Connect with us

RSS

Cornell University cancels classes Friday following arrest of student for antisemitic threats

(JTA) — Following the arrest of a student charged with posting multiple antisemitic threats online, including one saying he would “shoot up” the kosher dining hall, Cornell University has announced it has canceled classes Friday in acknowledgment of the “extraordinary stress of the past few weeks” experienced by the campus community.

Faculty and nonessential staff are also excused from work.

“The hope for tomorrow is that everyone will use this as restorative time to take care of themselves,” Lindsey Knewstub, a university spokeswoman, said in an email Thursday, according to the New York Times. The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Patrick Dai, 21, from Pittsford, New York, who appeared in court for a brief hearing on Wednesday and did not enter a plea, has been charged with posting threats to kill or injure another person using interstate communications, a federal charge that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The multiple posts threatening to kill and rape Jews appeared on a web forum unaffiliated with the university. 

The posts were published on Greekrank, a site that students at the Ivy League school and others use to rate fraternities and sororities. 

The posts, whose text has circulated widely on social media, were published Saturday and Sunday under pseudonyms including “hamas,” “jew evil,” “jew jenocide,” “hamas warrior” and “kill jews,” with titles such as “jewish people need to be killed,” “eliminate jewish living from cornell campus” and “gonna shoot up 104 west,” the name of the kosher dining hall.

Cornell has seen multiple instances of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel being celebrated. On Oct. 15, a Cornell professor referred to the attack as “exhilarating” before apologizing. He is now on leave. The campus was also graffitied with the messages “Israel is fascist,” “Zionism = genocide” and “F— Israel,” according to the Cornell Daily Sun.

In addition to the online threats on Greekrank, the university also received a “concerning crime alert” on Wednesday, Cornell president Martha Pollack said in a statement, according to CNN. Though the alert was unsubstantiated, it “adds to the stress we are all feeling,” she wrote.


The post Cornell University cancels classes Friday following arrest of student for antisemitic threats appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RSS

Suspect identified but no arrest in death of Jewish man at Israel rally, Ventura County sheriff says

THOUSAND OAKS, California (JTA) — Police in Ventura County, outside Los Angeles, said they had identified a suspect but had not made any arrests in connection with the death of Paul Kessler, a 69-year-old Jewish pro-Israel activist who died after a confrontation with a pro-Palestinian protester on Monday.

Investigators have not ruled out the possibility of a hate crime, Sheriff James Fryhoff said during a press conference on Tuesday morning. And while the incident is being investigated as a homicide, a medical examiner explained that that term means Kessler’s death resulted from human interaction — and not necessarily that a crime had been committed.

The case is attracting significant attention because it is the first death reported in connection with international protests for and against Israel in the weeks since Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, prompting Israel to declare war on the terror group.

Fryhoff declined to share many details of the ongoing investigation but sketched out the contours of what happened on Monday, when pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at a busy intersection in this southern California suburb, and pro-Israel demonstrators assembled at the same spot for a counter-protest. There were about 75 to 100 people in total between the two camps, he said, and police officers were monitoring the scene but were not stationed there.

He said multiple people had called 911 after Kessler fell following an altercation of some kind and that police had interviewed witnesses after arriving just minutes later.

“Witnesses provided conflicting statements about what the altercation, and who the aggressor, was. Some of the witnesses were pro-Palestine while others were pro-Israel,” he said. “During the investigation at the scene, deputies determined that in the altercation with Mr. Kessler, he fell backward and struck his head on the ground. What exactly transpired prior to Mr. Kessler falling backward isn’t crystal clear right now.”

Fryhoff said a 50-year-old male who lives in nearby Moorpark, and who was a pro-Palestinian demonstrator, had been identified as a suspect in the case and was detained briefly on Tuesday afternoon while investigators executed a search warrant on his home. Fryhoff said the man, whom he did not identify, had cooperated with deputies at the scene of the incident. The man also said he had been among those to call 911, Fryhoff said.

Fryhoff exhorted anyone with video from the event to share it with the sheriff’s office. A video from a nearby Shell gas station was obscured by the gas station sign, he said.

Kessler was conscious and responsive at the protest and again when officers interviewed him at a nearby hospital, Fryhoff said. His condition deteriorated and he was pronounced dead shortly after 1 a.m. Tuesday, nearly 12 hours after the incident.

The chief medical examiner said physicians who assessed Kessler, as well as an autopsy that was performed on him, observed an injury to his face that could have been caused by being struck with a megaphone — something the local Jewish federation said had occurred. But it was the blow to the back of Kessler’s head that was fatal, said the examiner, Dr. Christopher Young.

The rallies took place at a busy intersection that Fryhoff said has been home to two other protests related to Israel and Gaza since Oct. 7.

“We’ve had 21 protests countywide since October 7. This was the only one so far that has had some type of violent encounter at all,” he said.

The CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Rabbi Noah Farkas, was at the press conference.

“We have to allow the investigation to continue,” Farkas said. “We appreciate that it’s being investigated as a homicide. And we hope the facts of the case will come out so that we have real clarity about what had happened. But at the same, we live in an environment that we know is very hostile to the Jewish community. … The environment was such that it could lend itself to violence.”

Farkas said he urged the local Jewish community “to be vigilant and to stay calm” despite mounting reports of antisemitic incidents globally and several local incidents of violence, including an Oct. 25 home invasion in Studio City, California, in which the alleged intruder shouted “Free Palestine” and “Kill Jews.”

“The last thing that anyone should want is for Jews in the community to take matters into their own hands and commit some kind of reprisal,” he said. He also said Jews should continue to attend pro-Israel demonstrations, including ones planned for Beverly Hills on Nov. 19 and in Washington, D.C. next week. “That’s how we can express ourselves,” he said.

Fryhoff said his department assesses the risks related to each event before deciding whether to send officers.

“It’s very clear that sometimes when law enforcement does arrive on scene, that we can be a catalyst for additional aggression, and so we try and limit our presence,” he said. In this case, he said, “There was no indication of impending violence and so no additional resources were needed. … This event was not preventable.”


The post Suspect identified but no arrest in death of Jewish man at Israel rally, Ventura County sheriff says appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Continue Reading

RSS

A month after loved ones taken captive, families of hostages howl on global stage

Rallies held in New York, Washington, London, elsewhere begging for release of 240 captives; foreign minister heading to Brussels as Israel tries to intensify diplomatic pressure

The post A month after loved ones taken captive, families of hostages howl on global stage appeared first on The Times of Israel.

​ Read More 

Continue Reading

RSS

1 month after Oct. 7 massacre, the ruins of Kibbutz Kfar Aza testify to its horrors

On a tour of devastated community, former British PM says ‘people should not be mistaken about the savage attacks that occurred here; residents vow to return

The post 1 month after Oct. 7 massacre, the ruins of Kibbutz Kfar Aza testify to its horrors appeared first on The Times of Israel.

​ Read More 

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News