Two Syracuse University freshmen are now facing hate crime charges after police say they threw pork into a Jewish fraternity house during a Rosh Hashanah dinner. Authorities said the incident occurred Tuesday evening at Zeta Beta Tau, a historically Jewish fraternity, as students gathered for the High Holy Day.
Onondaga County district attorney William Fitzpatrick explained the severity: “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,” the act is being prosecuted as a hate crime. The suspects, both 18, pleaded not guilty to burglary as a hate crime and criminal nuisance charges.
“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.” Syracuse University echoed that stance, with chief student experience officer Allen Groves calling the act “abhorrent” and “deeply troubling.”
The attack comes amid a nationwide surge in anti-Semitism. The Anti-Defamation League reported more than 10,000 anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, including at least 1,200 on college campuses—a 500 percent increase from the year before.
