the Meadowlands, which houses the synagogue, has served the Meadowlands, Southern Bergen County and the Passaic and Clifton communities for more than 100 years, according to its website.
The synagogue began a fundraising campaign for the rabbi and his family on Friday.
“Thank God, by a true miracle, the Lermans escaped just in time before the flames consumed the entire structure,” it stated. “But they lost everything: their home, their belongings and the heart of their community.”
