Kristallnacht, sort of

Elizabeth Harris has an article in The New York Times about the suspicious burning of a synagogue in Manhattan:

A four-alarm fire broke out at an Upper East Side synagogue that was being renovated, spitting flames through stained-glass windows, destroying the roof and heavily damaging the upper floors, the FDNY said. No one was badly injured in the blaze, which obscured the sky over much of the neighborhood with smoke. Four firefighters received minor injuries battling the blaze, which fire officials said apparently began on the roof. The cause was not known.
Hundreds of people crowded around Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, a modern Orthodox synagogue on 85th Street near Lexington Avenue, after the fire began about 8:30 p.m.
About 170 firefighters fought the blaze, which took about an hour to bring under control. Onlookers gaped and snapped pictures with cellphone cameras as flames shot up from the roof. “It went up like that,” said Stephen L. Ruzow, chairman of the FDNY Foundation and a member of the synagogue, who saw the flames engulf the roof. “Flames were forty feet in the air, and there were large clouds of thick black smoke.”
The synagogue, which is over one hundred years old, was being renovated and no one was inside, according to Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, and the sacred Torah scrolls had been removed when construction began. The renovation was to have been completed in September. “We’re lucky,” Rabbi Lookstein said, “because every Torah scroll is as special as a human life.”
After the fire, only a few of the roof beams remained. Some of the long stained-glass windows at the front of the building were blackened and broken. Members of the congregation flocked to the scene from across the city when they learned their synagogue was aflame. Asher Levitsky, 67, a lawyer whose children attended Ramaz, a nearby school affiliated with the synagogue, said he was on his way to a SummerStage musical performance in Central Park when his wife’s cousin called him. He said he immediately turned around and headed for Kehilath Jeshurun. “It’s tragic,” Mr. Levitsky said. “It’s a terrible loss.”

Rico says that, for the historically-impaired, Kristallnacht was an ugly Nazi moment...