Chabad Rabbi on Scooter Chases Down Burglary Suspect in Palm Beach
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A rabbi rode a motor scooter to chased down a suspected burglar after spotting him outside of a Palm Beach, Florida Chabad house.
Avrohom Ezagui, a Lubavitcher rabbi, became suspicious when he saw a man holding a bag of valuables, according to The Palm Beach Post.
Ezagui assumed the valuables had been taken from Chabad and gave chase on his scooter. A fight reportedly broke out when Ezagui reached the man, Eric Hanna, 28.
But Hanna had actually allegedly targeted a nearby home, not the Chabad house. He allegedly broke into the home through an open window and grabbed over $10,000 worth of jewelry, the paper reported.
Hanna was later arrested by police and faces two counts of burglary, one count of larceny of more than $10,000, one count of loitering, one count of battery and one count of criminal mischief. Bail was set at $87,000.
In 2011, the Chabad Palm Beach synagogue was targeted by burglars. Besides making off with valuables the crooks swiped a $1 that had been blessed by the late Lubavitcher rebbe Menachem Schneerson.
The synagogue offered a $1,000 reward for the safe return of the bill, but apparently got no takers.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
