Illustrative: A woman walks past the US Department of Justice Building, in Washington, DC. Photo: REUTERS/Al Drago

An Arizona man whom a federal criminal court convicted of a long campaign of harassment totaling about 1,000 incidents in which he threatened to “torture, mutilate, rape, and murder,” Jews was sentenced on Thursday to 49 months in prison.

The measure followed the perpetrator, Donovan Hall, 35, pleading guilty to the crimes of which he was accused. Hall had contacted his victims, as well their families, by phone and text message, promising to find them and end their lives while uttering antisemitic tropes. In one instance, the US Justice Department said, Hall even sent his victims photographs of a machete and two guns, all of which law enforcement found in his possession during the execution of a search of his residence in November 2024.

“Donovan Hall targeted Jewish victims with a sustain campaign of intimidation, terror, and harassment,” US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said in a statement. “The approximately 1,000 threats he sent to these New Yorkers were alarming and brazen. The prosecution of this case and the sentence imposed make clear that this office will aggressively bring justice to those who perpetrate senseless crimes of hate.”

Stefanie Roddy, special agent in charge of the FBI’s field office in Newark, New Jersey, added, “Hall’s sentencing speaks volumes about the severity of his crimes, and the seriousness with which the law takes them … His reign of fear is over and serves as a reminder to those who think they can hide behind computers, phone lines, and texts.”

This year has seen a series of troubling antisemitic hate crimes in the US, including the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers by an anti-Israel activist, which have heightened fear that the country is no longer safe for Jews.

Last month, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi in Missoula, Montana was charged for allegedly assaulting a Jewish man outside a homeless shelter on the second anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. 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.

More recently, on Friday, police in Ann Arbor, Michigan, launched a search for a man who trespassed the grounds of the Jewish Resource Center, which serves University of Michigan students, and kicked its door while howling antisemitic statements.

“F—k Israel, f—k the Jewish people,” the man — whom multiple reports describe as white, “college-age,” and possibly named “Jake” or “Jay” — screamed before running away. He did not damage the property, and he may have been accompanied by as many as two other people, one of whom him shouted “no!” when he ran up to the building.

Ann Arbor police offered an unspecified cash reward to anyone who comes forward with information which leads to the suspect’s capture.

A majority of American Jews now consider antisemitism to be a normal and endemic aspect of life in the US, according to the results of a new survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Federations of North America.

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 Oct.7, 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 upon the release of the data. “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.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.