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Mississippi fire suspect called the temple a ‘synagogue of Satan’
A man who confessed to setting fire to a historic Mississippi temple on Saturday told law enforcement it was the “synagogue of Satan.”
Stephen Spencer Pittman was charged Monday with damaging or destroying a building by means of fire or an explosive. Security camera footage from Beth Israel Congregation — the only synagogue in Jackson, the state capital — showed a hooded figure pouring accelerant inside the building’s library before lighting a fire.
The fire ripped through Beth Israel shortly after 3 a.m. on Saturday, destroying the library, two Torahs, and offices, leaving parts of the surrounding building blackened and charred. The main sanctuary and five Torah scrolls inside sustained smoke damage. The building also houses the offices of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life.
Pittman was arrested Saturday evening, reportedly with severe burns. He confessed to his father, who contacted the FBI, according to an affidavit obtained by the Forward.
Text messages in the affidavit allegedly show Pittman texting his father details and photos after setting fire to the synagogue. According to the FBI, Pittman’s father pleaded with his son to return home.
Hours later, Pittman’s father confronted his son after observing burns on his ankles, hands and face. Pittman then confessed that he had started a fire, according to the affidavit, and “laughed as he told his father what he did and said he finally got them.”
His burned cell phone and a hand torch was discovered at the scene of the attack.
According to an FBI affidavit, Pittman called the institution the “synagogue of Satan” in an interview with authorities following his arrest. The court document described Pittman stopping at a local gas station, removing the license plate off his car, and buying gas to use to start the fire. When he arrived at the synagogue, he broke a window using an axe to get inside the building.
Beth Israel Congregation, which counts around 150 member families, has anchored Jewish life in Jackson since the Civil War, its history closely tracking both the growth of the city and the persistence of a small but visible Jewish community in Mississippi’s capital.
Founded in 1860, it is the state’s largest synagogue, and has been faced with attacks before. In September 1967, Ku Klux Klan members bombed the synagogue damaging a similar section of the building that was destroyed on Saturday. Around two months later, KKK members bombed the home of Rabbi Perry Nussbaum. He was not targeted at random: Nussbaum was deeply involved in the civil rights movement, had visited jailed Freedom Riders, and helped post bail for activists at a time when doing so carried real risk. No one was killed in the attacks.
The post Mississippi fire suspect called the temple a ‘synagogue of Satan’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.