Source: The Washington Post
The first fire lit up the shingles of the rabbi’s home, forcing him and his family into their car for safety. Less than a week later, another blaze broke out there. Then it happened once more — this time at another rabbi’s residence, 13 miles away.
The homes in Massachusetts are also Chabad centers, where Jews worship, study the Torah and build community. Authorities are investigating this month’s fires as arsons. No arrests have been announced.
“Somebody out there wants to hurt us,” Chanie Krinsky, who runs one of the centers with her husband, Rabbi Mendy Krinsky, wrote on Facebook the day after their home burned. “Just because we exist. And that is frightening.”
The blazes in Arlington and Needham, Mass., follow arsons at mosques in New Haven and Southern California, three predominantly black churches in Louisiana, and a mostly Hispanic Pentecostal church in Pennsylvania. For members of those houses of worship, the intended messages were clear: intimidation, hate and marginalization, said Jamie Aten, executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College.
Categories: America, Religion, The Muslim Times, USA