At Yeshiva U., Man Breaks Into Dorm and Sets Fires as Students Sleep

He walks away, then returns and kicks the door several more times until he is able to push through the pane and crawl into the lobby on his hands and knees. He stands up, and picks up and puts back the receiver of a phone on a desk. After that, he disappears down a hall.

What the man did after he exited the range of the camera, on the first floor of a Yeshiva University dormitory on East 29th Street in Manhattan, was use matches meant for lighting a Hanukkah menorah to set three small fires in the building where students were sleeping, fire officials said.

No one was hurt by the fires, which were quickly extinguished, and a suspect, Peter Weyand, was arrested on charges that included arson, burglary with criminal intent and aggravated harassment, fire officials said.

“Attacking any religious institution is a serious crime, and we have zero tolerance for acts of arson in this city,” Daniel Nigro, the fire commissioner, said.

Weyand had not been arraigned by Friday night, according to a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. It was unclear whether he had a lawyer.

On Friday night, yellow caution tape covered two sets of doors at the front of the building. One glass panel had been covered with paper. Small groups of bundled-up students hurried inside away from the cold.

Coming less than two weeks after the deadly attack on a kosher market in Jersey City, New Jersey, the attack at Yeshiva — perhaps the most significant Modern Orthodox Jewish institution of higher education in the United States — raised the specter of another anti-Semitic hate crime.

But none of the charges against Weyand, 33, involve accusations of bias, and fire officials said that there was no evidence he had targeted the Yeshiva because of the religion of the students who lived there.

“There is no indication of a hate crime,” Deputy Commissioner Frank Dwyer said.

The authorities believe Weyand, whose LinkedIn profile lists him as a freelance software engineer, was under the influence of drugs at the time of the episode, said a law enforcement official familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

An emailed request for comment sent to the university was not immediately returned.

In the wake of the Jersey City attack, which officials have said was carried out by two assailants driven by anti-Semitism, officials in New York and the surrounding area have taken steps to increase security near synagogues and other Jewish establishments.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .