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Antisemitism reportedly spikes and US Jews face violent threats amid climate of fear over Israel-Hamas war
(JTA) – A top lawyer in Illinois’ state government told a Jewish person, “Hitler should have eradicated all of you.” An Israeli student was assaulted at Columbia University. And Jewish schools and synagogues in at least three different states have been subjected to violent threats.
Those are a few incidents that have occurred during what, according to the Anti-Defamation League, is a 21% spike in antisemitic activity in the United States since Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing and wounding thousands. Israel’s ensuing war on the terror group in Gaza has killed thousands and has sparked both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel activity across the globe.
That reported increase in antisemitism has put Jewish communities — and the U.S. government — on guard as the war in Gaza and Israel dominates the headlines, even as Jewish security agencies have not warned of any credible threats of violence. Hillel International is providing new funding for armed guards on college campuses, and other Jewish institutions are also bolstering security. Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department was monitoring an increase in reported threats to Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities.
“What we knew even before the massacre that occurred on October 7 is that whenever there is conflict in that region we tend to see antisemitic incidents spike in this country, and in other countries as well,” Oren Segal, vice president of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The ADL has tracked a total of 193 incidents it classifies as antisemitic in the period following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, an increase of more than 20% from the same time period last year, although reports of antisemitism are still coming in. Such incidents cover a wide range of activities and do not include participation in pro-Palestinian rallies. But Segal said any incident that “ascribes blame to the entire Jewish community for what is happening in Israel” would be counted.
The period after the Oct. 7 invasion has also seen attacks and threats targeting Muslims in the United States, including the murder of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy in the Chicago area.
Amid all of this, nonprofits focused on Jewish security have, so far, not sounded the alarm. One such organization in New York, the Community Security Initiative, has advised Jewish institutions to “keep calm and carry on,” according to The New York Times. Jewish security agencies also said two weeks ago they were not aware of any credible threats ahead of what Jews feared was a Hamas-inspired day of violence on Oct. 13.
“People are calling the NYPD bomb squad because they got a package from Gaza that turns out it’s olive oil,” said Mitch Silber, director of the Community Security Initiative and a former intelligence official for the New York Police Department. He added that Hamas has no known formal capacity in the United States.
“It feels like pure panic mode the community is in, and part of our job is to do a little anxiety alleviation,” Silber said.
The Secure Community Network, a nationwide security organization for Jewish institutions that operates a “command center” in Chicago, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
And some high-profile suspicipons of antisemitism have not necessarily borne out. In the moments after the murder of a young Detroit synagogue president was reported, rumors swirled that the crime was linked to the Israel-Hamas war. But police say they have not seen any sign of antisemitism so far in their investigation.
Yet there has indeed been a string of violent incidents and threats against Jews in cities across the country. In New York City, police say a man told a woman that he was punching her because she was Jewish. On Oct. 17, in Charlotte, North Carolina, the FBI announced it had arrested a man who had sent a threatening email to an area synagogue in which he vowed “public execution”; the threat came weeks after a rash of other emailed and phoned threats to synagogues across the country. That same day, police in Miami Beach, Florida, arrested a homeless man who approached a local Jewish day school security guard, said, “I’m with Hamas,” and falsely claimed he was carrying explosives.
Other threats against Jews this month have come from working professionals. A professor at the University of California, Davis posted online that “all these zionist journalists who spread propaganda and misinformation” could be targeted, and concluded the post with machete, ax and bloodrop emojis. The university’s president announced Thursday that the school had placed the professor under investigation, and her name is no longer listed on the faculty page.
And the Illinois comptroller’s office fired one of its legal counsels Thursday after the attorney was found to have left threatening comments on the anonymous Instagram page of a lawyer who identified as Jewish, including “Hitler should have eradicated all of you” and “all you Zionists will pay,” according to reports.
The attorney, Sarah Chowdhury, also served as president of the South Asian Bar Association; the legal group announced it had terminated her as well and apologized “for any harm” caused by her remarks.
Beyond threats of violence, American Jews have contended with antisemitic graffiti and vandalism over the past two weeks. Some of these incidents have occurred on university campuses. At Cal Poly Humboldt, in northern California, two days after the attacks, graffiti reading “Free Palestine F**k Israel” was found on a sukkah set up by the university’s Chabad-Lubavitch center. Graffiti reading “The Jews R Nazis” was also found next to a Jewish fraternity at the University of Pennsylvania on Oct. 20, according to the campus newspaper.
A spokesperson for Hillel International, the umbrella organization for Jewish life on campus, told JTA last week it was providing unrestricted “emergency grants” to all its chapters, including to address security concerns and expanding staff “in this moment of crisis.”
Other Jewish institutions have been targeted as well. The day after the Humboldt incident, a synagogue in Fresno, California, had its windows smashed by a perpetrator who also left a note reading, “All Jewish businesses will be targeted.” A suspect has been taken into custody and charged with a hate crime, reported J. the Jewish News of Northern California.
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The post Antisemitism reportedly spikes and US Jews face violent threats amid climate of fear over Israel-Hamas war appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump Administration Investigates Baltimore Public Schools for Antisemitism
US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump, in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
The US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) promptly opened an investigation into allegations of antisemitism in Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) following the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) filing a complaint regarding the matter.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Jewish students allegedly experienced relentless bullying in BCPS, where students pantomimed Nazi salutes, treated campuses as a canvas for Nazi-inspired and antisemitic graffiti, and sent text messages threatening that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be summoned to kill Jewish students the bullies do not like. Teachers behaved even worse than students, the ADL complaint said. At Bard High School, an English teacher performed the Nazi salute three times and later admitted to administrative officials that he did so intentionally to harm “the sole Jewish student” enrolled in his class. Following the incident, he suggested that the student unregister for his class because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be discussed in it.
In every case, according to the complaint, BCPS officials “slow-walked” investigations, deflecting parents’ inquiries into their status with bureaucratic spin even as they denied Jewish students justice. Moreover, the ADL continued, BCPS was first notified of an antisemitism problem on its campuses over a year before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel stoked anti-Jewish hatred. The ADL alleged that the school system’s refusing to take action constituted a textbook example of a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids public schools receiving federal funding to treat students unfairly on the basis of race, ethnicity, or shared ancestry.
“The allegations that Baltimore City Public Schools tolerate virulent Nazi-inspired antisemitic harassment of its Jewish students is at once appalling and infuriating. When a teacher allegedly directs a Nazi salute toward a Jewish student, or non-Jewish students harass their Jewish contemporaries by saying ‘all Jews should die,’ we are not simply talking about contemptible bullying; we are talking about a shocking abdication of educator responsibility that constitutes unlawful antisemitic harassment under Title VI,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement announcing the action.
He added, “If true, these allegations confirm a disturbing trend: too many of our nation’s educational institutions are failing American students by inculcating in them a loathing for their own country and fellow citizens and a tolerance and acceptance for a deeply destructive ancient hatred. The Trump-McMahon Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights will vigorously investigate this matter and ensure American Jewish students can learn and flourish in an environment free from unlawful discrimination.”
Antisemitism in K-12 schools is receiving increased attention, notably in California, after years of falling under the radar.
Earlier this month, the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) which stands accused of refusing to address antisemitism, ruled that a teacher who allegedly showed her students antisemitic, discriminatory, and biased content violated policy when she screened an offensive video about the Holocaust in her classroom.
The move came without the prompting of the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, with which two Jewish civil rights groups, StandWithUs (SWU) and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition (BAJC), filed a complaint against the district in April.
Among other things, SWU and BAJC alleged that an SCUSD employee, Wilcox High School teacher Kauser Adenwala, screened a documentary produced in Turkey which compared the war in Gaza to the Holocaust. The graphic film at one point “displays a picture of a young Jewish child who was branded with a number by the Nazis during World War II and then suddenly shows an untraceable image of children with Arabic writing on their arms,” according to the complaint, which alleged the teacher’s conduct violated numerous district policies and potentially state law. However, she remains employed by the district to this day.
The district subsequently investigated the incident and said in an official letter that was just sent to BAJC on July 25 and obtained by The Algemeiner that Adenwala breached the Governing Board’s policies.
In April, a civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition alleged that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California allows Jewish students to be subjected to unconscionable levels of antisemitic bullying in and outside of the classroom.
The 27-page complaint, filed with OCR, described a slew of incidents that allegedly fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities set off a wave of anti-Jewish hatred across the US. SCUSD students, the complaint said, graffitied antisemitic hate speech in the bathrooms, vandalized Jewish-themed posters displayed in schools, and distributed stickers which said, “F—k Zionism.” All the while, district officials enabled the behavior by refusing to investigate it and blaming victims who came forward to report their experiences, according to the complaint.
“SCUSD has allowed an egregiously hostile environment to fester for its Jewish and Israeli students in violation of its federal obligations and ethical responsibility to create a safe educational space for all students,” Jenna Statfeld Harris, senior counsel and K-12 specialist at StandWithUs Saidoff Legal, said in a statement at the time. “SCUSD leadership repeatedly disregards the rights of their Jewish and Israeli students. We implore the Office for Civil Rights to step in and uphold the right of these students to an inclusive education free from hostility toward their protected identity.”
In March, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a civil rights complaint which recounted the experience of a 12-year-old Jewish girl who was allegedly assaulted on the grounds of the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino, California — being beaten with a stick, told to “shut your Jewish ass up,” and teased with jokes about Hitler. According to the court filings, one student admitted that the behavior was motivated by the victim’s being Jewish. Despite receiving several complaints about the treatment, a substantial amount of which occurred in the classroom, school officials allegedly declined to punish her tormentors.
“While an increasing number of schools recognize that their Jewish students are being targeted both for their religious beliefs and due to their ancestral connection to Israel, and are taking necessary steps to address both classic and contemporary forms of antisemitism, some shamefully continue to turn a blind eye,” Brandeis Center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement at the time of the filing.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Group Headquarters in LA Vandalized, Defaced With Nazi Symbols and Anti-Israel Slogans
Hateful graffiti (censored) spray-painted on the grounds of the Israeli-American Council (IAC) national headquarters in Los Angeles. Photo: Screenshot.
An unknown person or group graffitied swastikas and other hateful messages on the grounds of the Israeli-American Council’s (IAC) national headquarters in Los Angeles, California, over the weekend, underscoring the severity of the antisemitism crisis in the US.
“F—k Jews,” one cluster of graffiti said.
“BDS,” the message added, referring to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel.
Elsewhere, the vandal defaced the property with a symbol representing the Nazi paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) group, several more swastikas, and, scrawled in capital letters, the word, “BURN.”
Local law enforcement is on the case, numerous outlets have reported since the incident.
“We are appalled by this vile act of antisemitism at the doorstep of our own community and offices,” Elan Carr, chief executive officer of IAC, said in a statement to the media. “Around the world and across our country, we have seen an alarming and historic rise in antisemitism. We are working tirelessly to fight it and to ensure that history does not repeat itself. This incident will not intimidate or deter us — on the contrary, it fuels our determination to stand even stronger against antisemitism and to protect and strengthen our community for generations to come.”
The disturbing incident is one of many to have occurred in 2025. Only last week, law enforcement officials charged a Florida State University (FSU) graduate student who allegedly assaulted a Jewish classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center with misdemeanor battery.
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” Eden Deckerhoff, the alleged assailant, said before shoving the Jewish man, according to video taken by the victim. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Deckerhoff, a student at the FSU College of Social Work, allegedly accosted the victim after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). FSU reportedly employs her mother, Rosalyn Deckerhoff, as a teaching professor in its College of Social Work.
The Jewish FSU student was not the first victim of violence or harassment motivated by anti-Zionism in the US. In some cases, such incidents have been fatal.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by a national Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
The wave of hate continues a pattern of year-on-year surges in acts of anti-Jewish bigotry.
In 2024, according to newly released FBI statistics, hate crimes perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
“Leaders of every kind — teachers, law enforcement officers, government officials, business owners, university presidents — must confront antisemitism head-on,” Ted Deutch, chief executive officer of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), said earlier this month, commenting on the data. “Jews are being targeted not just out of hate, but because some wrongly believe that violence or intimidation is justified by global events.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Australia to Recognize Palestinian State at UN, Prompting Sharp Backlash From Israel, Local Jewish Community
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during a press conference at the Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, June 17, 2024. Photo: Lukas Coch/Pool via REUTERS
Australia will formally recognize a Palestinian state during the United Nations General Assembly’s annual debate in September, joining a growing list of European nations backing the move despite sharp criticism from Israeli leaders and the country’s Jewish community.
“Australia will recognize the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own. We will work with the international community to make this right a reality,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Monday during a press conference.
Albanese described a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as “humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering, and starvation in Gaza.”
The prime minister also said he had received assurances from the Palestinian Authority (PA) — which has governed much of the West Bank without holding elections for two decades — that there would be “no role for the terrorists of Hamas in any future Palestinian state.”
Australia’s announcement comes after France first declared last month its intention to recognize a Palestinian state, with other Western countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, joining the effort.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned Australia’s decision, calling it “a reward for terror, a prize for the enemies of freedom, liberty, and democracy.”
“This is a grave and dangerous mistake, which will not help a single Palestinian and sadly will not bring back a single hostage,” the Israeli leader said during a press conference, referring to the dozens of Israeli hostages still being by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, also condemned the country’s latest decision, saying it “undermines Israel’s security, derails hostage negotiations and hands a victory to those who oppose coexistence.”
Albanese is also facing escalating criticism from Australia’s Jewish community and leaders who strongly oppose the move.
The Australian Jewish Association condemned the government’s decision, calling it a reward for Hamas and its brutal atrocities during the group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“This is more than a betrayal of a friend. It is a reckless attack on the Jewish people in Australia and abroad,” the statement read. “The decision will do nothing to advance peace in the Middle East since the Albanese Government has no influence there.”
“It is Australian Jews who bear the brunt of Labor’s actions, which have contributed to firebombing of synagogues and attacks on Jews,” it continued.
AUSTRALIA REWARDS TERROR WITH STATEHOOD
Statement from AJA CEO Robert Gregory
Today, the Australian Labor Party announced it will recognise a non-existent ‘State of Palestine’, rewarding the Hamas atrocities of October 7.
This is more than a betrayal of a friend. It is a… pic.twitter.com/flrQSZrXsw
— Australian Jewish Association (@AustralianJA) August 11, 2025
Australia has faced an onslaught of antisemitic incidents, including violent attacks and arson targeting synagogues, over the past year, many of which appear to have been motivated by anti-Israel animus amid the war in Gaza.
The Zionist Federation of Australia also denounced the move by Albanese, warning that “moving forward while Hamas remains in power and the Palestinian Authority has not delivered verified reforms will only undermine peace efforts and reward terrorism.”
“Recognition without agreed borders, a single governing authority, or a demonstrated capacity for peaceful coexistence does not advance peace. It departs from Australia’s bipartisan position and risks delaying, rather than resolving, the conflict,” the statement read.
On Monday, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced that his country would also consider recognizing a Palestinian state at next month’s UN General Assembly.
Peters said New Zealand’s recognition of a Palestinian state was “a matter of when, not if,” though he acknowledged it was “not a straightforward, clear-cut issue.”
Last week, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad declared that “the initiative by several countries to recognize a Palestinian state is one of the fruits of Oct. 7.”
“We proved that victory over Israel is not impossible, and our weapons are a symbol of Palestinian dignity,” Hamad told Al Jazeera.
Senior Hamas officials have repeatedly vowed to carry out more attacks similar to its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their rampage across southern Israel.
