A fire broke out Monday morning, Tisha Be’Av eve, at the youth synagogue in Mevo Horon in the Benjamin region of Judea and Samaria. The synagogue was burned down with Torah scrolls that could not be saved.
בית הכנסת במבוא חורון נשרף כליל כולל ספרי התורה . pic.twitter.com/40bu2iFRj4
— איציק קליין (@izikla32) July 31, 2017
A Police Spokesperson said that “in the morning, a fire broke out in the community of Mevo Horon, resulting in great damage to the building (a caravan). Police, in cooperation with Fire Dept. investigators have launched an investigation of the circumstances that led to the fire.”
At this point, the investigation centers on the possibility of an electric short as the culprit, according to Fire Dept. investigators on the scene.
Mati Goldstein, the operations officer of the international unit of ZAKA and one of the members of the burnt synagogue who lives nearby, told Radio Kol Hai Monday morning: “My eye, my eye runs down with water (Lamentations 1:16). On the eve of Tisha B’Av, in which we mourn the burning of the Temple, we will weep seven times more tonight for the burning of another Temple – our synagogue.”
Goldstein related: “At 4:40 AM they woke me up and told me that there was a fire in our synagogue. I ran to the place with more worshipers, tried to extinguish the fire with fire extinguishers but the fire spread too quickly. Firefighters who arrived also tried, but, unfortunately, to no avail. We could not save anything. Not Torah scrolls, nor holy books, they were all burned down. All we have to do is look into our actions and repent.”