Squirrel Hill vandalism illustrates spike in antisemitic acts in Pittsburgh, nation

Pittsburgh police increased patrols in Squirrel Hill this week after vandals defaced at least 10 “We Stand With Israel” yard signs with images of bloody handprints — the latest in a spike of antisemitic activity in both the Pittsburgh region and nationwide.

The yard signs were vandalized Monday and Tuesday in the East End neighborhood, the center of Jewish life in Pittsburgh, according to Shawn Brokos, who heads security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Signs outside three homes were vandalized two nights in a row, residents said.

Pittsburgh police said there are no suspects in the case.

Plainclothes detectives, however, “are fully investigating” the vandalism, spokeswoman Cara Cruz told TribLive on Wednesday. Police also have collected video footage from residents’ homes.

Laura Cherner, director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Community Relations Council, said the bloody hand marks left on yard signs in Squirrel Hill “are 100% antisemitism.”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a Berlin-based intergovernmental group, said one example of contemporary antisemitism is “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel,” Cherner said.

“Jewish Pittsburghers should never be targeted or, quote/unquote, ‘held accountable’ for Israel’s actions,” Cherner added. “That is 100% antisemitism, if you’re blaming Jews here for what the Israeli government is doing.”

There have been 66 antisemitic incidents reported in Pittsburgh in 2024 — more than triple the 21 reported from January through March last year, Brokos said.

In 2023, the number of antisemitic incidents hit 300, more than a third of them after Hamas stormed Israel Oct. 7, killing and injuring thousands of civilians and triggering war in Palestine’s Gaza Strip.

There were 122 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 82 incidents in 2021, and just 27 in 2017, the year before 11 Jewish congregants were gunned down in Pittsburgh during an Oct. 27, 2018 Shabbat service at Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha synagogue, officials said.

A jury convicted the Squirrel Hill synagogue shooter in federal court last summer; he remains on death row.

“We expected it to be higher (in 2023) because of the synagogue shooter trial. We knew that would increase the numbers,” Brokos, a retired 24-year FBI veteran, told TribLive on Wednesday. “But we didn’t see Oct. 7 happening and what effect that has had on our Jewish community.”

Incidents on the rise

Incidents of antisemitism have been on the rise locally and nationally for at least eight years, statistics show.

In 2022, there were more than 3,500 antisemitic incidents in the United States, a 36% increase over 2021, according to the Anti-Defamation League. And, in 2023, there were at least 1,112 incidents of antisemitic propaganda, up from 852 a year earlier.

Since Oct. 7, the increase is even more pronounced, said ADL regional director Kelly Fishman, who monitors incidents in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Antisemitic incidents nationwide spiked 360% in the three months after Oct. 7, Fishman said.

In 2023, ADL also recorded a record number of white supremacist propaganda incidents — a total of 7,567 cases, a 12% increase from 2022.

“Nationwide, we’re continuing to see the vandalism — swastikas on buildings, on public property,” Fishman said. “A lot of that kind of vandalism is similar to what was going on in Squirrel Hill yesterday.”

“People don’t have to be Jewish for this to really scare them,” she added.

The Jewish security group Secure Community Network, or SCN, responded to 1,005 swatting incidents and false bomb threats alone at Jewish institutions in 2023 — a 774% increase from 2022’s total of 115 incidents. They referred a record 1,619 people to authorities in 2023 for antisemitic activities.

In 2024 so far, SCN referred 423 individuals to law enforcement, said SCN Senior National Security Advisor Brad Orsini, who preceded Brokos as security head at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh after he worked as an FBI special agent for 28 years.

In February, 483 threats and reports of suspicious activity came into SCN’s Chicago-based command center, Orsini said.

Hate has also hit American college campuses.

The Jewish group Hillel International and SCN logged a record 516 antisemitic incidents in 2023, up 141% from 2022’s total of 214. More than six out of every 10 incidents took place after Oct. 7.

The number of post-Oct. 7 antisemitic incidents on college campuses hit 1,172, as of Tuesday, according to Hillel International. That’s seven times higher than the same period a year earlier.

In the first month of the war, Hillel International responded to 306 antisemitic incidents at 129 different U.S. campuses — 59 of them more than once.

Jews are not alone.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in January it had received 3,578 complaints since Oct. 7 of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate, a 178% increase over 2022 figures.

About one in every five complaints involved employment discrimination, CAIR said. Hate crimes and education discrimination accounted for 13% each.

‘Names can intimidate’

As a Jewish mother of five children, Mor Greenberg personally understands the feelings behind the numbers.

She was “horrified” when her 10-year-old son told her someone mocked his yarmulke while he walked home recently from Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh, an Orthodox Jewish school with three Squirrel Hill campuses.

“He let me know about it nonchalantly — I was obviously freaking out,” said Greenberg, 35, of Squirrel Hill. “Unfortunately, part of being a Jew is always being vigilant about (security). … It’s definitely increased since Oct. 7.”

Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum, CEO of Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh, also is familiar with those incidents.

He’s heard that Yeshiva teens wearing yarmulkes and tzitzit — specially knotted ritual fringes Orthodox Jews wear near the waist — have been heckled while walking from Squirrel Hill toward The Waterfront shopping center in Homestead.

The rabbi said that even on Murray Avenue, the backbone of Squirrel Hill’s business district, people shout slurs at him from cars.

“Threatening things — it’s happened numerous times,” Rosenblum said. “ ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me:’ that’s not true. Names can intimidate, especially young people.”

Rosenblum said he won’t sit idle in the face of such attacks.

Yeshiva Schools’ armed security guards now work expanded hours, and the schools recently completed a fundraising campaign to boost safety measures. They aimed to raise $600,000 in 36 hours; they netted $662,183 from more than 1,000 donors.

“We evaluated everything we were doing and made sure that our protocols and our systems are top of the line,” Rosenblum said. “Our belief is we need to provide the protection and security — and God does the rest.”

Increasing security

Yeshiva Schools isn’t the only Jewish institution that has increased security.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh has raised more than $15.5 million since 2021 to fund security at Jewish institutions, spokesman Adam Hertzman said.

The federation netted more than $900,000 in 2023 in state security grants and provided an estimated $850,000 in security “in-kind services,” such as training people or working on security coordination, Hertzman said.

When it comes to how Jewish institutions are responding to rising antisemitism, Pittsburgh is no island, said Jeff Finkelstein, the organization’s CEO.

“The war brought out … incredible levels of antisemitism,” Finkelstein said.

Many have died in the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Hamas militants stormed southern Israel Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 people, most of them civilians, and injuring thousands more in the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust.

Hamas captured 253 hostages. As part of a weeklong ceasefire in November, Hamas released 105 of the hostages in exchange for Israel releasing 240 Palestinian prisoners.

The number of Palestinians killed as Israel bombed Gaza surpassed 30,000 on Feb. 29, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.

Bloody red hands

The meaning of the images of bloody red hands on the Squirrel Hill yard signs remains unclear, said several people analyzing antisemitism.

Some said the bloody hands might reference Aziz Salha, a Palestinian photographed in 2000, during an uprising. He waved his bloody hands at a Ramallah police station after funeral marchers had broken in, and killed two Israel Defense Force reservists.

The ADL has not officially accepted that correlation, said Fishman, the regional director based in Ohio.

Several celebrities, including musician Billie Eilish and actor Ramy Youssef, wore enamel pins bearing a red hand during the 2024 Academy Awards presentation earlier this month. The Hollywood Reporter and others suggested the pin represented a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

A group named Artists4Ceasefire took credit for the pin, saying its red background was intended “to symbolize the urgency of the call to save lives,” according to its website.

“We are here to lend our voices and our platforms to amplify the global call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the safe return of all hostages, and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid to the civilians in Gaza,” the group said online.

Fishman said the bloody hands could be an accusation, as in “a person with blood on their hands,” or a horror-movie reference meant to stir up fear.

“It’s not something you’re going to see and have a pleasant response to,” she said. “A bloody hand? The response is to be scared or intimidated and I think that’s the intent.”

Cherner, the Community Relations Council director, said the bloody hands also might trigger thoughts of “blood libel” among Jews.

“Blood libel refers to the false allegation that Jews used the blood of non-Jewish, usually Christian children, for ritual purposes,” the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. said in its Holocaust Encyclopedia.

The term originates from the Middle Ages and surfaced in the 20th century, when Nazis used the imagery to demonize Jews, the museum said on its website.

Chaya Engle, Yeshiva Schools’ chief compliance officer, said Pittsburgh Jews won’t be intimidated by antisemitism.

“There’s a lot of hate right now. There are a lot of reasons that parents are scared,” Engle said. “We just believe you have to be who you are and be proud of it. Because that’s the only way we’re going to get through this.

“We’re not going to be scared. We’re going to be proud.”