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FBI investigating after shooter fires blanks inside Russian Jewish center in San Francisco
(J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — A man fired blanks from a handgun at a Jewish center in San Francisco Wednesday, shocking a group gathered for a study session in a community space serving mainly Russian-speaking Jews.
But no one present called police, so it was not until word of the incident began circulating in the community that authorities became involved. Now, local police and the FBI are searching for the man, whom they believe may have been the same person who brandished a gun at a local theater earlier in the week.
The man entered the Schneerson Center around 7:20 p.m. in the middle of a session on the life of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, according to Rabbi Bentzion Pil, who leads the community.
After the man entered, Pil said he first asked whether he wanted to join their session. It soon became clear that was not his intention.
Instead, the man pulled out a gun and said in accented Russian that he was from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, and that he was going to start shooting, attendees said. Other outlets reported that he may have announced, “Say hello to Mossad for me.”
“I thought he was joking,” Pil told J. The Jewish News of Northern California on Thursday. “He looked like a Russian Jew.”
Located in a Richmond District neighborhood near what’s often called Little Russia, the Schneerson Center is a node of Jewish life for immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the Bay Area, where households from the former Soviet Union number between 15,000 and 20,000, according to Rabbi Shimon Margolin, who leads a local nonprofit serving Russian-speaking Jews.
A jarring video of the incident captured on a security camera shows what unfolded: A man wearing a baseball cap, jacket and sneakers enters the room and gestures animatedly with his arms while speaking to those seated around a table. After about 15 seconds, he reaches into his jacket pocket and reveals a handgun. He appears to struggle to cock the weapon, while an elderly man makes a phone call and starts walking toward him.
As the elderly man approaches, the suspect starts firing his weapon, and the elderly man crouches down. The man fires in a direction away from those seated around the table, then proceeds to fire around the room while some people clutch their ears and duck. In total the suspect fires between six and eight shots. Then he leaves.
“Everyone was stunned and shocked,” Pil said.
The video shows little movement from a dozen or so people around the table — many of whom are in their 60s or older, shul members said.
The Schneerson Center in San Francisco is a Lubavitch enterprise that serves mostly Russian-speaking Jews. (Google Maps)
Pil said the group was perplexed. “It was so unexpected from him,” he said.
One person in the group said he might have seen the suspect before. After the shooting started, Pil said he went into the kitchen to grab a knife, but by the time he got back the man was gone.
After the man left, those gathered deliberated about whether to call the police, Pil said.
“I still believe it was just a crazy guy,” he said. “He didn’t scream any antisemitic words or expressions.”
Ultimately, Pil said, they decided it wasn’t worth contacting the police because they were unhurt and they doubted the man would be kept in detention for long if he was caught.
Only the next day was law enforcement contacted after some of the younger community members heard about what had happened.
“I was shaken,” said Alon Chanukov, who viewed the incident on security footage. He said he reached the San Francisco Police Department Thursday morning and was told the matter would be referred to the investigations unit.
Chanukov said the video disturbed him greatly.
“There is a man, with a gun, who was in my shul. And I see elderly people cowering as he is firing his gun,” he said.
“This is a terrorist attack. The point of this was to cause terror,” Chanukov said. “Not to kill people. But to literally terrify Jews, as best as I can see.”
Statistics compiled by the California attorney general’s office show a rise in hate crimes targeting Jews over the last 10 years. Jews are the most frequent target of religiously motivated hate crimes in the state, numbers that accord with national figures.
Mattie Pil, the rabbi’s wife, lent another interpretation as to why the mostly senior Jews from the former Soviet Union did not contact police.
“They still feel like they’re in the Soviet Union,” she said. “There, when something happens, it’s always the fault of the Jews. If you called police, it would be your fault. So they didn’t want to make any waves.”
This story was originally reported in J. The Jewish News of Northern California, and is reprinted with permission.
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Andorra’s tiny Jewish community reels after local carnival features mock execution of Israeli effigy
(JTA) — An annual festival in Andorra drew condemnation from the country’s small Jewish community after an effigy bearing the Israeli flag was staged in a mock trial and then hung and shot.
The incident was part of the traditional Catalan festival Carnestoltes, which occurs yearly before Lent, the 40-day period that precedes Easter. At Monday’s festival in Andorra, where a mock king is typically tried and burned, organizers instead used an effigy wearing blue with the Israeli flag painted on its face.
During the festivities, the Israeli effigy was symbolically tried, hung, shot and burned, according to social media posts and a report in the Israeli outlet YNet.
ABERRANTE muestra de antisemitismo en Andorra durante el carnaval. pic.twitter.com/GeIdF635wd
— Dani Lerer (@danilerer) February 16, 2026
The incident drew outcry from the microstate’s tiny Jewish community, which only just got its first full-time rabbi, a Chabad emissary, in the last two years.
“This is a ritual they perform every year as part of carnival, where they mock many things,” Jewish Andorra resident Esther Pujol told YNet. “This time they dressed the effigy in the colors of the Israeli flag, with a Star of David on its face. They put it on trial, sentenced it to death and carried out the sentence by shooting and burning it. It is completely unacceptable.”
Pujol told the outlet that it was the first time she had seen the festival include anti-Israel or antisemitic elements, and that she had contacted Andorran lawmakers to express her outrage. The mayor of Encamp, the city where the incident took place, and local politicians took part in the ceremony, according to YNet.
The European Jewish Congress also decried the display in a post on X, writing that the mock-execution was a “deeply disturbing act that risks normalizing antisemitism and incitement.”
“This incident requires unequivocal condemnation, full clarification of responsibilities and concrete measures to ensure that antisemitism is never tolerated in public celebrations or institutions in Andorra or anywhere in Europe,” the post continued.
Other Lent festivities have also been the site of antisemitism in recent years, with Belgian celebrations in 2019 featuring antisemitic caricatures and a Spanish parade in 2020 featuring a Holocaust-themed display.
The incident marks a rare instance of open turmoil for Jews in Andorra, which is nestled between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains. While France and Spain have seen widespread pro-Palestinian protests and antisemitic incidents in recent years, Andorra has largely avoided similar tensions.
In September, Andorra formally announced its recognition of Palestinian statehood alongside a host of other European nations during the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
But local Jews have also sought to remain under the radar, considering that Andorra officially prohibits non-Catholic houses of worship. The Jewish community calls their gathering place a community center rather than a synagogue. In 2023, Andorra’s parliament elected a Jewish lawmaker for the first time.
The post Andorra’s tiny Jewish community reels after local carnival features mock execution of Israeli effigy appeared first on The Forward.
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British woman who removed an Israeli hostage poster from a memorial site is convicted of theft
(JTA) — A British woman who is married to a Jewish anti-Zionist activist has been convicted of theft in connection with a 2024 incident in which she removed an Israeli hostage poster and threw it in the trash.
Fiona Monro, 58, of Brighton, England, was found guilty of theft, but not convicted of criminal damage for charges stemming from a February 2024 incident in which she took a large laminated poster of Israeli hostage Tzachi Idan and disposed of it.
A relative of Idan who lives in a neighboring town, Howe, returned the poster to the memorial site after Monro threw it away. A week later, Monro also wrote the phrase “Pray for the 30,000 murdered Palestinians” on the memorial but was acquitted of charges related to the vandalism, according to Brighton and Hove News.
The incident came at a time when Israeli hostage posters were being vandalized frequently by activists across the globe who said they were protesting the war in Gaza. The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Idan was killed in Hamas captivity and his remains were returned to Israel a year ago during a negotiated ceasefire.
“This crime was one out of 50 times the memorial was vandalised and it took two years to get justice. But it is possible to get a win,” Heidi Bachram, one of the memorial’s organizers, told the Jewish News following Monro’s convict. “We cannot let hateful people get away with attacking us.”
Monro told police that the memorial located in Brighton’s Palmeira Square “did not represent the Jewish community,” citing her marriage to the prominent activist Tony Greenstein. Greenstein was expelled from Great Britain’s Labour Party in 2018 over his social media comments about Israel, which his party deemed antisemitic.
“The board was clearly there to justify the genocide that was happening,” Monro said in the police interview. “A large laminated board with a photograph of a hostage was highly inflammatory to many people in that community clearly found it very upsetting to have that constantly thrust in our face daily.”
After Monro’s lawyer, Hamish McCallum, requested that the jury consider whether it was proportionate to convict her on the basis she was exercising her right to express her political views, Judge Stephen Mooney rejected the proposal.
“This is not therefore a case of the state seeking to prosecute the defendant disproportionately for expressing her own views or otherwise interfering with her rights,” said Mooney. “It is a case of the state prosecuting the defendant for putting her views above those of others and causing them wholly unnecessary distress by so doing.”
Mooney gave Monro an 18-month conditional discharge and ordered her to pay $1,637 in prosecution costs.
The post British woman who removed an Israeli hostage poster from a memorial site is convicted of theft appeared first on The Forward.
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Community Leaders Slam Campaign in Canada Targeting Accreditation of Jewish Summer Camps
Illustrative: People take part in “Shut it down for Palestine!” protest outside of Tyson’s Corner as shoppers participate in Black Friday in Vienna, Virginia, US, Nov. 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
Jewish community leaders across Canada are pushing back against a campaign by anti-Zionist activists that seeks to pressure accrediting bodies to reconsider recognition of several Jewish children’s summer camps.
The controversy centers around at least 17 overnight camps in provinces including Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia, according to a statement circulated by the activist group. A coalition of leftist and pro-Palestinian groups has identified the camps and is urging provincial associations to review and potentially revoke their accreditation.
Members of the anti-Israel coalition — which includes the Palestinian Canadian Congress, Just Peace Advocates, the Ontario Palestinian Rights Association, PAJU Montreal, and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign — claim that some of the camps promote or normalize support for Israel.
Organizers say institutions connected to Israel, which they falsely accuse of committing genocide against Palestinians, should face scrutiny.
“We have identified at least 17 overnight summer camps throughout Canada that support the State of Israel in some way,” the campaign says. “These camps are not problematic because they encourage connection to Jewish identity. Rather, they pose a problem because they encourage support for a genocidal, settler-colonial state.”
Among the claims cited are that camps celebrate Israeli national holidays, incorporate Israel-focused educational content, or employ staff members who have previously served in the Israel Defense Forces, including in non-combat capacities.
The messaging reflects themes commonly associated with the BDS movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination. The campaign against Jewish camps has been endorsed by the official Canadian BDS Coalition.
The campaign appears to represent a new front in a broader pattern of activism that has targeted universities, cultural organizations, and other institutions over perceived ties to Israel.
Camp leaders and Jewish organizations say the effort singles out Jewish institutions and risks politicizing spaces designed for children, while presenting a threat to effectively dismantle Jewish life.
The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto described the campaign as harassment and intimidation directed at Jewish families. Community leaders have emphasized that summer camps are focused on youth development, cultural enrichment, and recreation, not political advocacy
“This direct targeting of Jewish campers and staff is a deliberate act of intimidation,” UJA wrote in a statement.
The Ontario Camps Association, which accredits camps in that province, also condemned the initiative. The association said accreditation decisions are based on health, safety, and program standards, not political views, and characterized the coalition’s allegations as discriminatory.
The dispute has unfolded amid a surge in antisemitic incidents over the past two years, following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
According to the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada, which tracks antisemitism across the country, antisemitic incidents in 2024 rose 7.4 percent from 2023, with 6,219 adding up to the highest total recorded since it began tracking such data in 1982. Seventeen incidents occurred on average every day, while online antisemitism exploded a harrowing 161 percent since 2022. As standalone provinces, Quebec and Alberta saw the largest percentage increases, by 215 percent and 160 percent, respectively.