Two Syracuse University students are facing hate crime charges for throwing a bag of pork into a Jewish fraternity house during a Rosh Hashanah gathering.
Police said that one of the suspects on Tuesday tossed pork, which is forbidden under Jewish dietary law, into the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity as members were observing Rosh Hashanah, while the other suspect was the getaway driver, NBC News reported. Authorities have charged the two 18-year-olds with burglary as a hate crime and with criminal nuisance.
Officials are investigating the incident as a hate crime “due to the date being the Jewish High Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah, it being dinner time, the food thrown being pork with obvious religious implications to the Jewish faith and the well-known fact that ZBT is a Jewish fraternity,” Onondaga County district attorney William Fitzpatrick said, according to NBC affiliate WSTM.
Both suspects pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday, WSTM reported.
“This incident is not a foolish college prank and will not be treated as such,” Fitzpatrick’s office said. “It will be treated for what it is, a crime directed against a group of Jewish students enjoying a celebratory dinner and seemingly secure in their residence.” The university’s chief student experience officer, Allen Groves, called the incident “abhorrent” and “deeply troubling,” saying that “it will not be tolerated at Syracuse University.”
This is not the first time that the university has faced scrutiny over anti-Semitism. A Syracuse University visiting scholar late last month described Israelis as “thieves,” “child killers,” “sexual abusers,” “thugs,” and “criminals” at a conference in Detroit, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The Tuesday incident comes as anti-Semitic acts have surged on college campuses and beyond since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel. In October 2024, the Anti-Defamation League reported more than 10,000 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States since the Hamas attack, marking the highest yearly total recorded. Of those incidents, at least 1,200 occurred on college campuses, a 500 percent increase from the year prior.
The Trump administration has cracked down on anti-Semitism by revoking visas of foreign nationals linked to anti-Semitic activity and withholding billions in federal funding from universities that fail to protect Jewish students on campus. So far, it has secured a $221 million settlement with Columbia University and a $50 million settlement with Brown University and is negotiating deals with other universities.
