St. Louis’ Jewish community is reeling after a targeted antisemitic attack in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning on a family whose college-aged son served in the IDF.

The family, living in a quiet suburban neighborhood with a significant Jewish population, found three of their cars burned and a message spray-painted on the street which read, in part, “Death to the IDF.” Another part of the message specifically targeted the IDF veteran, local news reports and members of the local Jewish community said, but has not been publicly disclosed.

The attack has shaken a Jewish community that has faced frequent and heated protests since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. This is the first time that activity has turned openly violent. Local and federal officials are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

“People are just really startled,” Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham, a board member of the Missouri Alliance Network, a local political organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel, said. 

He said the local Jewish community has been “on edge” for months following the violent antisemitic attacks in Washington and Boulder, Colo. “But when it actually happens in your own backyard, it takes on a different meaning. I think people are legitimately worried and also just really upset.”

Abraham said that he and other Jewish leaders are in close touch with local law enforcement, but attacks targeting individual families are harder to prevent than those targeting Jewish institutions.

“[Law enforcement] know any time we’re having a service or event, but it’s hard to protect everyone’s individual home in the middle of the night,” Abraham said. He said he’d had a conversation earlier Wednesday with a congregant who asked if he should take down his mezuzah, for fear that it would make his home a target.

Stacey Newman, director of the Missouri Alliance Network, said the community is “completely on edge.”

“Everybody’s worried about their kids,” Newman continued. Newman said she’s heard about another family whose children had served in the IDF that had asked local police to keep a closer watch on their home.

A coalition of Jewish organizations including the local American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League and National Council of Jewish Women branches, the St. Louis Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum issued a joint statement condemning the attack.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the attack on members of our community last night. This is more than vandalism; it is a hateful act of intimidation and only the latest example of what happens when antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric are normalized,” the organizations said. “We are a resilient community, and we will not be deterred in our quest to uproot antisemitism and hatred, alone and with our partners. Antisemitism is a social ill that must be rejected by all of society.”

Local and federal officials have condemned the attack.

“This targeted attack against the Jewish community in St. Louis is horrific and must be met with full condemnation,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said. “Antisemitism has no place in our society. Everyone involved in this awful attack must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) said, “Hate in any form is unacceptable and should never be tolerated. Those responsible must be held accountable to the full extent of law.”

Leo Terrell, who leads the Department of Justice’s antisemitism task force, described the incident as “horrific,” and said that he had engaged the FBI and the attorney general, as well as spoken directly to the family and informed them that the DOJ task force will be focused on the attack.

“I am outraged. Antisemitic violence has no place in America, not in St. Louis and not anywhere,” Terrell said. “We will pursue every avenue to bring the perpetrators to justice. If you commit antisemitic hate crimes, you will be caught. And you will be held accountable.”

State Rep. George Hruza described the incident as “Jew-hatred violence” and an “act of pure evil,” linking it to the attacks in Washington and Boulder, Colo.

“Nothing happening in the world at large can justify such a hateful act,” Hruza said. “This incident is antisemitism, plain and simple. This act did not arise in a vacuum. Since the mass murder, torture, rapes, and hostage-taking by the terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic rhetoric has become commonplace in the United States. Tragically, with echoes of 1930s Germany, this rhetoric has fueled incitement to violence.”

Hruza, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said he is angry but committed to continuing to push to pass legislation to combat antisemitism in the state Legislature.

Newman and Abraham said that the IDF veteran in question had been individually targeted by protests in the past, when he delivered a speech in the community following his return from his service earlier this year.

A poster advertising that protest, reviewed by JI, includes the individual’s name and photograph, and the caption “Resistance is Justified, When People are Occupied,” and calls on supporters to “join us for a powerful demonstration to oppose the Zionist military presence in our community and to demand accountability for those who help commit atrocities abroad.”