Orthodox Jews Unwittingly Help Bomb Suspect … and FBI

Cleveland’s close-knit Orthodox Jewish community and its tradition of assisting any Jew in need helped the FBI arrest an individual April 11 who is suspected of bombing the Chabad House of Santa Monica, Calif.

Ultimately, when suspicions and the realization that the person studying at the Torah LIFE Kollel-Agudath Israel on South Taylor Road resembled a photo of the wanted man circulating on the Internet, a rabbi called police. The suspect was apprehended at about 7 p.m.

Ron Hirsch, 60, described by authorities as a transient wanted in connection with the April 7 explosion, davened (prayed) at Shomer Shabbos shul on South Taylor Road the evening of April 10. A stranger to the shul, he asked for food and a place to stay, which is not unusual as Jews in need regularly come through town seeking assistance, said Rabbi Moshe Reuven Barkin, who maintains a Jewish shelter home.

“Our mission is to put up people, to take care of them,” he said. People “come through, most of them are in unfortunate circumstances. They can’t make ends meet.”

But Hirsch did not have the proper certification verifying that he was in legitimate need of charity, said Paul Henfield, the intake worker at the shelter. Henfield then quizzed the man, asking his name and any credentials. Hirsch (who gave another name) told Henfield he arrived in town Friday and spent Shabbat at the Greyhound bus station. Red flags went up, Henfield said.
So, the Orthodox shelter, an apartment that Barkin and his wife rent on Superior Park Drive in Cleveland Heights referred to as hachnosis orchim (welcoming guests), refused to let Hirsch stay, said Henfield, a social worker for the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. He doesn’t think Hirsch presented an imminent danger, but he said his caution was well founded.

“Thank goodness I had the sense of mind to rely on safeguards put in place,” he said. “I shudder to think (what could have happened) with two other people in the apartment (shelter). To say we dodged a bullet is the understatement of the year.”

Instead, Barkin met Hirsch, who had been given money to buy food, in front of Unger’s Kosher Market on South Taylor Road. When Hirsch couldn’t produce a driver’s license or provide his Social Security number, Barkin decided “there was something funny about this guy.”

Nevertheless, Barkin felt an obligation to make sure a Jewish person didn’t sleep in the street. So the rabbi drove him to a motel on Noble Road in East Cleveland and paid for a night’s lodging.

Hirsch told Barkin he was coming from Portland, Ore., and going on to New York. Too tired to continue his trip, he decided to stop in Cleveland. Police have evidence showing Hirsch took a Greyhound bus from California to Denver, where he is visible on surveillance video at a ticket counter and then boarding another bus.

An Anti-Defamation League alert distributed through the Secure Community Network, a national initiative focused on security in Jewish organizations, went out across the country, including to the Cleveland Jewish News. The April 11 alert advised that the suspect had left southern California and was headed toward the East Coast.

There the trail went cold until another Cleveland rabbi at the shul, who insisted on anonymity out of concern for his family’s security, recognized Hirsch as the suspect and called authorities.

Neither Barkin nor Henfield, who both talked with the suspect, said they knew why Hirsch stopped in Cleveland, but presumed he took the bus here. Hirsch hung around the South Taylor Road neighborhood on Monday, soliciting homeowners on Severn Road and spending time at the Torah LIFE Kollel, a study center for adults, said Akiva Feinstein of localjewishnews.com.

That night, Barkin got simultaneous calls from concerned individuals at the two shuls. Hirsch was at Torah LIFE, one said, and the other person, also a rabbi, said he recognized the suspect from his visit at Shomer Shabbos the night before and had just called the FBI.

“I think this is the fellow the FBI is looking for,” the anonymous rabbi told Barkin, who relayed the information to the CJN. The unnamed rabbi also declined to speak directly to the CJN. “I saw a photo on one of the websites,” he told Barkin. “I have a hunch this is the same fellow.”

Barkin told the rabbi that Cleveland Heights police could find Hirsch at the kollel, which is where they picked him up about 7:30 p.m. Barkin, who lives nearby, saw Hirsch sitting in the police cruiser. Later that night, Barkin said the FBI came by Shomer Shabbos and the kollel with the canine unit, sniffing for bombs.

The explosion outside the Chabad house in Santa Monica shattered windows and punched a hole in the shul. Pieces of concrete and a pipe crashed into the roof of a nearby house, where a child was sleeping almost beneath where the debris landed, the Associated Press reported.

In a statement, the FBI said Hirsch was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution for damaging or destroying any building or other real or personal property and was currently in federal custody in Cleveland. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, but Hirsch is currently in federal custody in Cleveland. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Cleveland on April 13.

A forensic report indicates that the explosive device appeared to be deliberately constructed, the FBI said. Items found in and around the crime scene were linked to Hirsch. There is no known motive at this time.

Despite his brush with someone who the FBI described as dangerous, Barkin said at the time he was not fearful. Hirsch “didn’t seem threatening. I knew he wasn’t telling me the truth. But I didn’t realize he was a criminal.”