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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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Singer James Maslow Expresses Solidarity With Israel in New Song ‘On My Mind’
James Maslow in front of the Dizengoff Fountain in Tel Aviv in the music video for “On My Mind.” Photo: YouTube screenshot
Actor and singer James Maslow recently released a single in collaboration with Israeli artists that celebrates Israel and showcases his solidarity with the Jewish state amid its war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
The Jewish artist, who is famously known for his leading role in the Nickelodeon series “Big Time Rush” and as a member of the platinum-selling band of the same name, released on Oct. 3 a track titled “On My Mind,” featuring Shahar Saul, one of Israel’s up and coming rappers, and Israeli vocalist Maya Dadon. “On My Mind” combines “international pop with Middle Eastern influences, reflecting the diversity and vibrancy of Israel itself,” according to a media release about the single.
The music video for the song was filmed in Israel during the Gaza war and is “both a visual love letter to the country and a reminder of the resilience of its people.” The video was made in partnership with Birthright Israel Foundation.
“‘On My Mind’ is about connection, resilience, and remembering those who cannot be forgotten,” Maslow said in a released statement. “Filming in Israel, during such a difficult time, was my way of showing solidarity with a country and people I deeply respect. Working with two incredible Israeli artists made the project even more meaningful.”
During an interview Monday on “CUOMO,” Maslow said the song celebrates Israel’s “diversity, the acceptance, and all the things that I know to be true about it.”
“I have been over there shooting the video to utilize this as hopefully a bridge to bring a bit of a better light to Israel, to Judaism, and hopefully start a conversation where people may realize, ‘Oh, wait a second, I may not have all the facts or I might be being misled right now,’” he added.
“We have normalized antisemitism to the likes of which I never thought that I would see in my life,” Maslow said. “That’s not OK. And that’s why I created this song. And that’s why I’m here today and why I’m standing up.”
Maslow timed the release of “On My Mind” to have it debut mere days before the second anniversary of the deadly Hamas terrorist attack that took place in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Maslow traveled to Washington, DC, to join commemorations for the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre.
“On My Mind” is streaming on all major platforms. Watch the music video below.
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Israel Declares Hamas Defeated ‘Every Place We Fought Them’ as Ceasefire Begins
An Israeli military tank prepares to move atop a truck, after US President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas agreed on the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire, on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Oct. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Hamas is no longer the terrorist group whose invasion of Israel triggered the two-year war in Gaza, the Israeli military spokesperson said on Friday at the start of a ceasefire with the Palestinian Islamist organization.
“Hamas is not the Hamas of two years ago. Hamas has been defeated every place we fought them,” Brigadier General Effie Defrin, the military spokesperson, told reporters at a briefing.
He urged Palestinian residents of Gaza to avoid entering areas under control by the Israel Defense Forces in the enclave.
“I am calling from here on the residents of Gaza to avoid entering areas under IDF control. Keep to the agreement and ensure your safety,” he said.
Thousands of displaced Palestinians began flocking towards their abandoned homes after a US-brokered ceasefire took effect on Friday and Israeli troops began pulling back from parts of Gaza.
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Man Wins Appeal Over Conviction for Burning Koran Outside London’s Turkish Consulate
The cover of a Koran. Photo: Wiki Commons.
A man found guilty of committing a religiously aggravated public order offense by setting fire to a copy of the Koran outside London’s Turkish consulate had his conviction overturned on Friday in what supporters said was a victory for free speech.
Hamit Coskun, 51, was fined 240 pounds ($325) at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court in June after being convicted of an offense by shouting “F–k Islam” as he held aloft the burning book near the consulate in central London in February.
The decision to overturn that verdict after an appeal at London’s Southwark Crown Court was hailed by his supporters as an important triumph for freedom of expression.
“Hamit Coskun’s protest was a lawful act of political dissent,” Stephen Evans, chief executive of the National Secular Society which supported his case, said in a statement. “There is no need to condone the nature of his demonstration – what is important is that it was not criminal.”
Coskun, whose father was Kurdish and his mother Armenian and who lived in central England, had denied the charge and said on social media he was carrying out a protest against the Turkish government. While he was holding the book aloft, he was attacked by a man with a knife who kicked and spat at him.
In its appeal ruling, the court said prosecutors had not properly shown that his behavior was disorderly nor that it was within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused distress.
“Today’s decision reaffirms the vital principle that free speech protects the right to offend, shock, or disturb – even when it challenges deeply held religious beliefs,” Evans said.