Illustrative: A woman walks past police tape the day after an attack that injured multiple people in Boulder, Colorado, US June 2, 2025. Photo: Mark Makela via Reuters Connect

A self-proclaimed neo-Nazi in Missoula, Montana has been charged for allegedly assaulting a Jewish man outside a homeless shelter last week on the second anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to local media reports and the Missoula Police Department.

Michael Cain, 29, was charged with felony malicious intimidation or harassment relating to civil or human rights, and his bond was set at $50,000. He allegedly accosted the victim after identifying a Star of David tattooed on his arm.

Cain also reportedly told the victim that he is a Nazi, initiating an exchange of remarks which ended with a brutal assault replete with kicks and punches.

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Cain later told police that he is part of a “Fourth Reich” fifth-column cell in the US.

“Statements and other evidence obtained by officers on scene substantiated probable cause that Cain had assaulted the victim and that the assault had been motivated by the victim’s religious, ethnic or cultural [identity] of belonging to the Jewish religious community,” the Missoula Police Department said in a statement. “The Missoula Police Department respects the civil rights of all citizens and thoroughly investigates all reports of bias or hate crimes.”

The incident occurred about a week after the release of a new survey, commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Jewish Federations of North America, showing that a majority of American Jews now consider antisemitism to be a normal and endemic aspect of life in the US.

A striking 57 percent reported believing “that antisemitism is now a normal Jewish experience,” the organizations disclosed, while 55 percent said they have personally witnessed or been subjected to antisemitic hatred, including physical assaults, threats, and harassment, in the past year.

This new reality, precipitated by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, has effected a psychological change in American Jews, prompting firearms sales, disaster planning, and “plans to flee the country.”

“It is so profoundly sad that Jewish Americans are now discussing worst case scenarios,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “When American Jews — who have built lives, careers, and families here for generations — are making contingency plans to flee, we must recognize this is a five-alarm fire for our entire country. This is not just a Jewish problem; it’s an American problem that demands immediate action from leaders at every level.”

The survey results revealed other disturbing trends: Jewish victims are internalizing their experiences, as 74 percent did not report what happened to them to “any institution or organization”; Jewish youth are bearing the brunt of antisemitism, having faced communications which aim to exclude Jews or delegitimize their concerns about rising hate; roughly a third of survey respondents show symptoms of anxiety; and the cultural climate has fostered a sense in the Jewish community that the non-Jewish community would not act as a moral guardrail against violence and threats.

“Even in the face of unprecedented levels of antisemitism, we continue to see what Jewish Federations have termed ‘the Surge’ — a remarkable increase in Jewish engagement and connection to the community,” Eric Fingerhut, president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Federations of North America, said in a statement. “The fact that nearly two-thirds of those who directly experienced antisemitism are responding by deepening their Jewish involvement demonstrates the extraordinary resilience of our people.”

He added, “Rather than retreating in fear, American Jews are choosing to stand together, strengthen their bonds and affirm their identity. This surge in Jewish engagement represents hope and determination in the face of hate.”

In 2024, antisemitic hate crimes in the US reached record-setting and harrowing statistical figures, according to the latest data issued by the FBI.

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.

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.