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FBI says same guy tried torching rabbis' homes in Arlington, Needham; offers reward for his capture

FBI Boston: Arsons at Chabad Centers (Needham)

The FBI today announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever tried - and failed - three times to set Chabad centers in Arlington and Needham on fire.

That's in addition to reward money previously put up by Jewish and Islamic groups.

The FBI reports it's looking for a man, about 5'11" and wearing "a dark North Face jacket with the hood pulled over his head and khaki pants."

In Arlington, the man set fire to a rabbi's home, which doubled as the local center for his Chabad congregation, twice in April. The second fire happened about 70 minutes before a similar fire at a Chabad rabbi's home in Needham.

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Comments

This clown was probably down at Copley this weekend, hiding behind a balaclava.

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Nazis don't tend to discriminate when it comes to Jews, they hate us all. It's kind of odd somebody would drive from one Lubavitcher rabbi's house to another one nowhere nearby for some arson.

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Better get Meyer Landsman on the case.

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Chabad houses do stand out.

Certainly, there was forethought for this. It's an odd route that takes one to Arlington and Needham, when there are targets closer to each (and to be perfectly clear, I find referring to chabad houses as targets to be very, very unsettling.) Perhaps that will be the clue authorities will use to get this scumbag.

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I've wondered since these incidents occurred whether it's someone with a grudge against Chabad, not just Jews in general.

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A little refined for garden variety antisemitism but who knows?

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Given the distance between targets, it doesn't seem like "garden variety". Might be someone who had a bad experience with Chabadniks or has a problem with the ultra-Orthodox.

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Is there a Satmar community in Boston? They really don't like the Lubavichers.

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The Chabadniks are not necessarily choir boys. But let's Occam's Razor this for a second. Which is the likelier explanation:

* Someone has an issue with Chabad and is showing it by going around attempting to burn down Chabadniks' houses.

* Some anti-Semite finds the most likely easy targets, the houses with menorahs out front, which are likely not under surveillance in the manner that synagogues (almost certainly all) are, and is too dense to figure out who the rabbis are at a synagogue and target their houses.

In either case, it's scary stuff, but the latter is likelier, and far scarier. Hopefully we can find this imbecile and his (yeah, his) friends, lock them up, and throw away the key.

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looking for a chin, and I hope he's caught

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