San Francisco State University. Photo: Wiki Commons.

Local law enforcement in San Francisco, California has arrested a man accused of attempting to burn down the San Francisco Hillel (SF Hillel) building, which serves Jewish students at all college campuses in the city.

The fire started around 2:00 pm on Dec. 5 at SF Hillel, which is located near the campus of San Francisco State University. Hillel’s “Student Life Team” was inside the building and preparing for the final Shabbat of the semester.

Emergency personnel were called to the scene and extinguished the fire. No injuries were reported. However, Hillel described in a statement that there was “significant damage to the basement and second-floor bathroom, along with most programming materials.” Additionally, “smoke damage” was “pervasive throughout the building and the plumbing was damaged.”

The Torahs in the building were safe and unharmed, according to Hillel.

The group had previously disclosed that the fire started in a dumpster located on the building’s perimeter that spread, causing damage which made the structure unfit for use.

On Wednesday, the San Franciso Police Department revealed that its investigation indicated the fire looked like arson.

“The fire was set outside the building, which caused damage to the structure. The preliminary investigation discovered evidence to believe that the fire was suspicious in nature and may have been intentionally started,” the department said in a statement.

Police said that 36-year-old Mitchell Hoyt of San Francisco was re-arrested Tuesday on suspicion of arson, and for causing a fire to an inhabited structure. He was already in custody at San Francisco County Jail for a separate case. However, the department indicated the incident was not being treated as an antisemitic incident.

“At this time, there is no probable cause to arrest Hoyt for a hate crime,” it said. “Although an arrest has been made, this remains an open and active investigation.”

SF Hillel commented on the arrest.

“We are grateful that no one was injured,” the group said in a social media post. “At the time of the incident, only staff were present in the building; no students were inside. The individual has been arrested, and the incident is under active investigation by law enforcement. The building did sustain damage and is currently closed.”

It added, “We know this news is unsettling. Our priority remains the safety and wellbeing of our students, staff, and community. Support is available for anyone who may need it — please reach out to any SF Hillel staff member directly if you’d like to talk or access resources.”

The incident in San Francisco comes at the end of a year that has seen a series of troubling antisemitic hate crimes in the US, including the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers and the firebombing of a Jewish event in Colorado, both of which have heightened fear that the country is no longer safe for Jews.

In other incidents, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi in Missoula, Montana was charged for allegedly assaulting a Jewish man outside a homeless shelter on the second anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel; in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a man trespassed the grounds of the Jewish Resource Center and kicked its door while howling antisemitic statements; and, around the same time, at Ohio State University, an unknown person or group tacked neo-Nazi posters across the campus which warned, “We are everywhere.”

Elsewhere in California, eight students at Branham High School in the city of San Jose came together to form what police described as a “human swastika” on the campus’ football field.

More recently, the Chabad office at Michigan State University was vandalized this week, with the perpetrator graffitiing a swastika and the message “he’s back” on its door glazing.

In 2024, antisemitic hate crimes in the US reached record-setting and harrowing statistical figures, according to the latest data issued by the FBI.

Even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 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.

The wave of hatred has changed how American Jews perceive their status in America.

According to the results of a new survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Federations of North America, a majority of American Jews now consider antisemitism to be a normal and endemic aspect of life in the US.

A striking 57 percent reported believing “that antisemitism is now a normal Jewish experience,” the organizations disclosed, while 55 percent said they have personally witnessed or been subjected to antisemitic hatred, including physical assaults, threats, and harassment, in the past year.

“It is so profoundly sad that Jewish Americans are now discussing worst case scenarios,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement upon the release of the data. “When American Jews — who have built lives, careers, and families here for generations — are making contingency plans to flee, we must recognize this is a five-alarm fire for our entire country. This is not just a Jewish problem; it’s an American problem that demands immediate action from leaders at every level.”

The survey results revealed other disturbing trends: Jewish victims are internalizing their experiences, as 74 percent did not report what happened to them to “any institution or organization”; Jewish youth are bearing the brunt of antisemitism, having faced communications which aim to exclude Jews or delegitimize their concerns about rising hate; roughly a third of survey respondents show symptoms of anxiety; and the cultural climate has fostered a sense in the Jewish community that the non-Jewish community would not act as a moral guardrail against violence and threats.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

An elected official in North Carolina who refused to say “Happy Hanukkah” during a board meeting later confirmed his position during an interview.

“I’m going to defend my right to say ‘Merry Christmas,’ and I’m not going to apologize for saying ‘Merry Christmas,’” Chris Chadwick, chairman of the Carteret County Board of Commissioners, said in a phone interview with the Forward.

Chadwick made the initial comment, first reported by Coastal Review, at a Monday meeting of the commission, which serves beachside towns along North Carolina’s Crystal Coast. The commission has seven members, all Republicans.

As Chadwick was wrapping up the commission meeting, he wished the group a Merry Christmas, and Commissioner Marianne Waldrop whispered, “We haven’t said ‘Happy Hanukkah.’”

“No, we don’t say that,” Chadwick replied, as Waldrop’s mouth fell agape.

Chadwick continued, “I want to wish everybody Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year —”

“And Happy Hanukkah,” Waldrop interjected, louder this time.

“— and we appreciate y’all coming,” Chadwick concluded.

“I was setting you up for success, not failure,” Waldrop said as the board adjourned.

Chadwick, elected in 2022, said Waldrop caught him off guard, and he didn’t appreciate her “trying to tell me what to say.” He said his comment reflected that he celebrates Christmas, not Hanukkah, in his family, but he meant “nothing derogatory to Jewish people or Hanukkah or anything like that.”

He added that “there’s so much political correctness out there now, it’s hard to keep on top of it. It was a simple ‘Merry Christmas,’ and it just got turned into something that it wasn’t.”

Chadwick said he understood why Jews might be sensitive to his comments after Sunday’s deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, but he hadn’t heard about the terror attack at the time of Monday morning’s meeting.

Asked if he would include both holidays moving forward, Chadwick responded that he “could, but we don’t have many Jewish people here, so we’re just not used to doing it.”

An estimated 350 Jews lived in Carteret County in 2024, out of a total population of around 70,000.

Chadwick said he had spoken to a number of Jewish constituents about the incident who “understood completely” and taught him that Hanukkah lasts eight days.

But the remark did not sit well with Leonard Rogoff, president and historian of Jewish Heritage North Carolina.

“At a moment when Jews have been slaughtered in Australia for celebrating their holiday, when armed police guard synagogues here in North Carolina as Jews worship, for the county commissioner to refuse to acknowledge his Jewish neighbors and fellow citizens is not in keeping with the spirit of the holidays,” Rogoff told the Coastal Review. “How could Jews not take offense?”

Asked if he would do anything differently in retrospect, Chadwick said “looking back, she probably should have made her comments during her time, and let me make my comments.”

The post This politician refused to say ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ then blamed ‘political correctness’ for the backlash appeared first on The Forward.

Guinness World Records Day 2025 at Elbtor Mobile in Hamburg, Germany. Photo: Marcus Brandt via Reuters Connect

Guinness World Records is guilty of false advertising for refusing to log the accomplishments of Israelis in its publications, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law has complained to the US Federal Trade Commission in a letter demanding that the agency use its authority to stop the allegedly mendacious practice.

GWR annually publishes a Guinness World Records book, commemorating a range of human achievements, from feats of scientific discovery to musical endeavors which yielded massive record sales. However, as previously reported by The Algemeiner, GWR suspended its processing of applications reporting new records achieved in Israel and the Palestinian territories in November 2023, shortly after the war in Gaza started following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

“We are aware of just how sensitive this is at the moment,” GWR, published by the Jim Pattison Group, said in a statement issued earlier this month after the policy excluded an Israel charity’s being recognized for holding the single largest gathering of kidney donors in one place. “We truly do believe in record breaking for everyone, everywhere but unfortunately in the current climate we are not generally processing record applications from the Palestinian Territories or Israel, or where either is given as the attempt location, with the exception of those done in cooperation with a UN humanitarian aid relief agency.”

GWR’s explanation does not change the fact that it is excluding the world’s lone Jewish state from the world community over a war it did not start, the Brandeis Center said in Tuesday’s letter, arguing that, as such, Guinness World Records cannot literally claim to represent all of the world.

“They don’t have a right to deceive their readership and customer base by claiming that it is publishing ‘world records,’” Brandeis Center chairman and founder Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “We have seen again and again that Israelis are capable of besting the competition and achieving international success. Any so-called ‘world record’ excluding such talented challengers must at a minimum carry an asterisk to disclose that it is not truly a record for the entire world.”

At the least, Marcus charged, GWR should issue refunds to customers, adding, “To the extent that GWR has been deceptively selling mislabeled products to the public, it should provide their money back.”

Notably, GWR accepts hundreds of applications annually from China, a country whose government has reportedly imprisoned more than a million Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, in concentration camps. According to leaked documents from inside China, detainees in these camps have been subjected to rape, torture, forced labor, brainwashing, and forced sterilization. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the State Department under both the Trump and Biden administrations have assessed China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs.

Israel, by contrast, counts some 2 million Arab Muslims as full citizens in what is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

Chinese residents perform square dance during an attempt to set a new Guinness World Record in Chongqing, China, Nov. 7, 2016. Photo: Oriental Image via Reuters Connect

GWR has also been accused of sending mixed signals about its organization’s purported political neutrality. Its website states that it is “determined to protect the integrity of our records by remaining politically neutral.” However, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, GWR “ceased” operations in Russia and Belarus, describing the decision as a “meaningful expression of our support and solidarity.”

It continued, “This means all current business, as well as all open conversations around future business relating to publishing, record consultancy and television productions. We are also exploring how we can prevent advertising across our digital platforms from these regions. We join calls for an end to fighting in Ukraine, and in any country or region where violence and fear preside over diplomacy or peace.”

At the same time, GWR welcomes many other countries in which “violence and fear preside over diplomacy or peace,” the Brandeis Center’s letter noted.

“GWR published the 2014 world record for longest talk show broadcast by a Damascus studio aligned with Bashar al-Assad,” the Brandeis Center said, quoting its letter to the FTC. “That record came not long after the Syrian dictator’s sarin gas attack on the nearby Ghouta suburb of Damascus. More recently, GWR featured an Iranian jump rope record achieved in February 2023 while the Islamic Republic was actively rounding up tens of thousands of participants in the Women, Life, Freedom protests.”

Days after GWR’s policy of excluding Israel received headlines this month, the nonprofit organization StandWithUs sent a letter to members of the Florida State Board of Administration calling on the state of Florida to investigate GWR over its ban on applications from Israel and to ensure that public funds do not support companies engaged in such a “discriminatory policy” against the Jewish state.

StandWithUs Saidoff Law, which carries out legal action for the pro-Israel group, requested that the board investigate GWR and its affiliate Guinness World Records North America regarding the “boycott policy” to see if they should be included on Florida’s official list of “Scrutinized Companies or Other Entities that Boycott Israel” in accordance with Florida law. Guinness World Records North America is registered in Florida as a foreign profit corporation.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.