The emotion was palpable in the pews Friday night at Beth Israel Congregation’s first Shabbat service since its synagogue was targeted by an arsonist last week.
Mississippi
Mississippi synagogue holds first Shabbat since arson | The Jerusalem Post
“We will not only survive, we will thrive,” the congregation’s student rabbi and spiritual leader, Benjamin Russell, told his community. He was draped in the only surviving tallit from the synagogue’s library, where the arsonist lit the fire.
“A few days ago, someone tried to wound us, someone tried to destroy what we love, someone tried to tell us that we do not belong in our own city, that being visibly Jewish is dangerous, that being proudly Jewish is a risk, that being a synagogue is an invitation for hatred,” Russell said. “What they failed to understand is that we are not made of wood and paper and shelves. We are made of Torah, memory, community, stubborn love, and 3000 years of defiance.”
Roughly 170 Beth Israel congregants filled Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson on Friday night, after the church lent its space to the displaced community.
Founded in 1860, Beth Israel has always been the only synagogue in Mississippi’s capital. The arson attack last week, which burnt out the synagogue’s library and destroyed two of its Torahs, was not the first time that Beth Israel’s congregants were faced with the task of rebuilding. In 1967, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the synagogue, and, months later, also targeted the home of Rabbi Perry Nussbaum after he advocated for civil rights and desegregation.
Reflecting on the congregation’s 160-year-old roots in Jackson, Russell said, “We have prayed through wars, depressions, pandemics, demographic shifts, and antisemitism in every decade, and every single time we did more than survive, we adapted, we rebuilt, we showed up, and that is exactly what we are doing and will continue to do now.”
Throughout the service, little mention was made of the suspect who confessed to the arson, Stephen Spencer Pittman, a 19-year-old resident of a suburb of Jackson who told the FBI that he had targeted Beth Israel because it was a “synagogue of Satan.”
Standing outside of the charred entrance to the synagogue earlier in the day Friday, Abram Orlansky, a lifelong Jackson resident and past president of Beth Israel Congregation, said that most of the conversations within the congregation had not revolved around Pittman.
“To the extent we’re talking about him, we’re just saying what he wanted to do was interrupt or destroy Jewish life in Jackson, and all he’s going to succeed at is making it more vibrant,” said Orlansky. “All he’s done is reaffirm the connection between this Jewish community and this city.”
Multiple Churches offered to host congregation for Shabbat
On Thursday, a host of Christian faith leaders and Jackson city officials said a prayer for the congregation during a citywide prayer service. Zach Shemper, the president of Beth Israel Congregation, said more than 10 churches had offered to host the synagogue for Shabbat.
“We’ve been persecuted for thousands of years, and just like we survived that, we will survive this,” said Shemper outside of the synagogue. “All this atrocity did was relocate where we’re having services.”
Support from other Jewish congregations across the South was also visible throughout the services.
Temple B’Nai Israel, a Reform synagogue in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, lent the community a Torah as well as 50 prayer books. A synagogue in Memphis, Tennessee, sent another 100 prayer books.
The oneg after services was provided by Touro Synagogue in New Orleans, Louisiana, and included a pecan praline challah king cake, a Jewish twist on the traditional Mardi Gras dessert.
The challah king cake loomed large over the evening. When Shemper announced the pastry at the end of the service, several children in the audience cheered, and audience members applauded.
On Friday morning, Orlansky showed a photo of the cake on his phone and said, “That’s Jewish southern culture,” adding that there is a store in New Orleans called “Kosher Cajun.”
In Jackson, a city with no explicitly Jewish establishments or cultural centers, Beth Israel has acted as a central hub of Jewish communal life. (The city’s only Jewish restaurant, Olde-Tyme Deli, closed in 2000 after serving the Jewish community for 39 years.)
“We are the minority in the area, and so we don’t have all of the Jewish delis and JCC down the road and all of those things,” Russell said. “Our synagogue is that place for us to meet.”
About a 45-minute drive from the synagogue is Jacobs Camp, a Jewish summer camp run by the Union of Reform Judaism.
Sarah Thomas, the synagogue’s first vice president, read an address by Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the URJ’s president, aloud during the service.
“Beth Israel family, like our ancestors, who endured the plague of hate and still found light, we think of all of you and know that there’s much light in your midst,” Jacobs said in the comments. “We pray that you continue to bask in the light of community and the light of solidarity and the light of hope for better days ahead.”
In the absence of Jewish infrastructure in Jackson, Russell said the congregants “make every space that we are in Jewish by our own presence there.”
According to Russell, some of the local spots that have become surrogate Jewish spaces include Myrtle Farms, a brewery, and Thai Tasty, a restaurant, a short walk from Beth Israel.
Russell said that Thai Tasty had become so popular with his congregants that he now announces during services when its owners are on their annual month-long trip to Thailand.
“Something that we see across the South’s Jewish communities is that there is a level of pride, because you may be the only Jewish person in your high school,” said Russell. “I think there’s just a little bit of charm in that resilience or that stubbornness that we have that says we’re going to be here, we’re going to always be here.”
In high school, Orlansky recalled, there were two other Jewish students in his grade. Today, he said his two children are the “only Jewish kids in their class, or either class on either side of them.” That makes Beth Israel a haven, he said.
Representing Jewish community both an ‘honor’ and a ‘challenge’
“A shared experience I have with my kids is being able to come to this building and not be the sort of constant representative of the Jewish people to everyone you know,” said Orlansky.
Orlansky said that the responsibility of representing the Jewish community was both an “honor” and a “challenge.”
“It is an honor to live in a place like this where people ask you about your religion, and people kind of look to you for answers about Judaism, but it can be a challenge, and so having a home where everyone around you is also Jewish is a respite,” he said.
Thomas, who is also a lifelong Beth Israel congregant, said growing up, she was also the only Jewish student in her grade, but when she came to Beth Israel Congregation on Wednesdays and Sundays, she found a “safe space.”
“We talked about things that were happening outside of here and how we were going to respond with our Jewishness to a world, or a community, that was just different, and we knew that here was our safe space,” said Thomas.
Thomas said the Beth Israel building was an “epicenter of life” for the community’s 140 families.
“What I want people to know about the southern Jewish communities, especially the smaller ones, or the only ones within a 90-mile radius, is everything related to Jewish life happens here,” said Thomas.
But while the building had served as a focal point of the community, Thomas added that “the building is not what makes up our community.”
“The building is not what makes up our community; our community is made up of the people,” said Thomas. “We’re going to be in other places, and we’ll make that our home, but really together, we the people are going to be home to one another.”
Shari Rabin, an associate professor of Jewish studies and religion at Oberlin College and the author of the 2025 book “The Jewish South: An American History,” told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the sentiment was common in small Jewish communities in the region.
“Synagogues are such important institutions in these smaller Southern communities,” said Rabin. “This is the center of Jewish life, and it’s really important for Jewish communities there to have a public address to show we’re here, we’re part of the landscape, other Jews can find us here.”
But Rabin said that public visibility also has a potential dark side.
“It can also make these institutions a target for those who are poisoned by various ideologies and decide that they want to make Jews a target,” said Rabin.
Synagogue leaders initially suspected accidental fire
Following the attack last Saturday, most of the synagogue’s leaders said they had initially assumed the fire had been caused by an electrical malfunction or another accident.
While antisemitism has risen across the country, in many Southern states, including Mississippi, the trend has felt less pervasive. From 2022 to 2024, the number of antisemitic incidents in the state rose from 7 to 20, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual antisemitism audit.
“To know that someone could do this in your own community is frightening, but it’s also eye-opening,” said Russell. “We always say, not me, not me, not me, not us, not our community, and I think what I have learned, and my message for everyone, is that you never know.”
The day after the arson attack, Rachel Myers, the second vice president and co-director of the religious school at Beth Israel, hosted the synagogue’s Sunday school at the Mississippi Children’s Museum, where she works as the director of exhibits.
There, Myers showed the class of 14 children a slideshow of the damage inside the synagogue and helped them brainstorm ways to rebuild it. She said one child imagined a cotton candy machine while another said, Let’s do a mural of all the rabbis on the wall.”
“I just was trying to focus on: this thing happened to us, all of these grown-ups around you are the ones that work so hard to make Jewish life happen, and we’re going to continue to make Jewish life happen,” said Myers.
For the teens in the synagogue, Myers said the main question was “why.”
While Myers said she hadn’t yet planned her lesson for the teens, she said she would lead with explaining that “when people are bad and angry, they look for somebody to blame, and in this case, this young person decided to blame Jewish people.”
After being a part of the congregation for almost 20 years, Myers said she had never before experienced antisemitism in Jackson.
“I think I know that there’s a rise of antisemitism, and I think I know that there’s a rise of mis- and disinformation on the internet,” said Myers. “I know there’s crazies on the internet, I don’t read the comments, but the fact that someone, that crazy, left the internet and came and did a physical act of harm to us — it is surprising.”
Russell said that he was concerned for the teens of Jackson.
“I think the biggest thing is we have to watch our kids and our teens, the fact that they’re being radicalized so quickly online by social media and other things on the internet,” said Russell, later adding, “Of course, we have to monitor, but the real antidote is just to stop breathe and love each other, even when we disagree.”
‘I am Jewish and I belong here’
As the congregation mingled over the challah king cake following the service, Joshua Wiener, a Beth Israel Congregation member since 1981, said he believed that Russell and Shemper had represented the community well.
“As [Russell] said, antisemitism has been around since even before Pharaoh, but it hasn’t touched us here, and so I think there’s just shock at what happened, maybe a little relief that it wasn’t worse, and maybe some relief that it was not an organized effort,” Wiener said.
He described Jackson’s Jewish population as a “drop in the bucket,” but said they had always had an “outsize presence and influence, and a lot of that is just because of how welcomed we have been in the community.”
At the end of his sermon, Russell offered an instruction to the worshippers, several of whom were visibly emotional.
“This is the time to say, out loud, I am Jewish, I am proud, this is my community, and I belong here,” he said.
“I want to say something clearly. Beth Israel is still here, Jewish life in Jackson is still here, and we are not going anywhere, because the opposite of fear is not bravery, it is presence,” Russell continued. “Every time we gather, every time we pray, every time we teach a child to read aleph bet, every time we put on a tallis, every time we celebrate a bat mitzvah or mourn with the family, we are safe. We belong, we matter, we will outlive every Pharaoh history produces.”
Mississippi
Mississippi Lottery Mississippi Match 5, Cash 3 results for June 2, 2026
Odds of winning the Powerball and Mega Millions are NOT in your favor
Odds of hitting the jackpot in Mega Millions or Powerball are around 1-in-292 million. Here are things that you’re more likely to land than big bucks.
The Mississippi Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 2, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Mississippi Match 5 numbers from June 2 drawing
05-14-16-33-35
Check Mississippi Match 5 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Cash 3 numbers from June 2 drawing
Midday: 3-3-8, FB: 5
Evening: 6-9-5, FB: 7
Check Cash 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Cash 4 numbers from June 2 drawing
Midday: 6-0-4-9, FB: 5
Evening: 2-8-1-0, FB: 7
Check Cash 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Cash Pop numbers from June 2 drawing
Midday: 08
Evening: 03
Check Cash Pop payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Story continues below gallery.
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize
Winnings of $599 or less can be claimed at any authorized Mississippi Lottery retailer.
Prizes between $600 and $99,999, may be claimed at the Mississippi Lottery Headquarters or by mail. Mississippi Lottery Winner Claim form, proper identification (ID) and the original ticket must be provided for all claims of $600 or more. If mailing, send required documentation to:
Mississippi Lottery Corporation
P.O. Box 321462
Flowood, MS
39232
If your prize is $100,000 or more, the claim must be made in person at the Mississippi Lottery headquarters. Please bring identification, such as a government-issued photo ID and a Social Security card to verify your identity. Winners of large prizes may also have the option of setting up electronic funds transfer (EFT) for direct deposits into a bank account.
Mississippi Lottery Headquarters
1080 River Oaks Drive, Bldg. B-100
Flowood, MS
39232
Mississippi Lottery prizes must be claimed within 180 days of the drawing date. For detailed instructions and necessary forms, please visit the Mississippi Lottery claim page.
When are the Mississippi Lottery drawings held?
- Cash 3: Daily at 2:30 p.m. (Midday) and 9:30 p.m. (Evening).
- Cash 4: Daily at 2:30 p.m. (Midday) and 9:30 p.m. (Evening).
- Match 5: Daily at 9:30 p.m. CT.
- Cash Pop: Daily at 2:30 p.m. (Midday) and 9:30 p.m. (Evening).
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Mississippi editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Mississippi
Jackson mayor claims victory after water authority ruling. What he said
Mississippi governor signs Jackson MS water authority bill into law
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed the bill into law on April 8, 2026.
Jackson Mayor John Horhn claimed victory in the city’s legal fight against Mississippi’s new Metro Jackson Water Authority, arguing a federal judge’s latest ruling validates Jackson’s concerns about state lawmakers trying to influence the future of the city’s water system.
During a press conference at City Hall Tuesday, June 2, Horhn pointed to U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate’s decision to block the authority from naming a president, entering lease agreements or taking other substantive actions while Jackson’s water and sewer systems remain under federal oversight.
“What we’re thankful of is that the judge seems to agree with us,” Horhn said. “House Bill 1677 appeared to try to subvert the authority of the federal court.”
The comments come one day after Wingate issued a split ruling on the controversial law. While the judge declined to block House Bill 1677 outright, he also barred the Metro Jackson Water Authority from taking operational action beyond seating board members while the federal court continues overseeing Jackson’s water and sewer systems.
But Wingate’s ruling did not strike down House Bill 1677. It was more of a split ruling.
The judge agreed with arguments made by the state, Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and JXN Water that the law itself does not automatically transfer control of Jackson’s water and sewer systems because any future takeover remains subject to federal court approval.
That leaves open a question: If the law remains on the books, could the Metro Jackson Water Authority simply remain in place until federal oversight ends and then assume control of the systems?
Horhn was asked that question directly Tuesday.
In response, Horhn focused on portions of the ruling that prevent the authority from naming a president who would serve as a deputy to JXN Water leader and Interim Third-Party Manager Ted Henifin. Horhn also pointed to Wingate blocking movement on any lease agreements until the court decides how the eventual transition away from federal oversight should occur.
“Two major points of the judge’s ruling are that he enjoined the state and the authority if it does start taking action from being able to name a president who would become the second in command of JXN Water,” Horhn said. “The other thing is that he enjoined any action on a lease being entered into until such time as he has had a chance to deliberate and decide what the future path ought to be.”
Horhn’s answer suggested he believes the ruling leaves room for other options besides simply allowing House Bill 1677 to take effect once federal oversight ends.
“What the judge has said to us for a number of months is that he wants to see a transition plan,” Horhn said.
The mayor said city officials have already begun discussions with JXN Water about what that transition plan could look like.
“We have begun discussions with JXN Water to have meaningful conversations with them about putting such a transition plan forward,” Horhn said. “At this point, the actions of the city are focused on working with Jackson Water to try to come up with a transition plan that might be approved by the judge.”
Under existing court orders, JXN Water is expected to develop a formal transition plan that must ultimately be approved by Wingate.
When asked whether the city could pursue its own water authority rather than the state-created Metro Jackson Water Authority, Horhn pointed to existing Mississippi law allowing municipalities to create utility districts.
“For a number of years, there has been state statutory authority for municipalities to establish municipal utility districts,” Horhn said. “We have made that presentation before the judge, and as I understand it, he’s taking it under advisory.”
Horhn did not elaborate on whether the city is actively pursuing that option, but the comments suggest Jackson may continue advocating for alternatives to House Bill 1677 as discussions about a post-receivership transition continue.
Additionally, Horhn reiterated his long-standing position that Jackson should maintain majority control over any future governing body overseeing the city’s water and wastewater systems.
“We don’t mind participation and involvement by the state of Mississippi,” Horhn said. “But any future governance of the City of Jackson’s water and wastewater system must have the City of Jackson having the majority of control.”
Horhn said Jackson’s position has never been that the state should be excluded entirely.
“What I have said is that we don’t mind participation and involvement by the state of Mississippi,” Horhn said. “But any future governance of the City of Jackson’s water and wastewater system must have the City of Jackson having the majority of control on any future boards or authorities that would be created.”
Horhn said Jackson opposed House Bill 1677 because it would have allowed state and suburban appointees to outnumber city representatives on the authority’s governing board.
“We don’t mind if you want to have some involvement, but not control,” Horhn said.
The mayor also argued the legislation ignored concerns repeatedly raised by Jackson officials during the legislative process.
“House Bill 1677 was a classic example of the state not listening to the local interests of the City of Jackson,” Horhn said.
Overall, Wingate’s 22-page order on Monday, June 1, was something of a split decision. Jackson persuaded Wingate to freeze many of the authority’s powers, but the state successfully defended the law itself from being blocked outright. The larger question of who will ultimately control Jackson’s water system remains unresolved. For now, Wingate remains in the driver’s seat.
“The parties should all accept that this state statute cannot force this court’s hand, nor dictate the calendar of this litigation,” Wingate wrote.
Charlie Drape, the Jackson beat reporter, has covered the Jackson water crisis from its collapse in 2022 through the system’s ongoing recovery, including independent testing and other accountability reporting. You can contact him at cdrape@gannett.com.
Mississippi
How SCOTUS Callais Ruling Erased a Mississippi Voting Rights Victory
In 2022, Dyamone White, then in her late 20s, filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that Black voters like her didn’t have a fair chance to elect justices to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Three years later, she won a significant victory. A federal judge ruled that Mississippi Supreme Court election districts violated the Voting Rights Act and that Black candidates who wanted to run for the state’s highest court were unlikely to succeed. U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock instructed lawmakers to draw a new map to give Black voters more power, with court-ordered special elections to follow, likely this fall.
“WE WON,” White wrote in a social media post that day in August 2025. “This isn’t just a personal victory — it’s a win for every Mississippian who has waited too long for fair representation. I became a plaintiff because I refused to accept that our state’s highest court could exclude the very people it serves. Today, that changes.”
But that change still hasn’t happened — and a recent seismic ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court means it may never happen.
In late April, the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Louisiana v. Callais that dramatically weakened the Voting Rights Act, making it much harder for racial minorities to win voting discrimination lawsuits.
The decision further intensified a mid-decade redistricting war that’s been spreading across the country ahead of the congressional elections in the fall. But the decision affects politics beyond the federal level. The now-upended court battle about Mississippi’s judicial elections will serve as an early test of whether voting rights plaintiffs can still mount a convincing case in some circumstances.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court vacated Aycock’s ruling from last year after the plaintiffs and defendants agreed that the Callais decision had dramatically changed the legal landscape.
That removed the state’s obligation to draw a new court map. It also eliminated the possibility that the state would hold special elections for its Supreme Court seats this fall, ending Black voters’ hope that 2026 may yield fairer representation at the top of the state’s judiciary. The case will now head back to Aycock’s court for new arguments under the higher standard created by the Callais decision.
The plaintiffs still see a path forward to win new maps. Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center argue on behalf of White and her fellow plaintiffs that they can still prevail under that new standard.
Looking to the court battles ahead, White is also looking back. She is from the tiny town of Edwards, a rural community near the state’s capital city region, and she recites its history of Black resistance to oppression, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond.
“It’s an area that is resilient,” White said. “The people I grew up around, they were all fighters.”
Dyamone White with Reuben Anderson, the first Black justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court, in 2024.
The Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965, was a key tool in dismantling the Jim Crow regime of White supremacy that blocked Black residents from ballot box access in Mississippi and across the South.
Among other provisions, the law prohibited states from diluting the voting power of racial minorities and required that those voters have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choosing.
So, with Callais decided, what’s changed?
When plaintiffs filed suit over the Mississippi Supreme Court voting districts in 2022, they had to show a violation of the law only by pointing to discriminatory effects of the voting districts in use, regardless of what the original architects of those districts may have intended.
Those effects? Black people make up about 38% of Mississippi’s population, but the state has just one Black justice currently sitting on its nine-member Supreme Court. Only four Black justices have ever been on the court, all serving since 1985 and never more than one at a time. All four first reached the court through a gubernatorial appointment to fill a vacancy.
That has meant very little Black representation on a body that interprets state laws and the state constitution, hears appeals in criminal and civil cases and has some control over the operations of lower courts.
With no need to delve into the intention of the legislators who created the current districts in the late 1980s, Aycock, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Mississippi Supreme Court districts as drawn have the effect of diluting Black voting power, violating the Voting Rights Act.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in the Callais case, however, sets a higher standard. A Voting Rights Act violation may now be found “only when circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.”
Legal experts have said that proving intentional discrimination is challenging — made even more difficult by the Alito opinion’s endorsement of partisan gerrymandering as a legitimate purpose of redistricting. The conservative justice wrote that states can now defend themselves against race dilution claims by arguing that Black districts are being eliminated not because of racist motivations but partisan ones since Black voters have typically supported Democratic candidates.
States like Louisiana and Tennessee have moved to quickly eliminate Black-majority Congressional districts. They will likely defend their new maps as partisan gerrymanders, not racially motivated ones.
“It’s going to be just lightning-strike rare for a Voting Rights Act claim to work where partisanship is permitted,” said Justin Levitt, a former Department of Justice official and election law expert who teaches at Loyola Marymount University Law School.
However, Mississippi Supreme Court elections are nonpartisan, and that may make a meaningful difference in the current litigation, said Amir Badat, a civil rights lawyer who has argued a number of voting rights claims in the state.
Badat said that even under Callais, lawmakers may not be able to hide behind partisan intent to shield themselves from judicial scrutiny.
“In this kind of narrow circumstance, you still have viable Section 2 claims,” said Badat, referencing the section of the Voting Rights Act that bans discriminatory election practices.
Levitt agrees that voting rights cases in nonpartisan elections may still be possible to win under Callais, though he added that the overall impact of the decision likely makes even those cases quite difficult.
While the legal standard may have changed, White, the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, says one thing has not: The reality faced by Black voters who want to see a fair state Supreme Court map.
“We laid out the facts of representation in the state. You can’t deny that, “ White said. “We can go back to court again, and the facts remain the same. Representation is not equal.”
This article was produced in collaboration with Bolts, a nonprofit publication that covers criminal justice and voting rights in local governments; sign up for their newsletter.
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