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<\/a><\/p>\nBeth Israel Congregation hosts Shabbat services at the Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, on Jan. 16, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWe will not only survive, we will thrive,\u201d the congregation\u2019s student rabbi and spiritual leader, Benjamin Russell, told his community. He was draped in the only surviving tallit from the synagogue\u2019s library, where the arsonist lit the fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cA few days ago, someone tried to wound us, someone tried to destroy what we love, someone tried to tell us that we do not belong in our own city, that being visibly Jewish is dangerous, that being proudly Jewish is a risk, that being a synagogue is an invitation for hatred,\u201d Russell said. \u201cWhat they failed to understand is that we are not made of wood and paper and shelves. We are made of Torah, memory, community, stubborn love and 3000 years of defiance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roughly 170 Beth Israel congregants filled Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson on Friday night, after the church lent its space to the displaced community.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1860, Beth Israel has always been the only synagogue in Mississippi\u2019s capital. The arson attack last week, which burnt out the synagogue\u2019s library and destroyed two of its Torahs, was not the first time that Beth Israel\u2019s congregants were faced with the task of rebuilding. In 1967, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the synagogue, and, months later, also targeted the home of Rabbi Perry Nussbaum after he advocated for civil rights and desegregation.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nBeth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi, on Jan. 16, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Reflecting on the congregation\u2019s 160-year-old roots in Jackson, Russell said, \u201cWe have prayed through wars, depressions, pandemics, demographic shifts and antisemitism in every decade, and every single time we did more than survive, we adapted, we rebuilt, we showed up, and that is exactly what we are doing and will continue to do now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout the service, little mention was made of the suspect who confessed to the arson, Stephen Spencer Pittman, a 19-year-old resident of a suburb of Jackson who told the FBI that he had targeted Beth Israel because it was a \u201csynagogue of Satan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Standing outside of the charred entrance to the synagogue earlier in the day Friday, Abram Orlansky, a lifelong Jackson resident and past president of Beth Israel Congregation, said that most of the conversations within the congregation had not revolved around Pittman.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the extent we\u2019re talking about him, we\u2019re just saying what he wanted to do was interrupt or destroy Jewish life in Jackson, and all he\u2019s going to succeed at is making it more vibrant,\u201d said Orlansky. \u201cAll he\u2019s done is reaffirm the connection between this Jewish community and this city.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Thursday, a host of Christian faith leaders and Jackson city officials said a prayer for the congregation during a citywide prayer service. Zach Shemper, the president of Beth Israel Congregation, said more than 10 churches had offered to host the synagogue for Shabbat.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nBeth Israel Congregation’s president, Zach Shemper, and student rabbi, Benjamin Russell outside of the synagogue building on Jan. 16, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been persecuted for thousands of years, and just like we survived that, we will survive this,\u201d said Shemper outside of the synagogue. \u201cAll this atrocity did was relocate where we\u2019re having services.\u201d<\/p>\n
Support from other Jewish congregations across the South was also visible throughout the services.<\/p>\n
Temple B\u2019Nai Israel, a Reform synagogue in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, lent the community a Torah as well as 50 prayer books. A synagogue in Memphis, Tennessee, sent another 100 prayer books.<\/p>\n
The oneg after services was provided by Touro Synagogue in New Orleans, Louisiana, and included a pecan praline challah king cake, a Jewish twist on the traditional Mardi Gras dessert.<\/p>\n
The challah king cake loomed large over the evening. When Shemper announced the pastry at the end of the service, several children in the audience cheered and audience members applauded.<\/p>\n
On Friday morning, Orlansky showed a photo of the cake on his phone and said, \u201cThat\u2019s Jewish southern culture,\u201d adding that there is a store in New Orleans called \u201cKosher Cajun.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nThe pecan praline challah king cake at the Beth Israel Congregation’s oneg on Jan. 16, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In Jackson, a city with no explicitly Jewish establishments or cultural centers, Beth Israel has acted as a central hub of Jewish communal life. (The city\u2019s only Jewish restaurant, Olde-Tyme Deli, closed in 2000 after serving the Jewish community for 39 years.)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the minority in the area, and so we don\u2019t have all of the Jewish delis and JCC down the road and all of those things,\u201d Russell said. \u201cOur synagogue is that place for us to meet.\u201d<\/p>\n
About a 45 minute drive from the synagogue is Jacobs Camp, a Jewish summer camp run by the Union of Reform Judaism.<\/p>\n
Sarah Thomas, the synagogue\u2019s first vice president, read an address by Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the URJ\u2019s president, aloud during the service.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeth Israel family, like our ancestors, who endured the plague of hate and still found light, we think of all of you and know that there\u2019s much light in your midst,\u201d Jacobs said in the comments. \u201cWe pray that you continue to bask in the light of community and the light of solidarity and the light of hope for better days ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the absence of Jewish infrastructure in Jackson, Russell said the congregants \u201cmake every space that we are in Jewish by our own presence there.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Russell, some of the local spots that have become surrogate Jewish spaces include Myrtle Farms, a brewery, and Thai Tasty, a restaurant a short walk from Beth Israel.<\/p>\n
Russell said that Thai Tasty had become so popular with his congregants that he now announces during services when its owners make their annual monthlong trip to Thailand.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething that we see across the South\u2019s Jewish communities is that there is a level of pride, because you may be the only Jewish person in your high school,\u201d said Russell. \u201cI think there\u2019s just a little bit of charm in that resilience or that stubbornness that we have that says we\u2019re going to be here, we\u2019re going to always be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRachel Myers and Abram Orlansky pose on Beth Israel Congregation’s bimah on Jan. 16, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In high school, Orlansky recalled, there were two other Jewish students in his grade. Today, he said his two children are the \u201conly Jewish kid in their class, or either class on either side of them.\u201d That makes Beth Israel a haven, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA shared experience I have with my kids is being able to come to this building and not be the sort of constant representative of the Jewish people to everyone you know,\u201d said Orlansky.<\/p>\n
Orlansky said that the responsibility of representing the Jewish community was both an \u201chonor\u201d and a \u201cchallenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an honor to live in a place like this where people ask you about your religion, and people kind of look to you for answers about Judaism, but it can be a challenge, and so having a home where everyone around you is also Jewish is a respite,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Thomas, who is also a lifelong Beth Israel congregant, said growing up she was also the only Jewish student in her grade, but when she came to Beth Israel Congregation on Wednesdays and Sundays she found a \u201csafe space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about things that were happening outside of here and, and how we were going to respond with our Jewishness to a world, or a community, that was just different, and we knew that here was our safe space,\u201d said Thomas.<\/p>\n
Thomas said the Beth Israel building was an \u201cepicenter of life\u201d for the community\u2019s 140 families.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nThe library inside Beth Israel Congregation on Jan. 16, 2026. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat I want people to know about the southern Jewish communities, especially the smaller ones, or the only ones within a 90 mile radius, is everything related to Jewish life happens here,\u201d said Thomas.<\/p>\n
But while the building had served as a focal point of the community, Thomas added that \u201cthe building is not what makes up our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe building is not what makes up our community, our community is made up of the people,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be in other places, and we\u2019ll make that our home, but really together, we the people are going to be home to one another.\u201d<\/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 the sentiment was common in small Jewish communities in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cSynagogues are such important institutions in these smaller Southern communities,\u201d said Rabin. \u201cThis is the center of Jewish life, and it\u2019s really important for Jewish communities there to have a public address to show we\u2019re here, we\u2019re part of the landscape, other Jews can find us here.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Rabin said that public visibility also has a potential dark side.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can also make these institutions a target for those who are poisoned by various ideologies and decide that they want to make Jews a target,\u201d said Rabin.<\/p>\n
Following the attack last Saturday, most of the synagogue\u2019s leaders said they had initially assumed the fire had been caused by an electrical malfunction or another accident.<\/p>\n