SYNAGOGUE AND
SACRED TORAH WERE SAVED

By TOM KANE

MONGAUP VALLEY -- A fire in a large wooden bungalow building containing several apartments at the Farside Bungalow Colony on Route 17B drew eight fire companies and three ambulance corps last Thursday.

The building was destroyed but a near-by synagogue and a copy of the Torah, a scripture of the first five books of the Bible, were saved.

"The fire was started by children playing with matches," said Firefighter Carl Houman of the Monticello Fire Company. "If this had happened at night, it would have been disastrous."

The blaze, discovered at 8:30 a.m., was extinguished in two hours. No one was injured.

The bungalow colony houses about 100 Hasidic men, women and children in 30 small buildings spread through the grounds of the Farside property. During the course of the fire, women and their children remained well out of the fire's range while the men held prayer sessions under two sheds.

"I saw the flames leaping up over the trees," said Israel Hirshberg, a visitor at the Wolin's Bungalow Colony, a quarter mile away. The time was around 8:45 a.m., he said.

Fire companies that responded were: Monticello, Smallwood, Hurleyville, Liberty, White Lake, Swan Lake, Fallsburg and Forestburgh.

Emergency vehicles from the Monticello Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Mobile Medic and the Hatzolah Volunteers attended.