Prominent Synagogue Badly Damaged in Fire
Upper East Side’s Kehilath Jeshurun is affiliated with the Ramaz school
July 12, 2011
The scene at Kehilath Jeshurun last night.(Miles Dixon/NYT)
The good news: Because the famous, historic Upper East Side modern Orthodox synagogue was under renovation when a sensational four-alarm fire struck yesterday evening, nobody was hurt and, additionally, its valuable Torah scrolls and other artifacts were far from the scene.
But this was apparently quite a blaze, requiring the talents of 170 of New York’s bravest (four of whom received minor injuries) to put it out. “Flames were 40 feet in the air, and there were large clouds of thick black smoke,” reported the president of the FDNY Foundation, who is, of course, also a member of the congregation. The fire, which is believed to have started up top, destroyed the roof, deeply damaged the top floor, charred or melted several stained-glass windows, and challenged the structure of the building, which was built in 1901. “At this point, we do not know the impact on the adjacent school building,” wrote the temple’s head rabbi, Haskell Lookstein, in an email to congregants.
That school is Ramaz, the prime uptown modern Orthodox day school (whose high school’s building is seven blocks away); there is a good chance that you know a graduate. Other reasons you may have heard of Kehilath Jeshurun is that Lookstein is an influential rabbi (30th on the latest Newsweek list), who was the one invited to the National Cathedral for a ceremony before President Obama’s inauguration, and that high-profile members include the recently converted Ivanka Trump.
As convention compels me to save for the end, authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire.
Video below. Warning, it’s intense.
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
