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For southern Jews, the Mississippi synagogue firebombing rekindles memories of exile and endurance
As I read a Facebook post from a childhood friend about the Jan. 10 firebombing of Beth Israel, Mississippi’s oldest and largest synagogue, the words of one of Mississippi’s greatest authors, William Faulkner, haunted me: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Beth Israel’s library and administrative offices were reduced to “charred ruins,” according to Mississippi Today. Two Torahs were destroyed and five more damaged. By the end of Saturday, the Jackson Fire Department, the FBI, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had arrested a suspect for arson.
It is too soon to know the precise motives of the arsonist. But the echoes of history are deafening. This was not the first time someone had set fire to this very synagogue. Ku Klux Klan members firebombed it in 1967, because of the rabbi, Perry Nussbaum’s, support for desegregation. They firebombed Rabbi Nussbaum’s house, too.
This is a desecration. The devastation spreads out in ripples, from the community itself, to those who have a personal connection to the place, to every Jew near and far who feels both empathetic and afraid when they hear of yet another attack like this.
I’m in the second ring. When I was growing up in Louisiana, this congregation was part of my broader Jewish community. Henry S. Jacobs Camp, the Reform summer camp I attended and worked at, is located in the small town of Utica, 30 miles southwest of Jackson.
In the fall of 1992, I sat in Beth Israel’s sanctuary for a camp friend’s Bat Mitzvah. In high school I visited for Shabbaton with my regional youth group, which brought together teenagers from Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Western Tennessee. There might have been fewer of us across four states than in a single city like LA, Chicago or Miami, and it felt like we were one big extended family.
Roberta Berner, my friend’s mother, used to volunteer running Beth Israel’s gift shop. She has warm memories of raising her two kids in the Jewish community in Mississippi.
“One real difference in Mississippi versus New England, where we live now, is that down there everyone affiliated with the synagogue,” she told me. In a predominantly Southern Baptist town, there was safety and belonging within the synagogue walls. “You want to feel like you’re in a comfortable group, and you don’t have to explain yourself,” she added.
Many Jews don’t realize that the American South was settled as far back as the 1700s in part by Jewish peddlers from Germany, Alsace-Lorraine and then Poland. Beth Israel first opened its doors just before the Civil War. As children, we learned this history at camp, because longtime camp director Macy B. Hart started collecting and displaying sacred objects gathered up from scattered places where Jews could no longer make a minyan. Today, thanks to that preservation work, there is a Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans, and an Institute for Southern Jewish Life that had its offices at Beth Israel in Jackson.
We Jews are a small tribe, barely 16 million people worldwide. And we tend to cluster in places where we can form a critical mass. Those of us who, by choice or circumstance, come from places where we’re scattered more thinly, are used to feeling as if we’re on the fringes, both of the community we live in and of the broader Jewish community. It’s a kind of double galut or exile. Maybe that’s why we so fiercely claim our history and each other.
Growing up in the South, I wager I experienced more antisemitism than many Jews of my generation, especially those like myself who aren’t visibly observant. I was mocked by Christian classmates and told I was going to hell. The year before I attended that bat mitzvah in my sailor dress and pearl necklace, I was bullied by a classmate in a black trenchcoat who brandished a copy of Mein Kampf and used antisemitic slurs in threatening late-night calls to my house.
At the very same time, 1991, David Duke was running for governor of Louisiana. As an avowed neo-Nazi and grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, his presence on the mainstream political scene was terrifying, bewildering. If you pointed out he was a Nazi, it was such an outlandish thing to say that you sounded hysterical. My parents, as part of a Jewish and Black coalition, were active against Duke, and he was ultimately defeated, aided by the best unofficial political slogan of modern times, “Vote for the crook. It’s important.” (The victor, Edwin Edwards, eventually served time in federal prison for racketeering.)
Marked by those experiences, I grew up dreaming not only of a mythical Yerushalayim but of a mythical New York City, a place I watched on Seinfeld and visited with my Sunday School class: where Jewish shrugs and cadences were the norm, where real-life Hasidim spoke Yiddish, where billboards on the Lower East Side advertised Passover wine. I firmly believed I would grow up, move out of the South, and leave behind Confederate flags and ugly antisemitic rhetoric for good.
I made it to New York City, but the antisemites aren’t history anymore. At this moment, violence and prejudice against Jews certainly feel like they’re accelerating. At Jacobs Camp, we used to joyfully sing a song that went, “Wherever you go, there’s always someone Jewish.” Now that sentiment makes me feel less powerful and more vulnerable, because whether it’s in Bondi Beach, Manchester, Boulder, or Jackson, Mississippi, members of my extended family are coming under attack.
But my visceral response to yet another incident like this isn’t only to be afraid and draw closer to fellow members of the tribe. I think about the reason that Rabbi Nussbaum and his congregation were attacked 59 years ago. It’s because they embraced pluralism and coexistence. Because they loved justice and refused to back down to terrorists. Because they raised money for Black churches that were set on fire. They were on the side of the poor and the less powerful; the right side of history. That’s the kind of proud Southern Jew I want to be.
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‘For As Long As Necessary’: Katz Says Campaign Against Iran Entering Decisive Stage
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias make statements to the press, at the Ministry of Defense in Athens Greece, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
i24 News – Israel Katz said Saturday that the confrontation with Iran had entered a “decisive phase,” as US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets continued and regional tensions escalated.
Speaking after a security assessment at Israel’s defense headquarters alongside Eyal Zamir, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and senior military and intelligence officials, the Israeli defense minister said the campaign against the Islamic Republic would continue “for as long as necessary.”
“The global and regional struggle against Iran, led by American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is intensifying and entering its decisive phase,” Katz said.
Katz also praised US strikes on Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil hub, describing them as a “severe blow” to the Iranian regime. He said the attacks were an appropriate response to Iranian threats against the strategic Strait of Hormuz and to what he called Tehran’s attempts to pressure the international community.
At the same time, Katz said the Israeli Air Force was continuing a “powerful wave of attacks” against targets in Tehran and other parts of Iran.
He accused the Iranian leadership of using “regional and global terrorism” and strategic blackmail in an effort to deter Israel and the United States from pursuing their military campaign, warning that such actions would be met with a “strong and uncompromising response.”
Katz added that the outcome of the conflict would ultimately depend on the Iranian population. “Only the Iranian people can put an end to this situation through a determined struggle, until the overthrow of the terrorist regime and the salvation of Iran,” he said.
According to the minister, the confrontation now pits the Iranian regime’s determination to survive against growing military pressure from Israel and its allies.
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Trump Rejects Efforts to Launch Iran Ceasefire Talks, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he honors reigning Major League Soccer (MLS) champion Inter Miami CF players and team officials with an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump’s administration has rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to start diplomatic negotiations aimed at ending the Iran war that started two weeks ago with a massive US-Israeli air assault, according to three sources familiar with the efforts.
Iran, for its part, has rejected the possibility of any ceasefire until US and Israeli strikes end, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters, adding that several countries had been trying to mediate an end to the conflict.
The lack of interest from Washington and Tehran suggests both sides are digging in for an extended conflict, even as the widening war inflicts civilian casualties and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz sends oil prices soaring.
US strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island, the country’s main oil export hub, on Friday night underscored Trump’s determination to press ahead with his military assault. Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and threatened to step up attacks on neighboring countries.
The war has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran, and created the biggest-ever oil supply disruption as maritime traffic has halted in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported.
ATTEMPTS TO OPEN LINES OF COMMUNICATION
Oman, which mediated talks before the war, has tried multiple times to open a line of communication, but the White House has made clear it is not interested, according to two sources, who like others in this story were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about diplomatic matters.
A senior White House official confirmed Trump has rebuffed those efforts to start talks and is focused on pressing ahead with the war to further weaken Tehran’s military capabilities.
“He’s not interested in that right now, and we’re going to continue with the mission unabated. Maybe there’s a day, but not right now,” the official said.
During the first week of the war, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Iran’s leadership and military were so battered by US-Israeli strikes that they wanted to talk, but that it was “Too Late!” He has a history of shifting foreign policy stances without warning, making it hard to rule out that he might test the waters for restarting diplomacy.
“President Trump said new potential leadership in Iran has indicated they want to talk and eventually will talk. For now, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated,” a second senior White House official said when asked to comment on this story.
The Iranian sources said Tehran has rejected efforts by several countries to negotiate a ceasefire until the US and Israel end their airstrikes and meet Iran’s demands, which include a permanent end to US and Israeli attacks and compensation as part of a ceasefire.
Egypt, which was involved in mediation before the war, has also tried to reopen communications, according to three security and diplomatic sources. While the efforts do not appear to have made progress, they have secured some military restraint from neighboring countries hit by Iran, according to one of the sources.
Egypt’s foreign ministry, the government of Oman and the Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment.
POSITIONS HARDEN ON ALL SIDES
The war’s impact on global oil markets has significantly increased the cost for the United States.
Some US officials and advisers to Trump urge a quick end to the war, warning that surging gasoline prices could exact a high political price from the president’s Republican Party, with US midterm elections looming.
Others are pressing Trump to maintain the offensive against the Islamic Republic to destroy its missile program and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to Reuters reporting.
Trump’s rejection of diplomatic efforts could indicate that, for now, the administration has no plans for a quick end to the war.
Indeed, both the United States and Iran appear even less willing to engage than during the opening days of the war, when senior US officials reached out to Oman to discuss de-escalating, according to several sources.
One source said Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had also sought to use Oman as a conduit for ceasefire discussions that would have involved U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
But those discussions have not materialized.
Instead, Iran’s position has hardened, said a third senior Iranian source.
“Whatever was communicated previously through the diplomatic channels is irrelevant now,” said the source.
“The Guards strongly believe that if they lose control over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will lose the war,” the source added, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite paramilitary force that controls large parts of the economy.
“Therefore, the Guards will not accept any ceasefire, ceasefire talks, or diplomatic efforts, and Iran’s political leaders will not engage in such talks despite attempts by several countries.”
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US Strikes More Than 90 Iranian Military Targets on Kharg Island, CENTCOM Says
A satellite image shows an oil terminal at Kharg Island, Iran, February 25, 2026. Photo: 2026 Planet Labs PBC/Handout via REUTERS
United States forces executed a large-scale precision strike on Kharg Island in Iran on Friday night, the US Central Command said on Saturday.
“US forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island, while preserving the oil infrastructure,” CENTCOM said.
The strike destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites, the US military said in a post on X.
President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to strike the oil infrastructure of Iran’s Kharg Island hub, unless Tehran stopped attacking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.