A rabbi and his family barely escaped with their lives after a historic 125-year-old synagogue in New Jersey consumed by a raging early-morning fire collapsed mere minutes after the family fled the premises.
The conflagration at the synagogue in Rutherford, NJ, home to Congregation Beth El, started around 2:50 a.m. Friday and quickly engulfed the building. Rabbi Yitzhock Lerman, his wife and four children were sleeping in an apartment inside the house of worship when the blaze ignited.
They managed to make it outside just as the building started to collapse, said John R. Russo, chief of the police for Rutherford, which is located roughly 13 miles west of New York City.
In 2012 the synagogue was the target of an antisemitic attack after a 19-year-old man on a bicycle threw a Molotov cocktail at the structure. The cause of Friday’s fire is under investigation, and there is no indication that it is criminal in nature, Russo said.
The synagogue, founded in 1919, was originally a residential home and contained a lot of old wood and varnish, which could explain how fast the fire spread, Rutherford Mayor Frank Nunziato said.
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