The suspect in an arson attack that destroyed Mississippi’s largest synagogue early Saturday morning confessed to targeting the building because of its “Jewish ties,” the FBI announced on Monday. 

In an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Mississippi more than 48 hours after the attack, the FBI said the suspect, Stephen Spencer Pittman, 19, admitted to starting the blaze at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., due to “the building’s Jewish ties.” In an interview with the Jackson Fire Department, he referred to the institution as the “synagogue of Satan,” a historically antisemitic phrase that has been re-popularized by far-right commentator Candace Owens. 

Pittman appeared in court Monday to face arson charges, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which made no mention of hate crime charges. If convicted, Pittman faces a minimum penalty of 5 years and a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s field office in Jackson told Jewish Insider on Monday that no press conference providing further details is planned. 

According to the affidavit, Pittman told investigators he stopped at a gas station on his way to the synagogue to purchase the gasoline used in the fire. At the station, he removed his license plate. He broke into a window of the synagogue shortly after 3 a.m. on Saturday using an ax, doused the inside in gas and used a torch lighter to start the fire. No congregants were injured in the blaze.

According to the complaint, Pittman also admitted to committing arson in text messages to his father, who told authorities.  

Pittman texted a photo of the synagogue, accompanied by messages that said, “There’s a furnace in the back,” “BTW my plate is off,” “Hoodie is on” and, “And they have the best cameras.”

Pittman posted a link on what appears to be his Instagram account to One Purpose, a website with the description, “Scripture-backed fitness. Brotherhood accountability. Life-expectancy-maxxing.” The top of the site has the Hebrew four-letter name for God and the words “Build Your Temple for His Glory.” 

In one recent Instagram post, Pittman shared a list of foods suggested for a “Christian Diet/Testosterone Optimization” which included the Hebrew words for “butter” and “olive oil” under “only God-made fats.” 

Pittman primarily posted about baseball, but one day before the attack shared a repost of a “Jew in Backyard” cartoon in which a character with horns and a large nose, wearing a Star of David, is holding two moneybags. “A Jew in our backyard. I can’t believe my Jewcrow didn’t work,” a woman says, pointing to a waiter with a sign asking for tips.

Beth Israel is the only synagogue in Jackson, the state’s capital and most populous city. The historic building also houses the offices of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which supports Jewish life in the region.   

Located in a major hub of the Civil Rights Movement, Beth Israel was bombed in 1967 by the Ku Klux Klan over the rabbi’s support for racial justice — including providing chaplain services to activists incarcerated for challenging segregated bussing in the state. 

Two Torah scrolls were destroyed in the fire, and five more were damaged. A Torah that survived the Holocaust, which was kept in a glass case, was unharmed. The congregation’s library and administrative office were ruined, and the congregation has canceled services indefinitely. 

Hours after the man accused of an arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in April pled guilty to the attempted murder of Gov. Josh Shapiro, the governor appeared to publicly acknowledge for the first time that the attacker targeted him for his faith.

Cody Balmer was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison for the attack, which took place hours after Shapiro and his family hosted a Passover Seder at the governor’s residence in Harrisburg. Balmer said after his arrest that he was motivated by the war in Gaza, and that he wanted Shapiro to know that Balmer “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.” Shapiro has avoided calling the attack a hate crime. 

In a CNN interview on Tuesday, Shapiro was asked by anchor Jake Tapper if he believed he was “targeted just because you’re Jewish.”

“​​Look, obviously, as governor of Pennsylvania I don’t have foreign policy in my job description. But clearly, the district attorney thought that this was a material fact,” Shapiro said. “Clearly this was a motivating factor.” 

Balmer did not face hate crime charges in the case. 

“Whatever is motivating this political violence in this country, it needs to stop. Whether it’s targeting me because of my faith, whether it’s targeting someone else because of their ideology, it is not OK,” Shapiro told Tapper. “I think we need all leaders to speak and act with moral clarity, to call it out, to condemn it, and to try and take down the temperature so we don’t end up in situations like this where public officials are targeted because of their faith or their feelings or their ideology.”

A new video released by prosecutors this week shows Balmer walking through the governor’s residence and attempting to kick down doors to the area where Shapiro and his family slept. He is seen throwing Molotov cocktails into a room filled with round tables where the seder had taken place hours before.

Authorities in the District of Columbia announced on Thursday that they filed federal hate crime charges against Elias Rodriguez, the suspect in the fatal shooting in May of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. 

The indictment on nine counts, filed on Wednesday, includes a charge relating to a hate crime resulting in death and comes more than two months after Rodriguez was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, the murder of foreign officials, causing death with a firearm and discharging a firearm in a violent crime for the May 21 attack. 

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday morning about the new charges, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said that the indictment was a continuation of “our journey to seek justice for not only two, but four victims of this horrific crime, which has had enormous consequences and repercussions, not just in the District, but nationwide and worldwide, not only affecting these victims and their families, but opening old wounds and revictimizing victims of past antisemitism.”

“A D.C. grand jury has charged in this indictment two hate crimes, alleging that he murdered Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim because of his bias against the people of Israel. He demonstrated this hatred through his words, ‘Death to Israel,’ and his violent actions against Yaron and Sarah and their co-workers from the Israeli Embassy,” Pirro said.

Pirro, who said in May that Rodriguez was eligible for the death penalty while vowing to prosecute the case to the fullest extent of the law, said on Thursday that the indictment “begins the statutory process on whether to seek the death penalty.” 

“This is a weighty decision. It takes time. There will be a rigorous process, after which the capital case section in the attorney general’s office will advise the attorney general and the attorney general herself will make a decision regarding whether or not this office will seek death against Elias Rodriguez,” Pirro said. 

“We are starting the process. We’ve made no decision yet,” she added of seeking the death penalty, again noting that Attorney General Pam Bondi “will determine whether or not to authorize my office to seek death.”

Pirro added that Lischinsky and Milgrim’s parents, with whom she’s been in contact, had been made aware that “they will have an opportunity and a right to put their input into what decision is ultimately made” on if the Justice Department will seek capital punishment. 

Rodriguez will appear in federal court in D.C. on Friday for a hearing on the broader indictment against him, where more details about the new charges are expected to be discussed. 

The new filing alleges that Rodriguez flew from Chicago, Ill., to Washington the day before the attack with “a Heckler and Koch VP9 SK 9mm semi-automatic handgun packed in his luggage,” and wrote in a document dated that same day that, “Those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.” 

He purchased a ticket the next day to the reception taking place later that evening for young diplomats and Jewish professionals hosted by the American Jewish Committee in the nation’s capital.

Lischinsky and Milgrim, a couple who worked at the Israeli Embassy, were shot at point-blank range while leaving the museum event. Rodriguez, a 31-year-old Chicago native, was seen on video shouting “free Palestine” after the attack. A witness to the attack told Jewish Insider that Rodriguez also shouted, “I did it for Gaza.”

In addition to Lischinsky and Milgrim, Rodriguez also assaulted two individuals, referred to in the indictment as C.S. and A.T., “with the intent to kill a person,” Pirro said on Thursday.

Reid Davis, the special agent in charge for the FBI Washington field office’s criminal division, said investigators believe Rodriguez acted alone and was “motivated by anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian ideology.”

Davis said that the “FBI investigation to date indicates that the subject acted alone with the intent to commit a violent act in the District of Columbia. Based on his writings and communications, we believe he was a lone-wolf actor motivated by anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian ideology, with the goal of conducting a mass shooting to call attention to his political agenda.”

The indictment also claims that Rodriguez expressed support for violence against Israelis in correspondence on social media prior to the attack. It states that he sent a direct message through a social media platform in May of 2024 that stated: “please please please god please vaporize every Israeli 18 and above so these kids have some chance at becoming human,” according to the indictment.

Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said at Thursday’s presser that her office, which oversees the certification of any federal hate crime charges, moved to do so “in this case with alacrity.” 

“The Civil Rights Division is committed to ensuring that every community in these United States is safe from violence, intimidation and discrimination, as in this case,” Dhillon said. “This indictment reflects our ongoing commitment to hold these criminals accountable, and we will continue to relentlessly pursue justice for Yaron and Sarah, their families and their communities.”

“I hope this beginning of this process brings some comfort to the many people in this community who have approached the Department of Justice and expressed their deep concern for their safety. I think no one can claim that this is not a serious problem here in our district right now, and it is embarrassing as an American to see that,” she continued.

Pirro, who was confirmed by the Senate to her role last week after being appointed by President Donald Trump in early May, vowed in closing remarks that “violence against anyone in this District will not be tolerated, especially violence which has hate at its core and is the genesis of violence.”

“The president put me here to do a job, to clean up the district, to make sure that crime doesn’t overshadow this phenomenal city, our nation’s capital. I have, throughout my career, fought antisemitism for 32 years as a prosecutor and a judge. I fight hate crimes with a vengeance,” Pirro said, referencing her tenure as Westchester County, N.Y., district attorney.

D.C. Metropolitan Police Assistant Chief Ramey J. Kyle, who leads the Investigative Services Bureau, said that the new charges emphasized their “collective commitment” to ensuring Rodriguez faces the maximum penalty for these murders.

“The charges unveiled here this morning underscore our collective commitment to ensuring Rodriguez faces the maximum punishment possible,” Kyle said.

News of the indictment was well received by leading Jewish organizations.

The American Jewish Committee said in a statement that Milgrim and Lischinsky’s “young lives and full potential were horrifically stolen,” calling their murders a “deliberate and heinous act” that was “a deeply personal tragedy for their families and for the entire AJC community.” 

“It was an assault on the values we hold as Americans, as Jews, and as members of a shared society. Their families deserve justice and healing. We are grateful for the vigor with which the Department of Justice has proceeded thus far, and are confident that it will diligently continue its pursuit of justice for this murderous hate crime,” the statement read. 

“The May 21 shooting outside the Museum was motivated by hatred but we will not allow acts of terrorism to silence or isolate us. We honor the memories of Sarah and Yaron by remembering their values, their work, and the life they should have lived together and by redoubling our efforts to ensure that the Jewish people and the State of Israel are safe and thriving and to build a world grounded in respect, safety, and justice,” it continued. 

The Anti-Defamation League wrote in a social media post that they “welcome these charges as an important step toward justice for the families of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim and the greater Jewish community. May their memories always be for a blessing.”

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.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is holding firm in his choice not to label the arson attack that targeted the governor’s mansion on Passover as antisemitic or a hate crime, saying in a Friday interview on ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that he will leave that question to the prosecutors. 

“I think that’s a question for the prosecutors to determine. They’re going to determine motive,” Shapiro said. “I recognize when you’re in these positions of power, there are people out there that want to do you harm, but I try not to be captive to the fear, and I try not to worry or think about why people want to do that harm.”

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos pressed Shapiro on the question, noting that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called on the Department of Justice to investigate the attack as a hate crime. Shapiro stood by his statement made on Thursday that Schumer’s letter was not “helpful.”

Stephanopoulos followed up with an opportunity for Shapiro to address antisemitism by connecting the attack on the governor’s mansion to the 2018 Tree of Life shooting. 

Shapiro’s job, Stephanopoulos argued, “is to combat the kind of conditions we’re seeing to create the opportunity for situations like this. Pennsylvania is no stranger to this,” he said. “We saw the attack in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. How do you combat this kind of hate?”

Shapiro pivoted away from the comparison. “By speaking and acting with moral clarity,” Shapiro responded.

Rather than mentioning antisemitism in his response, Shapiro instead spoke about political violence. He talked about the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump in Butler, Pa., last summer and mentioned the arrest of Luigi Mangione, the man charged with murdering the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in Altoona, Pa. 

“I think it’s also important when you’re not dealing with a traumatic event, in Butler, in Altoona or here in Harrisburg, to be leading every day in a way that brings people together and doesn’t just continually divide us,” said Shapiro. 

Recently released statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation — indicating the highest number of antisemitic hate crimes in a decade — “severely” undercounted the number of incidents, New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Monday.

James and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost joined a webcast hosted by the American Jewish Committee to discuss the release of the FBI’s annual hate crimes report, which found that hate crimes targeting the Jewish community had increased by 14% in 2019.

James said she questioned the accuracy of the data, suggesting that underreporting from both local law enforcement and the impacted communities themselves led to a lower number.

The New York attorney general — who described herself as an “honorary member of the Orthodox community,” having represented Crown Heights in the New York City Council for 10 years — sees the latter issue as a particular problem in what she called the “insular” Orthodox Jewish community.

“Going forward, obviously we’ve got to do a better job, particularly in the Orthodox community,” she said. “We’ve got to inform them and educate them and encourage them with respect to reporting these crimes.”

Yost agreed that underreporting is an issue for many categories of crimes, not just hate crimes, but noted that the victims of hate crimes are more than statistics laid out in data.

“We’re talking about hate crimes. That’s measured one life at a time. One case file at a time. This doesn’t happen to X number of people, it happens to one person… Someone who’s going to carry that trauma with them, the rest of their lives,” he said. “As much as I care about the data, it’s not the numbers that move me, it’s the stories.”

The Ohio attorney general criticized New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for his particularly stringent enforcement of coronavirus mitigation measures in Orthodox Jewish communities.

“When you single out a particular group and other similarly situated groups are not called out, I think you’re really sending a subtle message that helps to create a fertile seed bed for antisemitism or for racism or what have you,” Yost said.

James and Yost diverged on recent discussions and protests over police accountability. While James saw them as a potential step toward rebuilding trust between citizens and the police — thereby increasing reporting of hate crimes — Yost painted a darker picture. 

“The notion of law enforcement being a tool of the popular will frightens me and… it should frighten every American who knows anything about history,” he said. “The Holocaust, the things that happened in Nazi Germany were popularly supported. Law enforcement famously looked by while lynchings occurred in the South. Why? Because it was popularly supported… I’m really concerned that in our rush to make policing more responsive in some communities, that we risk unleashing the genie from the bottle.”

The New York Police Department is investigating a brutal attack against a 64-year-old rabbi in Crown Heights on Tuesday as a hate crime. 

Rabbi Avraham Gopin, the father-in-law of hassidic singer Benny Friedman, was reportedly jogging through Lincoln Terrace Park in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning when a man threw a rock at him. Gopin confronted the man, who in turn punched him in the face, and then hit him with a large rock, knocking out two teeth and causing facial injuries. 

The incident is just the latest in an ongoing string of attacks against Jews in New York City. The most recent NYPD statistics show a 52 percent increase in antisemitic attacks (90-146 incidents) compared with the same period last year. 

In an interview with Jewish Insider, Councilman Chaim Deutsch, chairman of the NYC Jewish Caucus, blamed Mayor Bill de Blasio for not coming through with his pledge to rush the creation of mayoral office for the prevention of hate crimes. Earlier this year, a bill requiring educational outreach within the office of prevention of hate crimes was passed by the City Council, and slated to be implemented towards the end of the year. 

But in remarks at the annual Jewish American Heritage Month reception at Gracie Mansion in June, de Blasio declared the immediate opening of the office to combat the rise in antisemitism. But little action appears to have been taken on the issue.

“We are already in August, and I still haven’t heard anything about it being active or anyone being hired,” Deutsch said. “The commitment was made by the mayor that he’s going to have this open by June. We are waiting for this [to be] implemented.” 

The Brooklyn lawmaker suggested the mayor should not neglect city business due to his presidential campaign.

“Whether he is here or not, de Blasio should make sure that his administration is on top of things, especially when he had made that commitment to open the office in June,” he stressed. “We are in a moment where we need to tackle these issues head on. We can’t just ignore them thinking it’s going to go away. The mayor needs to realize that if he makes a commitment, he needs to make good on it.”  

Deutsch also said he is in favor of enacting hate crime laws, but they should be passed by the state legislatures.

In response to the JI report, Freddi Goldstein, the mayor’s press secretary, said the hate crimes office was never scheduled to open in June.

“Setting the record straight: we never committed to open the office in June,” Goldstein tweeted. “We promised to move up the November deadline set by the Council’s bill, which we’re doing. More to say in the coming days.”

This article was updated at 9:45am eastern time.