Fire Tears Through High-Profile Manhattan Synagogue
A four-alarm fire Thursday night engulfed Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, a large and high-profile Modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Five firefighters sustained minor injuries fighting the blaze, which sent flames and billowing black smoke into the night sky. The fire was reported around 8:30 p.m. and was contained about an hour later, the Associated Press is reporting. A police spokesman told the AP that the fire broke out on the building’s top floor and on its roof, ultimately causing the roof to collapse.
No synagogue staff or congregants were hurt, and no Torahs were damaged in the fire, according to press reports.
“You can cry over the loss, which is a very, very real thing,” the congregation’s longtime spiritual leader, Haskel Lookstein told the website DNAinfo.com. “But the most important thing to do in the face of something like this is to ask yourself, ‘how do we respond? Now, what do you do when you have just had a loss?’”
He went on to say that he has complete faith that the 139-year-old congregation, widely known as KJ, would rally to rebuild what was lost in the fire.
The 110-year-old synagogue building had been undergoing renovations since May; the work was to have been completed by this fall.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jewish students, alumni decry ‘weaponization of antisemitism’ across country
-
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.