Anti-Jewish hate reared its head at Temple University in Philadelphia over the weekend, with a spree of vandalisms at the off-campus dwelling of the predominantly Jewish Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity.

“Vandalism and harassment are not viable forms of protest,” university president John Fry said in a statement on Monday. “Criminal behavior will not be tolerated, and we cannot allow it to be normalized on our campuses or within our community.”

He continued, “As law enforcement pursues its criminal investigation, the university will also launch its own thorough investigation. Any student found to be involved will face strict disciplinary action under the Student Conduct Code, up to and including expulsion …While incidents like this are deeply unsettling, they will not impact the collective resolve of our community to support Jewish life at Temple University and to respond decisively to antisemitism.”

On Monday, Temple University police released a series of images of the suspected culprits, who appear to be college-age men. One of them concealed his identity, while the other did not.

The first case occurred on Friday and involved graffiti painted on the AEPi residence, although Temple’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) did not elaborate on what was spray painted. Then on Sunday, an individual wrote “antisemitic graffiti” on the residence, according to DPS.

The phrase “Israel [equals] genocide” was reportedly written on the building one of the days.

Commenting on the two incidents of vandalism, the Philadelphia office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said that anti-Zionist hate crimes do not advance the Palestinian cause.

“This is simply harassment of Jews,” the group said. “Thank you to President John Fry for condemning this criminal activity. We hope the investigation is quick and whoever responsible is held accountable.”

The AEPi fraternity has been targeted in four different acts of vandalism or trespassing since early May, The Temple News reported.

The latest vandalizing of the AEPi house was not the first of its kind on US college campuses this semester. Last month, a sukkah was vandalized at Simmons University, located in Boston, Massachusetts. The culprits graffitied “Gaza liberation sukkah” on the structure, which was built for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

“Simmons condemns this antisemitic vandalism of a Jewish religious symbol on our campus. This unacceptable act is being actively investigated as a potential hate crime,” university president Lynn Perry Wooten said in a statement following the incident. “The safety and well-being of our community is our top priority. Speech and behavior that is threatening, harassing, or intimidating are not protected forms of expression and will not be tolerated.”

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, anti-Israel activity on college campuses has reached crisis levels in the year since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. According to a recent report by the ADL, higher education saw a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena during the 2023-2024 academic school year.

The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38 respectively. Harvard University, the University of California—Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, the report said, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.

“The antisemitic, anti-Zionist vitriol we’ve witnessed on campus is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in September, after the report’s release. “The anti-Israel movement’s relentless harassment, vandalism, intimidation, and violent physical assaults go way beyond the peaceful voicing of a political opinion. Administrators and faculty need to do much better this year to ensure a safe and truly inclusive environment for all students, regardless of religion, nationality, or political views, and they need to start now.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday, citing a lack of trust as Israel continued its military operations against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Unfortunately, over the past months, the trust between me and the minister of defense has been broken,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “There were significant gaps regarding the management of the [military] campaign, and these gaps were accompanied by statements and actions that contradicted the decisions of the government.”

In a letter reported by Israel’s Channel 12, Netanyahu told Gallant that his dismissal would be effective 48 hours after delivery of the note. “I would like to thank you for your work as defense minister,” the premier wrote.

Netanyahu appointed Foreign Minister Israel Katz to succeed Gallant as defense minister, and Gideon Saar will become the new foreign minister.

The government shakeup came amid not only Israel’s ongoing military campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah but also the looming threat of another direct attack from the Islamist terror groups’ chief backer, Iran.

Last Sunday, Gallant said in remarks to a memorial ceremony in Jerusalem that Iran was no longer able to effectively use its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel.

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A woman and two men in New York have been indicted on hate crimes charges for allegedly vandalizing the homes of officials from the Brooklyn Museum, including its Jewish executive director, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced on Monday. 

Taylor Pelton, 28, of Astoria, Queens; Samuel Seligson, 32, of Brooklyn; and Gabriel Schubiner, 36, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, were charged in a 25-count indictment in connection with the antisemitic incidents that took place in June in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The indictment includes charges such as making a terroristic threat as a hate crime, making a terroristic threat, third- and fourth-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime, third- and fourth-degree criminal mischief, making graffiti, possession of graffiti instruments, and fifth-degree conspiracy. Schubiner was arraigned on Monday and released without bail, and Seligson and Pelton are expected to be arraigned next week.

The defendants allegedly targeted executives of the Brooklyn art museum who had Jewish-sounding names, but only one of their victims was in fact Jewish — Executive Director Anne Pasternak. Gonzalez did not reveal the names of the victims, but it was previously reported that they included the museum’s President and Chief Operating Officer Kimberly Panicek-Trueblood, Board Treasurer Neil Simpkins, and Chairman of the Board of Directors Barbara Vogelstein. Panicek-Trueblood’s husband is Jewish.

“Acts of vandalism that target individuals in their own homes are a deeply disturbing violation meant to intimidate, terrorize, and instill fear,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “These defendants allegedly targeted museum board members with threats and antisemitic graffiti based on their perceived heritage. These actions are not protests; they are hate crimes, and we are deeply committed to holding accountable anyone who uses such unlawful tactics in Brooklyn.”

The three defendants allegedly committed their acts of vandalism during the early morning hours of June 12.

According to prosecutors, Pelton drove the defendants, and three unapprehended others, to the neighborhood of Boerum Hill in Brooklyn and from there, they were caught on surveillance video walking with black bags to Douglass Street, where a member of Brooklyn Museum’s board of directors lives. Schubiner allegedly painted over a video camera at the location, in an attempt to conceal the group’s identity, and the defendants then proceeded to deface the home with red paint and the words, “Brooklyn Museum, blood on your hands.”

The alleged assailants also left a banner that featured the victim’s name and claimed she had “blood on your hands, war crimes, funds genocide,” prosecutors claimed. The banner included several inverted red triangles, which is a symbol used by the terrorist organization Hamas in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets they plan to attack. A stencil found on the ground at the site had a fingerprint covered in red paint that belonged to Schubiner.

Pelton then allegedly drove the group in her car to Pasternak’s residence in another area of Brooklyn. A video camera was painted over again to hide their identity as the defendants defaced the entrance of Pasternak’s apartment building with red paint, including an anarchy symbol and red inverted triangles, prosecutors said. The assailants allegedly hung a banner that described Pasternak as a “White Supremacist Zionist” with red handprints and accused her of funding genocide. Gonzalez said the banners also had the words “Blood on your hands.”

This is not peaceful protest or free speech. This is a crime, and it’s overt, unacceptable antisemitism.

These actions will never be tolerated in New York City for any reason. I’m sorry to Anne Pasternak and members of @brooklynmuseum‘s board who woke up to hatred like this.

I… pic.twitter.com/vi17PumBoM

— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) June 12, 2024

The defendants then headed in Pelton’s car to Manhattan, where Schubiner and the unapprehended others were captured on surveillance footage spraying red paint on a building in Lenox Hill where Vogelstein lives, according to prosecutors. They allegedly painted her name, the red inverted triangles, and an anarchy symbol.

Shortly after the alleged hate crimes took place, an anonymous group claiming responsibility for the vandalism released a statement to Hyperallergic in which they cited the Brooklyn Museum’s “complicity in the Palestinian genocide” and ties that its board members have to weapon manufacturing and Israeli military interests, claims that museum officials have denied. The anonymous group said the vandalism was done in response to a heavily policed pro-Palestinian protest on May 31 at the museum, where dozens were arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

“Our action is a retaliation against the museum’s direct connections to the networks that materially support the genocidal entity as well as its collaboration with the fascist NYPD,” the statement said.

Mass anti-Israel protests took place in late May outside the Brooklyn Museum, one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. Activists demanded that the institution divest from Israel and demonstrators from groups like the pro-Palestinian organization Within Our Lifetime hung a banner over the museum’s main entrance that called on the institution to “divest from genocide.” More than 30  protesters were reportedly arrested at the museum after occupying much of the lobby area, clashing with police inside and outside of the building, and defacing an outdoor sculpture with graffiti.

“There was damage to existing and newly installed artwork on our plaza,” a museum spokesperson said at the time, as reported by Reuters. “Protesters entered the building, and our public safety staff were physically and verbally harassed.”

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