Old Orchard Beach, ME - Police Arrest Suspect of Bomb Threats To Shul.

[Yisrael]

Old Orchard Beach, ME- The Weinstein brothers, Eber and Neil, are working hard to keep the doors open and to make sure that Old Orchard Beach doesn’t lose its most visible contact with its Jewish heritage.

That job became a little harder recently when the shul became the target of a bomb threat. Two weeks ago Ami Arbassio, a resident of Sweetser in Saco, called the shul and left numerous hateful messages on the answering machine.

Weinstein said Arbassio said things like “you killed our messiah” and “I bet you hate me because I’m Italian.” Police were able to locate and arrest Arbassio because she left her name and address on one of the messages.

Although there are very few orthodox Jewish families in town now, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Old Orchard Beach would become about 90 percent Jewish in the summer. There were three kosher hotels then, the first and most famous of which was the Lafayette.

Eber Weinstein said many orthodox Jews stopped coming to Old Orchard Beach when the Lafayette closed 42 years ago because after the kosher hotel closed its dining room there was nowhere they could eat in town.

Beth Israel was built some time between 1909 and 1912, when Joseph Goodkowsky first built the Lafayette hotel and a shul for his mostly orthodox guests. The synagogue just about doubled in size in 1912. [currant]