Crouse College at Syracuse University. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Law enforcement agents in upstate New York have filed hate crime charges against two Syracuse University students who they say forcefully gained entry into a Jewish fraternity’s off-campus house on Tuesday during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and heaved a bag of pork at a wall, causing its contents to splatter across the floor.

“This incident is not a foolish college prank and will not be treated as such,” local District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said in a statement addressing the alleged crime, which targeted the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, a registered organization of Syracuse University. “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.”

Allen Groves, Syracuse University’s chief officer of student experience, said in a statement on behalf of the school that law enforcement captured the suspects just moments after they attempted to abscond to an unknown location in a getaway car. He added that they, in addition to pending criminal penalties, will face disciplinary charges brought by the school.

“The students involved have been referred to Community Standards pursuant to our Student Conduct Code, and pending the outcome of an investigation, will face appropriate disciplinary action through our established procedures,” Groves said. “Tonight’s incident as reported to us is abhorrent, shocking to the conscience, and violates our value of being a place that is truly welcoming to all. It will not be tolerated at Syracuse University.”

This is not the first time that a Jewish fraternity has been targeted on a day of significance to the American Jewish community.

In September 2022, a Jewish fraternity at Rutgers University (RU) was vandalized during Rosh Hashanah.

News of the incident was first reported by StopAntisemitism, a US-based watchdog, in a post showing the ground outside an entrance at Alpha Epsilon Pi’s (AEPi) house splattered with eggs.

“This is now the 3rd time the Jewish fraternity house has been egged,” the group noted at the time. “What is campus police and administrators doing to catch those responsible?”

Antisemitic hate crimes in the US continued to add up to record-setting and harrowing statistical figures in 2024, according to the latest data issued by the FBI last month, prompting calls by Jewish leaders for a society-wide intervention.

Even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.

A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.

Antisemitic hate crimes kept federal and local law enforcement agents busy throughout 2024, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.

In November, for example, the US Department of Justice secured the conviction of a Massachusetts man, John Reardon, 59, who threatened to perpetrate mass killings of Jews. Over several months, Reardon called Jewish institutions across Massachusetts, proclaiming that he would kill Jewish men, women, and children in their houses of worship. His terroristic menacing included promises to plant bombs in synagogues in the cities of Sharon and Attleboro, as well as making 98 calls to the Israeli Consulate in Boston, a behavior which began on Oct. 7, 2023, and ended just days before his apprehension by law enforcement in January.

In New York City, meanwhile, the Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn endured a violent series of robberies and other attacks. In one instance, three masked men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood. Before then, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. Additionally, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.

The wave of hatred has not relented in 2025.

In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted a major Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”

Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.