Ground Zero Rabbi’s Toxic Shirt Swiped by ‘World’s Stupidest Criminal’

Image by Facebook

By JTA December 23, 2015

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.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO