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Police, security agencies advise Jews to be on alert ahead of planned ‘National Day of Hate’ on Shabbat
This is a developing story.
(JTA) – The police bulletins have circulated among Jews on social media, in WhatsApp chats and via email: A white supremacist group is calling for a “National Day of Hate” this Saturday and encouraging antisemites to vandalize and deface Jewish institutions.
Information about the antisemitic campaign was first provided by the Chicago Police Department, and a “situational awareness alert” with NYPD insignia circulating online advises local Jewish communities to be on the lookout for suspicious activity.
The NYPD did not comment on the authenticity of the bulletin but told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “While there are no identified threats to New York City, out of an abundance of caution, the Department will deploy additional resources to sensitive locations, including houses of worship, throughout the weekend.”
The NYPD bulletin also shared one of the hate group’s messages, which called for “MASS ANTI-SEMITIC ACTION.” The message urged followers to “shock the masses with banner drops, stickers, fliers, and graffiti,” and to film their activities.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the campaign is being pushed by a small white supremacist group in Iowa called Crew-319, in conjunction with other extremist groups. The ADL confirmed that the hate message in the NYPD bulletin is authentic and comes from Crew-319’s channel on the social network Telegram, which is popular with extremists.
In its memo, the Chicago Police Department’s Place of Worship Safety Advisory Team, which monitors threats to synagogues and other houses of worship, urged Jewish community members to “keep situationally aware and pay attention to your surroundings while out in the neighborhood, not just on Shabbos, but during the week as well.”
An alert from the Community Security Initiative, a New York City-area Jewish security agency, advised residents that “no specific details have been shared by New York-based extremists to indicate their exact plans for this weekend. We assess that propaganda-based activities are likely, as we have seen across New York in recent months.” The alert recommended “heightened situational awareness” and cautioned residents not to confront people spreading propaganda.
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement this week, “At this time, there is no actionable intelligence.” Chicago’s Jewish federation sent a message to synagogue rabbis and leadership in the area saying that there is no discernible concrete threat to the local Jewish community at this time. Chicago Alderman Deborah Silverstein, whose ward includes the heavily Orthodox West Rogers Park neighborhood, echoed that assessment.
“There has been no threat to Chicago. Chicago is not at the moment targeted in any way. But the police are very active,” Silverstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Unfortunately, because we have been targeted before, we have a very active police department.”
The messages from police and community leaders came alongside an outpouring of anxiety from Jews sharing the news of the threatened antisemitic action on social media.
The alert came roughly a week after two Jews exiting morning prayer services were shot on consecutive days in Los Angeles, allegedly by a man with antisemitic motives. Last fall, two men were arrested in Penn Station for threatening violence against New York City synagogues, and weeks earlier, police in New Jersey warned synagogues in the state about a “credible threat.”
“So being an American Jew in 2023 is choosing between 1) taking my kids to pray, anxiously looking at the exits worried about their safety or 2) staying home and letting the anti-Semites define my Jewishness,” tweeted Daniella Greenbaum Davis, a writer and former producer on the TV talk show “The View.”
Crew-319, the group behind the antisemitic initiative, is a “tiny Iowa-based neo-Nazi crew that distributes propaganda and engages in antisemitic stunts,” Oren Segal, vice president of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, told JTA. Segal said that on Sept. 11, 2022, a member of the group drove a U-Haul truck hung with posters reading “Jews did 9/11” through Des Moines.
In recent months, hate groups have targeted Jews with fliers, graffiti and in-person protests. The Goyim Defense League, one of the country’s most visible hate groups, has distributed antisemitic fliers in Jewish communities across the country and unfurled hateful banners on highway overpasses; recently they also staged an antisemitic protest outside Chabad of South Orlando. Their propaganda reportedly inspired the suspect in the L.A. shootings.
Antisemitic messages have also been projected onto sports stadiums, graffitied on college campuses and displayed outside Disney World.
The antisemitic activity also comes amid a national rise in extremist violence. An ADL study published Thursday found that the proportion of mass shootings tied to extremism has risen significantly over the last decade.
The Secure Community Network, a national group that coordinates security for Jewish institutions, told JTA it had been tracking extremist activity around the date for weeks and would be issuing a more detailed bulletin to its synagogue network. CEO Michael Masters said his team “is working around the clock to ensure the safety and security of our community.”
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Pope Leo Calls War in Middle East a ‘Scandal’ to Humanity
Pope Leo XIV is welcomed by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and officials upon arrival at Rafic Hariri International Airport, during his first apostolic journey, in Beirut, Lebanon, November 30, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Yassin
Pope Leo on Sunday said death and suffering caused by the war in the Middle East are a “scandal to the whole human family,” renewing his plea for an immediate ceasefire.
As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its fourth week, the first US pope said that he continues to follow with “dismay” the situation in the Middle East and in other regions torn apart by war and violence.
“We cannot remain silent in the face of the suffering of so many people, the defenseless victims of these conflicts. What hurts them hurts the whole of humanity,” Leo said at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
“I strongly renew my appeal for us to persevere in prayer, so that hostilities may cease and the way may finally be paved for peace,” he added.
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Hundreds Wounded in Iran Missile Attacks Across Central, Southern Israel, Including Near Nuclear Site
A drone view shows a damage in a residential neighborhood, following a night of Iranian missile strikes which injured dozens of Israelis, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Dimona, southern Israel, March 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Roei Kastro
More than 200 people were wounded in several Iranian strikes on central and southern Israel over the weekend, including children who were seriously injured, after Israeli air defenses failed to intercept at least two ballistic missiles, prompting the defense minister to threaten to send Iran “back decades.”
Fifteen people were injured on Sunday following an Iranian cluster missile strike in the central Israeli cities of Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, and Ramat Gan. By early evening, several homes and roads were damaged by the strikes.
A direct hit by a missile launched from Iran the prior evening on Arad and Dimona in southern Israel caused widespread damage to buildings and prompted the evacuation of nearly 300 people to hospital. As of Sunday afternoon, 18 children were still hospitalized.
A ballistic missile carrying a payload of several hundred kilograms of explosives landed next to residential buildings in Dimona, with the shockwave ripping through them and leaving about 30 people wounded, including a young boy.
Israel’s Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, located roughly eight miles southeast of the city, was likely the target, analysts said. But according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the site was not harmed in the strikes.
“Information from regional states indicates that no abnormal radiation levels have been detected,” the UN nuclear watchdog tweeted.
Iranian state TV said on Saturday the salvos were in response to an attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility earlier that day.
Tonight, the Iranian regime unleashed a devastating hail of missiles on southern Israel, purposefully striking civilians in Arad and Dimona.
Over 100 people, including many children and elderly, inured.
This is a blatant war crime. Pure terrorism. Yet, world is silent! pic.twitter.com/EBLLrxuJ9t
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 22, 2026
At Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, more than 160 injured patients arrived overnight, including over 70 children, according to Prof. Shlomi Codish, the hospital’s director. He described the influx as a “highly complex mass casualty event” involving blast injuries, shrapnel wounds, and trauma, including critically and moderately injured patients who required urgent surgery.
Codish said authorities were working to provide “immediate support and shelter” for those impacted, adding that entire families were evacuated to the hospital.
“The challenge is not only medical but also human. The strike hit the heart of a civilian neighborhood, and entire families arrived together, injured and distressed. We worked to map family connections in order to provide coordinated care and preserve family unity as much as possible,” he told The Algemeiner.
The missiles in both Arad and Dimona were engaged by air defenses, but the interceptors failed to bring them down.
In both cases, most of those injured in the missile did not make it to bomb shelters in time.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting the scene of the strike in Arad, said it was a “miracle” that no one was killed but added “we don’t want to rely on miracles.”
“If you’re in a shelter, you’re protected,” he said.
Defense Minister Israel Katz, who was also in Arad, accused Iran of intentionally targeting civilians.
“If this continues, we’ll make sure to hit Iran so hard it will be sent back decades,” Katz said.
Tehran aimed to generate domestic pressure on Israel’s government to stop the war, he said, but added that “it won’t happen because our home front is strong.”
In a statement posted on X, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi stressed that “maximum military restraint should be observed, in particular in the vicinity of nuclear facilities.”
Since the Feb. 28 US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Tehran has launched more than 400 missiles toward Israel, with the Israeli Air Force saying roughly 92 percent were intercepted. More than 4,500 Israelis have been evacuated to hospitals from the strikes, the health ministry said.
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Scores Hurt After Iranian Missiles Hit Israeli Desert Towns
A drone view shows a damage in a residential neighbourhood, following a night of Iranian missile strikes which injured dozens of Israelis, amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, in Dimona, southern Israel March 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Roei Kastro
Southern Israeli towns woke to widespread damage on Sunday after air defenses failed to intercept two Iranian missiles overnight that injured scores of civilians in one of the worst attacks of the war so far on Israeli soil.
As daylight broke, the scale of the damage in the desert town of Arad, where one of the strikes hit a multi-story apartment bloc, came into clearer view, with entire floors blown open by the blast.
Uri Shacham, the chief of staff of Israel’s ambulance service, said at least eight buildings were damaged by the missile, which left a crater not far from the apartment blocks.
Footage verified by Reuters showed flames engulfing the top floor of an apartment building shortly after the strike. Search and rescue teams moved from floor to floor inside the damaged buildings.
Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said both strikes had been carried out with conventional ballistic missiles. He declined to comment when asked about the initial findings of a military investigation into the failure to intercept the missiles.
NETANYAHU SAYS MIRACLE NO ONE KILLED
Most Israelis receive alerts on their mobile phone when launches from Iran are identified. An air raid siren sounds and they then have a few minutes to go to safe rooms or public bomb shelters.
“It is a miracle that no-one was killed,” Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, standing in the crater at the impact site in Arad.
Pointing at the blown out walls of the apartment bloc and then at the enforced undamaged wall leading to a shelter below ground, Netanyahu urged Israelis not to be complacent. No one would have been hurt, he said, had all sought shelter in time.
In Arad, 31 people, including 18 children, were hospitalized, at least 9 of them in serious condition, according to the hospital. Dozens more were lightly injured.
Israel said Iran was targeting civilian population areas. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they targeted military and security-related sites in retaliation for Israeli strikes against Iranian sites.
Arad and Dimona, another city that was hit, are located close to Israel’s secretive nuclear reactor and several military bases, including Nevatim Air Base, one of the country’s largest.
In Dimona, 5 people were hospitalized, including a 12-year-old boy in serious condition, the hospital said.
Since joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, Israel has come under daily missile fire from Iran. At least 20 civilians have been killed in Israel and the Palestinian territories, including one Israeli killed in an attack by Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah on Sunday.
At least 15 people were hospitalized on Sunday in fresh Iranian attacks, according to emergency services, including a cluster munition that struck in Tel Aviv.
Israeli and US strikes have killed at least 1,300 people in Iran so far, according to the Iranian government. The US-based rights group HRANA, which tracks human rights violations in Iran, has recorded 3,320 people killed, including 1,406 civilians and 1,167 military personnel, with the remainder not yet determined. Reuters could not independently verify the data.