Recently released surveillance footage captures the chilling moments leading up to an antisemitic arson attack on Mississippi’s largest synagogue. The video shows 19-year-old Stephen Pittman methodically preparing to set the building ablaze.

Pittman has been formally charged with the malicious destruction of a building using fire or explosive devices following this attack.

In the dead of night, the footage reveals Pittman pouring gasoline throughout the synagogue’s hallway, ensuring the potential for a devastating blaze. His actions were deliberate as he targeted key areas to maximize the fire’s spread.

Concealed by a mask and hood, Pittman is seen dousing both the floor and a couch in the synagogue’s lobby, preparing the area for ignition.

The fire erupted soon after Pittman completed his task, engulfing the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson shortly after 3 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Fortunately, no individuals from the congregation or emergency responders were harmed during the incident. Upon arrival, firefighters were met with an inferno pouring out of the windows, and all entrances to the synagogue were securely locked, according to Charles D. Felton Jr., the chief of investigations for the Jackson Fire Department.

Local and federal officials, including from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, arrested Pittman for investigation of arson at a hospital where that he had non-life threatening burns.

The teen suspect confessed to lighting a fire inside the building, which he referred to as ‘the synagogue of Satan,’ according to an FBI affidavit filed in US District Court in Mississippi on Monday.

Surveillance footage captures the suspect methodically pouring gasoline across floors and furniture inside the synagogue, ensuring the fire would spread rapidly once lit

The video shows the arsonist masked and hooded, moving through the building in the middle of the night moments before the blaze erupted

Fire damage to the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi is seen

At a first appearance hearing Monday in federal court, a public defender was appointed for Pittman, who attended via video conference call from a hospital bed. Both of his hands were visibly bandaged.

He told the judge that he was a high school graduate and had three semesters of college.

Prosecutors said he could face five to 20 years in prison if convicted. When the judge read him his rights, Pittman said, ‘Jesus Christ is Lord.’

Pittman is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary and detention hearing on January 20.

Photos showed the charred remains of an administrative office and synagogue library, where several Torahs were destroyed or damaged.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said she has instructed prosecutors to seek ‘severe penalties,’ according to a statement provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi.

The suspect’s father contacted the FBI and said his son had confessed to setting the building on fire. Pittman had texted his father a photo of the rear of the synagogue before the fire, with the message, ‘There’s a furnace in the back.’ 

His father had pleaded with his son to return home, but ‘Pittman replied back by saying he was due for a homerun and `I did my research,´’ the affidavit said.

Investigators say the footage provides a chilling visual record of how deliberately the fire was set just after 3am

Beth Israel Congregation, Mississippi’s largest synagogue, has been razed in an arson attack over the weekend, and a suspect, Stephen Pittman, 19, has been taken into custody

The fire tore through Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson around 3am on Saturday

During an interview with investigators, Pittman said he had stopped at a gas station on his way to the synagogue to purchase the gas used in the fire. He also took the license plate off his vehicle at the gas station. 

He used an ax to break out a window of the synagogue, poured gas inside and used a torch lighter to start the fire, the FBI affidavit said.

The FBI later recovered a burned cellphone believed to be Pittman´s and took possession of a hand torch that a congregant had found.

Yellow police tape on Monday blocked off the entrances to the synagogue building, which was surrounded by broken glass and soot. Bouquets of flowers were laid on the ground at the building’s entrance – including one with a note that said, ‘I’m so very sorry.’

Local and national officials, religious figures and activists condemned the fire at the 160-year-old synagogue, the largest in Mississippi and the only one in Jackson.

It was the site of a Ku Klux Klan bombing in 1967 – a response to the congregation´s role in civil rights activities, according to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which also houses its office in the building.

The home of the synagogue’s rabbi, an outspoken critic of racial segregation, was also bombed two months later by the same group.

‘That history reminds us that attacks on houses of worship, whatever their cause, strike at the heart of our shared moral life,’ CJ Rhodes, a prominent black Baptist pastor in Jackson, said in a Facebook post.

The arson underscores the importance of interfaith solidarity in standing up to hate and bigotry, said Jim Berk, CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based organization focused on combating antisemitism.

This photo provided by Beth Israel Congregation shows damage sustained during a fire

Beth Israel Congregation President Zach Shemper said there was ‘significant’ soot and smoke throughout the building, but nobody was injured 

Boards cover the charred remains of the Beth Israel Congregation library, which was set on fire 

Burnt debris from a fire at the Beth Israel Congregation glint in the sun on Monday

A note attached to a bundle of flowers left outside the Beth Israel Congregation reads, ‘I am so very sorry’ 

‘It was an assault on the heart of Jewish life in the South, and on a legacy shaped in partnership with the Black community through the long, unfinished struggle for civil rights,’ Berk said in a statement. 

‘This attack is not only an act of antisemitism, it is an assault on that legacy, testing whether the lessons of that era still hold.’

‘That it has been attacked again, amid a surge of antisemitic incidents across the US, is a stark reminder: antisemitic violence is escalating, and it demands total condemnation and swift action from everyone,’ Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of The Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement.

‘This news puts a face and name to this tragedy, but does not change our resolve to proudly – even defiantly – continue Jewish life in Jackson in the face of hatred,’ the Beth Israel Congregation wrote in a statement. 

The congregation is assessing damage but will continue its regular worship programs and services for Shabbat, the weekly Jewish Sabbath, likely at one of the local churches that reached out, said Michele Schipper, CEO of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life and a past president of the congregation.

‘We are a resilient people,’ said Beth Israel Congregation President Zach Shemper. ‘With support from our community, we will rebuild.’

One Torah that survived the Holocaust was behind glass and was not damaged in the fire, Schipper said. 

Five Torahs – the sacred scrolls with the text of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible – inside the sanctuary are being assessed for smoke damage. Two Torahs inside the library, where the most severe damage was done, were destroyed, according to a synagogue representative.

The floors, walls and ceiling of the sanctuary were covered in soot, and the synagogue will have to replace upholstery and carpeting.

The fire ripped through the Beth IsraelCongregation in Jackson shortly after Pittman was done with dousing the interior just after 3am on Saturday 

Jackson Mayor John Horhn described the suspected arson as an act of ‘religious hatred’

Beth Israel Congregation, pictured before the fire, is the only synagogue in the city, and is the largest of the 14 synagogues in Mississippi

The midcentury modern building not only housed the congregation but also the Jewish Federation, a nonprofit provider of social services and philanthropy that is the hub of Jewish society in most US cities. The synagogue is pictured in 2018

With just several hundred people in the community, it has never been particularly easy being Jewish in Mississippi’s capital city, but members of Beth Israel have taken special pride in keeping their traditions alive in the heart of the Deep South.

Nearly every aspect of Jewish life in Jackson could be found under Beth Israel’s roof.

The midcentury modern building not only housed the congregation but also the Jewish Federation, a nonprofit provider of social services and philanthropy that is the hub of Jewish society in most US cities. 

The building also is home to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which provides resources to Jewish communities in 13 southern states. A Holocaust memorial was outdoors behind the synagogue building.

Because Jewish children throughout the South have attended summer camp for decades in Utica, Mississippi, about 30 miles southwest of Jackson, many retain a fond connection to the state and its Jewish community.

‘Jackson is the capital city, and that synagogue is the capital synagogue in Mississippi,’ said Rabbi Gary Zola, a historian of American Jewry who taught at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. 

‘I would call it the flagship, though when we talk about places like New York and Los Angeles, it probably seems like Hicksville.’

Beth Israel as a congregation was founded in 1860 and acquired its first property, where it built Mississippi’s first synagogue, after the Civil War. 

In 1967, the synagogue moved to its current location.