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FBI arrests Michigan man it says was planning attack on East Lansing synagogue
(JTA) — A Michigan man who praised mass shooters had outlined a plan to attack an East Lansing synagogue, according to FBI investigators who arrested the man on Friday.
Seann Pietila, 19, discussed his plans to stage a mass shooting in private messages on Instagram, according to documents filed last week when he was charged with communicating a threat across state lines.
Pietila was arrested on Friday after FBI officials were alerted to his communications earlier in the week and worked to confirm his real identity. When investigators went to his home, they found multiple unsecured guns as well as tactical gear and “a red and white Nazi flag,” according to charging documents filed on Friday. A search of his phone revealed a note with the name of Congregation Shaarey Zedek along with a date — March 15, 2024 — and a list of supplies, including guns and pipe bombs.
Pietila told investigators that he did not plan to carry out the attack, which he said he had originally set for this year, and that he planned to kill himself. He lived in East Lansing until recently.
The arrest came a day after a Pittsburgh jury returned a guilty verdict in the trial of the man who murdered 11 Jews in their synagogue there in 2018.
Shabbat services went on as planned at Shaarey Zedek, a Reform synagogue with about 220 families. “I think people are relieved to know that this person is in custody,” Rabbi Amy Bigman told the Lansing State Journal. “I’m sure that some people are nervous and might not come to the synagogue, which is understandable. … It’s stressful, there’s no doubt about that. And it’s scary to live in this world where antisemitism has been on the rise for so long.”
Pietila’s arrest is the latest in a string of arrests in Michigan of people engaged in extremist and antisemitic activity. In March, the FBI arrested a man it said had plotted to kill Jewish officials in the state. Last December, meanwhile, a man was arrested after harassing synagogue-goers in a suburb of Detroit.
It also adds to a string of arrests in cases where officials say they have apprehended potential synagogue attackers. Last November, the FBI arrested a New Jersey teenager who they said was responsible for a vague threat communicated online that resulted in Jewish institutions across the state briefly shutting down. Later that month, two men were arrested in New York City after a Jewish security agency flagged their posts online and alerted authorities.
The charging documents in Pietila’s case indicate an extensive and rapid effort to identify the source of the social media posts, which included chats with an online acquaintance musing about thwarted romantic interests and efforts to find a job. In the posts, Pietila expresses admiration for the shooter who killed 10 Black shoppers in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in 2022, as well as for the man who massacred 51 Muslims in two mosques in New Zealand in 2019. He also makes extensive antisemitic comments and indicates that he has started to amass the supplies that would be needed to carry out an attack.
The text message exchanges also shed light on complicated role of technology companies seeking to address hate on their platforms. The FBI indicates that both Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Discord, a secure messaging platform, cooperated with its requests for information about the accounts that shared the threatening content.
But at the same time, Pietila’s conversations show how the platforms allow for the spread of hateful material. At one point, the person he is messaging with says this to explain how he plans to stream his own planned attack: “probably going to use discord as we used a camera to share the mosque and we didn’t get banned for days.” It was a reference to the 2019 New Zealand shooting, which was streamed live online and has inspired multiple mass shooters, including the man who attacked a Poway, California, synagogue a month later.
Pietila responded: “I honestly didn’t know b.t [the shooter’s initials] attacked more than one. Seriously though, F—ing kikes ruin everything they touch. I’d probably do it on discord for people, so they could screen record and send it to others or post it online.”
The FBI’s charging documents show that Pietila was identified in part because of pictures of himself with a cat that were posted on multiple social media platforms.
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The post FBI arrests Michigan man it says was planning attack on East Lansing synagogue appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Frank Gehry, renowned architect who began life as Frank Goldberg, dies at 96
(JTA) — Frank Gehry, a Jewish architect who became one of the world’s most renowned innovators in his field for his contributions to modernist architecture, including the famed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has died at 96.
His death following a brief respiratory illness was confirmed on Friday by the chief of staff at his firm, Meaghan Lloyd, according to the New York Times.
Gehry was born Ephraim Owen Goldberg on Feb. 28, 1929, to a Jewish family in Toronto. In 1947, Gehry moved to Los Angeles with his family and later went on to graduate from the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture in 1954.
The same year, he changed his name to Gehry at the behest of his first wife who was “worried about antisemitism and thought it sounded less Jewish.” He would later say he would not make the choice again.
Among Gehry’s most acclaimed works, which feature his signature, sculptural style, are the Bilbao Guggenheim, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris and the DZ Bank Building in Berlin.
Gehry also often returned to the motif of a fish, including two large fish sculptures in the World Trade Center in New York City and on Barcelona’s seafront. Some tied the fish motif to his recollections about his Jewish grandmother’s trips to the fishmonger to prepare for Shabbat each week.
“We’d put it in the bathtub,” Gehry said, according to the New York Times. “And I’d play with this fish for a day until she killed it and made gefilte fish.”
Gehry began to identify as an atheist shortly after his bar mitzvah. But in 2018, while he was working on ANU-Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, he told the Jewish Journal that Judaism had influenced his career nonetheless.
“There’s a curiosity built into the [Jewish] culture,” he said. “I grew up under that. My grandfather read Talmud to me. That’s one of the Jewish things I hang on to probably — that philosophy from that religion. Which is separate from God. It’s more ephemeral. I was brought up with that curiosity. I call it a healthy curiosity. Maybe it is something that the religion has produced. I don’t know. It’s certainly a positive thing.”
In 1989, Gehry won the prestigious Pritzker Prize, considered one of the top awards in the field of architecture, and in 1999 won the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects. In 2007, Gehry also received the Jerusalem Prize for Arts and Letters and in 2016 won the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-president Barack Obama.
His survivors include his wife, Berta Isabel Aguilera, daughter Brina, and sons Alejandro and Samuel. Another daughter, Leslie Gehry Brenner, died of cancer in 2008.
The post Frank Gehry, renowned architect who began life as Frank Goldberg, dies at 96 appeared first on The Forward.
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Herzog Says Wellbeing of Israelis His Only Concern in Deal With Netanyahu’s ‘Extraordinary’ Pardon Request
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during a press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics in Riga, Latvia, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
i24 News – In an interview with Politico published on Saturday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog remained tight-lipped on whether he intended to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “extraordinary” pardon request, saying that his decision will be motivated by what’s best for Israel.
“There is a process which goes through the Justice Ministry and my legal adviser and so on. This is certainly an extraordinary request and above all when dealing with it I will consider what is the best interest of the Israeli people,” Herzog said. “The well-being of the Israeli people is my first, second and third priority.”
Asked specifically about President Donald Trump’s request, Herzog said “I respect President Trump’s friendship and his opinion,” adding, “Israel, naturally, is a sovereign country.”
Herzog addressed a wide range of topics in the interview, including the US-Israel ties and the shifts in public opinion on Israel.
“One has to remember that the fountains of America, of American life, are based on biblical values, just like ours. And therefore, I believe that the underlying fountain that we all drink from is the same,” he said. “However, I am following very closely the trends that I see in the American public eye and the attitude, especially of young people, on Israel.”
“It comes from TikTok,” he said of the torrent of hostility toward Israel that has engulf swathes of U.S. opinion since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, “from a very shallow discourse of the current situation, pictures or viewpoints, and doesn’t judge from the big picture, which is, is Israel a strategic ally? Yes. Is Israel contributing to American national interests, security interests? Absolutely yes. Is Israel a beacon of democracy in the Middle East? Absolutely yes.”
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Syria’s Sharaa Charges Israel ‘Exports Its Crises to Other Countries’
FILE PHOTO: Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday escalated his messaging against Israel at the Doha forum.
“Israel is working to export its own crises to other countries and escape accountability for the massacres it committed in the Gaza Strip, justifying everything with security concerns,” he said.
“Meanwhile, Syria, since its liberation, has sent positive messages aimed at establishing the foundations of regional stability.
“Israel has responded to Syria with extreme violence, launching over 1,000 airstrikes and carrying out 400 incursions into its territory. The latest of these attacks was the massacre it perpetrated in the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside, which claimed dozens of lives.
“We are working with influential countries worldwide to pressure Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied after December 8, 2014, and all countries support this demand.
“Syria insists on Israel’s adherence to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. The demand for a demilitarized zone raises many questions. Who will protect this zone if there is no Syrian army presence?
“Any agreement must guarantee Syria’s interests, as it is Syria that is subjected to Israeli attacks. So, who should be demanding a buffer zone and withdrawal?”