Ground Zero Rabbi’s Toxic Shirt Swiped by ‘World’s Stupidest Criminal’
Image by Facebook
The toxin-laden shirt worn by a rabbi who was volunteering at Ground Zero following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center was stolen in Miami.
The shirt, which Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun had saved and stored in a metal box, was stolen from the rabbi’s car last week, the New York Daily News reported.
Packed in a postal service box, the shirt was sitting in Kaploun’s parked car outside his house because he was planning to mail it to a Daily News columnist who wanted to use it to urge Congress to renew the Zadroga Act. The act, which guarantees medical care and compensation for first responders in the terror attack, was renewed on Dec. 18.
“Some thief thought they were going to get a Christmas present, but they are actually putting themselves in danger,” Kaploun, 47, told The Daily News.
The rabbi lived in New York in 2001, but has since relocated to Florida.
The shirt is contaminated with asbestos, lead, zinc and other toxins, Kaploun said.
Kaploun called the thief the “world’s stupidest criminal for putting his life in danger.”
According to JPUpdates, Kaploun volunteered at Ground Zero under the auspices of the Jewish rescue group Hatzolah.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
-
Fast Forward For the first time since Henry VIII created the role, a Jew will helm Hebrew studies at Cambridge
-
Fast Forward Argentine Supreme Court discovers over 80 boxes of forgotten Nazi documents
-
Fast Forward What’s next for suspended student who posted ‘F— the Jews’ video? An alt-right media tour
-
Fast Forward ‘New Jersey tough’: Gov. Phil Murphy on released Hamas hostage Edan Alexander, a Tenafly native
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Opinion It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump
- 3
Culture Is Pope Leo Jewish? Ask his distant cousins — like me
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward For the first time since Henry VIII created the role, a Jew will helm Hebrew studies at Cambridge
-
Fast Forward Argentine Supreme Court discovers over 80 boxes of forgotten Nazi documents
-
News In Edan Alexander’s hometown in New Jersey, months of fear and anguish give way to joy and relief
-
Fast Forward What’s next for suspended student who posted ‘F— the Jews’ video? An alt-right media tour
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.