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Neo-Nazis picket Jewish center outside Toledo after first protesting LGBTQ event
(JTA) — A small group of neo-Nazis were feeling restless after targeting an LGBTQ event in downtown Toledo on Saturday night. So they head to a suburb that’s home to several Jewish institutions.
The group, which the Cleveland Jewish News identified as an antisemitic organization named Blood Tribe, showed up at a Sylvania, Ohio, complex containing the Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo headquarters, two synagogues and a Jewish community center. Waving swastika flags and tiki torches, the group of around a dozen people stood on a sidewalk across the street for around 10 minutes before dispersing.
“The people are horrified and saddened that this occurred so close to home in our own community,” Stephen Rothschild, CEO of the federation, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We’ve heard and read about it and some of us had experienced it, but when it happens across the street and is directed at your location, it’s upsetting.”
The incident mirrored similar recent accounts of neo-Nazi groups picketing or attacking synagogues and Jewish centers in Georgia and Florida. Other synagogues in Michigan and Pennsylvania have been targeted by threats from white supremacists.
However, the group at the center of the Toledo incident did not only target Jews. They had come directly from picketing Toledo Love Fest, an LGBTQ event. Federation officials said it appeared that their decision to head to the Jewish community immediately after was spontaneous.
No Jews were present at the center when the group arrived and the parking lot was empty, the federation said. Law enforcement had been monitoring the group’s activities and was quickly on the scene; when group members tried to stand on the Jewish center’s property, police directed them instead to a public sidewalk across the street. “I don’t know who they thought would be there, or what. But there wasn’t a car in the parking lot,” Sylvania Township police chief Paul Long told the Toledo Blade.
An organizer of Toledo Love Fest told the Toledo Blade the protestors had been wearing “black masks with red shirts and black pants and sunglasses” when they showed up at the LGBTQ event and said they appeared to perform Nazi salutes. They picketed the event twice throughout the day. In May the same group had also protested a drag queen fundraiser benefitting LGBTQ youth in Columbus.
Federation officials and local Jewish leaders alerted the community of around 2,500 Jews to the incident on Sunday. Rothschild said they had also received messages of support from local Muslim, LGBTQ and multifaith groups. Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz also released a statement reading in part, “We are proud to stand beside our LGBTQ+ neighbors, our Jewish neighbors, and our Black, Muslim, Asian, and Disabled neighbors, and we refuse to be silent in the face of white supremacy.”
Blood Tribe’s decision to lump LGBTQ people and Jews together in its hateful actions felt to Rothschild like “a pretty clear indication that there’s an awful lot of hate out there for all sorts of minority groups and it’s never just about any one of us,” he said. “We all sort of remain at risk and need to stand together against hate.”
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The post Neo-Nazis picket Jewish center outside Toledo after first protesting LGBTQ event appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.