MONSEY - A 15-year-old boy whose family belongs to an anti-Israel congregation was arrested yesterday on a felony charge accusing him of starting a fire that burned down a synagogue used by the religious group.
The boy was playing with matches inside the rundown Saddle River Road building on April 1 and recklessly started the blaze, Ramapo police Detective Lt. Brad Weidel said yesterday.
Police charged the youth with fourth-degree criminal mischief.
His name was being withheld by police because of his age and because his case has been referred to the Rockland Family Court, Weidel said.
The boy is scheduled to appear in Family Court on June 26.
The blaze occurred on the eve of Passover, and several dozen religious Jews lined the street on a rainy night and watched 75 firefighters fight the flames.
The fire ate through the aged timbers, destroying the three-story structure just off Route 59 and across from Route 306.
Congregation Bais Yehuda was home for an anti-Zionist rabbi and his family while also serving as headquarters for Neturei Karta, which opposes the state of Israel.
The youngster, whose family belongs to the congregation, didn't have a political ax to grind with the group.
"This was not an intentional act to burn down the synagogue because of any opposition to the philosophy of the anti-Israel group," Weidel said. "This was not a terrorist act."
Weidel said the boy had permission to be inside the building for Passover preparations and started playing with matches.
"The building is more than 100 years old and the firefighters called it a tinderbox," Weidel said. "There was a lot of papers, books and combustible materials."
Several Neturei Karta members initially believed the building had been targeted because of their anti-Zionist views.
Members of Neturei Karta, Aramaic for "Guardians of the City," call for the peaceful dismantlement of Israel, saying Jews there deserve to live under Arab rule until God sends the Messiah to free them.
Opponents have called Neturei Karta a fringe group. Its anti-Zionist views have made the group extremely unpopular, not only in the heavily Orthodox Monsey community but around the world.
The group received worldwide attention in December when some of its members attended a Holocaust denial conference in Iran.
While Neturei Karta doesn't deny the Holocaust, several members, including Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Monsey, embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel.
Yesterday, Weiss said he was not aware of the arrest made by Ramapo police.
Weiss felt at the time of the April fire that the building had been targeted by Neturei Karta's critics, but softened his stance after police ruled it probably wasn't arson since no accelerant was detected.
Weiss claimed yesterday that people cheered the burning of the synagogue and the near destruction of the congregation's Torah and other holy books.
"The tragedy," Weiss said, "was people were outside celebrating. We have been under attack by Zionists. The tragedy was the transformation of God-fearing people into people who lacked compassion because of their Zionist beliefs."
Weidel praised the work done by two of his detectives, Thomas Byrne and Keith Schwartz, in finding the teenager.
Weidel said the detectives interviewed dozens of people, narrowing the search to the last people seen inside the building on the night of the fire.
"This was good, old-fashioned detective work," Weidel said. "You don't generally solve these things."
