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Upper Park Heights
An unidentified man was being questioned by Baltimore City Police earlier this week after two small fires were extinguished Wednesday morning, Feb. 6, at the Machzikei Torah Congregation and a larger fire last Saturday, Feb. 2, gutted the inside of the Etz Chaim Center for Jewish Studies.
Police spokesman Martin Bartness said the man in custody is a possible suspect in the arsons. As of press time Wednesday, he was not formally charged with setting the fires.
Arthur C. Abramson, director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, said that the individual is Jewish and has connections to both Jewish institutions.
Federal and city investigators this week ruled out anti-Semitism as the motive in the suspicious fire at Etz Chaim.
"They do not feel it's a hate crime," Rabbi Shlomo Porter, the center's director, said Tuesday afternoon. He spoke via his cell phone -- his "temporary office" -- during a meeting at the Park Heights Jewish Community Center, which has lent space to Etz Chaim.
Last Sunday afternoon, Rabbi Porter's hands, accustomed to pointing to words of Torah from holy texts, were covered in dust...