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<\/a><\/p>\nBeth Israel Congregation’s president, Zach Shemper, and student rabbi, Benjamin Russell pray alongside Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor John Horhn at an interfaith service in Jackson on Jan. 15, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The interfaith prayer event at the Thalia Maria Hall in downtown Jackson, billed by Mayor John Horhn as an \u201cAll-City Call to Prayer and Action,\u201d had been planned as a general ceremony<\/a> for the city.<\/p>\n But after Beth Israel Congregation was set ablaze Saturday morning, Benjamin Russell, who serves as the student rabbi and spiritual leader of Beth Israel Congregation, said Horhn had called and said he wanted to tweak the event \u201cpray for you and provide blessings.\u201d The call came amid cascading support from across the city.<\/p>\n \u201cWe pretty much expected it all,\u201d said Russell of the outpouring of support. \u201cFor the most part, we\u2019ve always felt welcome, and so this was more of a confirmation of what we already knew.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout the service, participants were invited to huddle with their neighbors in prayer circles as the program\u2019s faith leaders, who were almost all pastors, bishops and reverends, gave blessings over different aspects of Jackson\u2019s city life.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is our intent to not make this a spectator-type event where you just watch us up on the stage pray. Know everybody is going to get in on prayer tonight,\u201d said Bishop Ronnie Crudup. \u201cI want you to find a few folk you can huddle with, you can create a circle with. You can reach over and touch if you want to, and make them your prayer partners for this time tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n While the third prayer of the evening centered on \u201cpeace and restoration\u201d for the congregation following the fire, the rest of the service was laden in references to the city\u2019s predominantly Christian faith.<\/p>\n Some Jewish audience members stay seated during an interfaith service in Jackson, Mississippi, on Jan. 15, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n During the second prayer, which called for a \u201cgood working relationship\u201d between Horhn and the city council, the pastor who led the prayer said, \u201cin the name of Satan, you don\u2019t have no power in him, there\u2019s too much faith in him, it\u2019s too much belief in you and in the name of Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the prayer, Horhn told the crowd, \u201coftentimes, when I hear someone say I\u2019m praying for you, I say, I thank you, keep me covered in the blood of Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n Toward the end of the service, former Mississippi Republican Rep. Charles Pickering called for Jackson to bring \u201cGod\u2019s kingdom to earth,\u201d which he described as \u201cone people with one mission and one language and one faith.\u201d<\/p>\n Russell said the display was typical for the community.<\/p>\n \u201cWe live in the buckle of the Bible Belt,\u201d said Russell. \u201cSometimes we just have to be grateful for the support that we\u2019re receiving \u2026 even if some of the messages may not be exactly what we would say.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of Jackson\u2019s roughly 400 churches serve the city\u2019s large Black Protestant community. About 80% of Jackson\u2019s roughly 150,000 residents are Black.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause this event was geared so much toward the city of Jackson itself, that was its kind of main focus, that it made it a little harder for everyone to kind of hold everything in which is, again, is one of the things that we understand living here,\u201d said Russell. \u201cWe\u2019ve been here since 1860, and that goes with a lot of history and a lot of learning how to interact with each other, so we do it, we do a dance very well.\u201d<\/p>\n The city is home to long and deeply etched ties between its Jewish and Black communities. In 1967, members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed Beth Israel after its rabbi at the time, Perry Nussbaum, advocated for civil rights and desegregation. Months later, Nussbaum\u2019s home was also bombed by the group.<\/p>\n Extensive damage to the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue after an arson attack in Jackson, Mississippi, Jan. 10, 2026 (Beth Israel Congregation)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMoving forward from the 60s, during the first bombing, there was an interfaith committee that was put together,\u201d said Russell. \u201cWe\u2019ve had several organizations that have kind of helped keep, at least in the metro area, the different faith traditions together, which has been really instrumental in things like we saw tonight where people are willing to reach out.\u201d<\/p>\n Michele Schipper, the CEO of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which is housed in the synagogue building, grew up in Jackson going to Beth Israel Congregation. She was a toddler at the time of the bombing.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce the temple was bombed and the rabbi\u2019s house was bombed, that really was when the community really came together and stood strong,\u201d said Schipper. \u201cI think harkening back to that time, we\u2019re reflecting. We made such great strides from that time, [and] we will continue to move forward in a very positive direction, because we\u2019re here for the long haul.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking at a local cafe ahead of the interfaith service, which streamed Christian pop songs from the sound system, Schipper reflected on what it meant to live as a Jew in Jackson.<\/p>\n \u201cHate is not inborn, hate is learned, and I\u2019ve always said, especially being here in Jackson, being the minority, I\u2019ve always felt like certain questions that people asked were one of just ignorance,\u201d said Schipper. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t negative, it was just \u2018I don\u2019t know anything about Judaism, so I don\u2019t know how to ask the right questions.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The prayer service, which included a link to the synagogue\u2019s rebuilding fund on its flyer, was not the only display of support from the city\u2019s Christian community.<\/p>\n In the immediate wake of the attack, as congregants began to flock to the synagogue\u2019s parking lot to see the devastation for themselves, the church across the street, St. Philip\u2019s Church, immediately opened its doors to allow grieving members a space to process.<\/p>\n On Friday, the congregation\u2019s first Shabbat service since the attack will be held at the Northminster Baptist Church.<\/p>\n Shari Rabin, an associate professor of Jewish studies and religion at Oberlin College and the author of the 2025 book \u201cThe Jewish South: An American History,\u201d told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that synagogues facing attacks in the South had largely been met by support from the community, even as Jews have also faced antisemitism in the region.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, there have been times when there is more sort of Christian antagonism towards Jews and missionary zeal and the like,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think there also has generally \u2026 just been a sort of public outcry and support when synagogues are attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n Rabin said the attack on Beth Israel Congregation underscored a deeper vulnerability facing Jewish communities, even those with long roots in the South.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is a reminder that Jews can live in a place, have a community in a place for decades, 150-plus years, they can be acculturated and part of the community and prominent members in all sorts of ways, and there still is sort of an underlying precarity that makes them vulnerable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Following the 1967 bombing, Rabin said Nussbaum had taken aim at the leading Southern Baptist minister in Jackson, telling him \u201cgo to hell when he came around with his condolences, telling him to preach the following Sunday to his front pews, where all the rightists regularly gathered.\u201d She said he had been motivated by a clarity about where the attack\u2019s ideological roots lay.<\/p>\n \u201cFor him, like that attack was coming out of a sort of radical, certain kind of Christian discourse that he wanted to call out,\u201d said Rabin.<\/p>\n Speakers on Thursday night likewise lay blame for Saturday\u2019s attack. The man charged with the arson, Stephen Spencer Pittman, referred to Beth Israel as a \u201dsynagogue of Satan\u201d and espoused Christian content online. He was not mentioned by name Thursday night.<\/p>\n Hohrn told the crowd that it was \u201can indictment on our country, on our community, that there wasn\u2019t a way, someone to stand in the gap, to turn him around, to make him inspired not to make that journey.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n