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Man arrested in shooting at San Francisco Jewish center, charged with drawing imitation firearm
(JTA) — Police in San Francisco have arrested a man they believe is responsible for shooting blanks during a study session inside a Jewish center there.
The San Francisco Police Department announced an arrest early Saturday in the incident, which took place on Wednesday but was not reported to authorities until the following day. They said they had detained a man in the city’s Richmond District and uncovered evidence in a search tying him to the incident at the Schneerson Jewish Center and to a different incident in a local theater.
The police did not release the name of the man they arrested, but the San Francisco’s Sheriff’s Office shows that Dmitri Mishin, 51, was booked early Saturday morning on charges of disturbing a religious meeting and drawing or exhibiting an imitation firearm. He remained in the county jail as of Monday morning.
Mishin appears to have posted a video on social media days before the shooting showing something burning outside the Schneerson Center, according to a report in The San Francisco Standard, a local news organization; a Twitter account that appears to have been his also posted antisemitic imagery in the days before the shooting incident.
People at the Jewish center, which largely serves Russian-speaking immigrants, did not call police when the man brandished a gun during a study session. They said they thought the man was mentally ill.
“At the beginning, we weren’t sure. I wasn’t so upset,” Mattie Pil, who runs the Schneerson Center with her husband Rabbi Bentziyon Pil, told The Standard after learning about the shooter’s identity. “But now I’m getting to the point that I’m disturbed a little. It’s not a simple case like I thought.”
Mattie Pil also addressed the incident in a short video about the weekly Torah portion that she uploaded to YouTube on Friday.
The incident has returned the Pils to headlines decades after they first landed in the spotlight because of legal troubles related to nonprofits that they ran at the time. In the 1990s, The Wall Street Journal raised questions about the financial practices of the couple’s used-car donation nonprofit; Bentziyon Pil ultimately pled guilty to a financial crime after a sprawling investigation spurred by the newspaper’s reporting and was sentenced to nine months in a halfway house.
Pil and her husband are followers of the last Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, but they are not official emissaries of the Chabad movement. In fact, shortly after the Wall Street Journal expose ran, the couple received Chabad’s first-ever formal request to stop using Schneerson’s name, which they then used for an elementary school they operated. Bentziyon Pil said at the time that he did not intend to comply.
The shooting incident has also drawn attention to a different Jewish community center serving Russian-speaking immigrants that opened in San Francisco last year less than a mile from the Schneerson Center. (The reclusive founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, donated to buy the $3.5 million building.)
Rabbi Shimon Margolin, the center’s founder, issued a video statement in Russian on Facebook and sent viewers to the center’s page for more information.
“The Russian-speaking Jewish Community of SF Bay Area expresses our sympathy, support and solidarity with the community of the Schneerson Jewish Center,” the center said in a statement that outlined its own security practices, which it said had been supported by federal authorities and the local Jewish federation.
“No one can enter our community center at will — the doors are locked at all times and someone has to knock and be screened in order to enter our building,” the center wrote. “We are in the process of adding material improvements to our building that would enhance the security even further.”
As for the Schneerson Center, its website displayed a bright red banner over the weekend. It read in all capital letters, “Schneerson Center shooting update: Thanks to God, everyone is fine.”
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The post Man arrested in shooting at San Francisco Jewish center, charged with drawing imitation firearm appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Pope Leo Says Those Who Wage War Are Thieves Stealing Away Our Peaceful Future
Pope Leo XIV looks on as he meets with Catholic religious education teachers attending a national meeting organised by the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, April 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Pope Leo on Sunday described those who wage wars and appropriate the earth’s resources as thieves who rob the world of a peaceful future, issuing a warning about the use of nuclear power on the anniversary of the Chernobyl reactor accident.
Ukraine is commemorating the 40th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster on Sunday amid lingering fears that Russia’s four-year-old war could spark a repeat of the tragedy.
In his weekly address after the Angelus prayer, the Pontiff said the Chernobyl accident had left a mark on humankind’s collective conscience.
“It remains a warning over the use of ever more powerful technologies,” the Pope, who has just returned from a 10-day tour across four African nations, said.
“I hope that at all decision-making levels, wisdom and responsibility always prevail, so that atomic power can always be used to support life and peace,” he added.
Commenting on the Gospel of the day, which contained the metaphor of a sheep thief, Pope Leo said thieves came under many appearances, listing as examples “superficial lifestyles driven by consumerism,” prejudices and wrong ideas.
“And let’s not forget also those thieves who, by plundering the earth’s resources, by fighting bloody wars or feeding evil in whichever form, are simply taking away from all of us the chance of a future of peace and serenity,” he added.
Leo, the first US pontiff, has attracted the ire of President Donald Trump after becoming more outspoken against war and despotism.
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UK’s Starmer and Trump Discuss ‘Urgent Need’ to Restore Shipping in Strait of Hormuz
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) hold a bilateral meeting at Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump discussed the urgent need to get shipping moving again in the Strait of Hormuz during a call on Sunday, a Downing Street spokesperson said.
“The leaders discussed the urgent need to get shipping moving again in the Strait of Hormuz, given the severe consequences for the global economy and cost of living for people in the UK and globally,” the spokesperson for Starmer’s office said in a statement.
“The prime minister shared the latest progress on his joint initiative with President (Emmanuel) Macron to restore freedom of navigation,” the spokesperson added.
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Palestinian Leader’s Loyalists Win Local Elections, Including Some Seats in Gaza
A Palestinian man votes during the municipal election at a polling station in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip April 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas won most races in Palestinian municipal elections, election officials said on Sunday, in a vote that for the first time in nearly two decades included a city in the Gaza Strip run by rival Hamas.
Saturday’s ballot marked the first elections of any kind in Gaza since 2006 and the first Palestinian polls since the Gaza war began more than two years ago with Hamas’ cross‑border attack on southern Israel.
Abbas’ West Bank–based Palestinian Authority (PA) said the inclusion of the Gaza city Deir al‑Balah, which suffered less damage than other areas of the coastal territory during the war, was intended to show that Gaza was an inseparable part of a future Palestinian state.
The elections, in which voter turnout was low, had been held “at a highly sensitive moment amid complex challenges and exceptional circumstances,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said as results were announced on Sunday.
But they represented “an important first step in a broader national process aimed at strengthening democratic life … and ultimately achieving the unity of the homeland,” he said.
POSSIBLE INDICATOR OF HAMAS SUPPORT
Hamas, which ousted the PA from Gaza in 2007, did not formally nominate candidates in Gaza and boycotted the race in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Fatah’s victory was widely expected.
But some candidates on one of the Deir al-Balah lists were widely seen by residents and analysts as aligned with the movement, making the vote a potential indicator of support for the Islamist group.
Preliminary results showed that the list, known as Deir al‑Balah Brings Us Together, won only two of the 15 seats contested in Gaza.
The Nahdat Deir al‑Balah list, backed by Abbas’ Fatah party and the Western-backed PA, secured six seats. The remaining seats were won by two other Gaza-based groups, Future of Deir al‑Balah and Peace and Building, not affiliated with either faction.
Abbas loyalists swept the election in the West Bank, running unchallenged in many seats.
Fatah spokesperson Abdul Fattah Dawla noted that turnout was close to that for the last municipal elections in the West Bank, in 2022, praising voters for participating despite ongoing violence by Israel.
“By electing figures linked to Fatah, voters appear to be seeking unrestricted international support for municipal governance and a gradual political shift that could extend beyond the local level,” said Palestinian political analyst Reham Ouda.
The recent war has left much of Gaza reduced to rubble, with many residents displaced and focused on survival. Israel has continued conducting strikes despite an October ceasefire.
In Gaza, voter turnout reached just 23 percent, while in the West Bank it was 56 percent, according to Chairman of the Central Elections Commission Rami al‑Hamdallah.
Al‑Hamdallah said some of the ballot boxes and voting equipment did not make it into the enclave because of Israeli security restrictions, though those challenges were overcome.
Hamas’ Gaza spokesperson, Hazem Qassem, downplayed the significance of the election results, saying that they had no impact on wider national issues.