Two synagogues in Jackson, Mississippi, and in the town of Giessen, Germany, were targeted in arson attacks over the past week.
On Saturday, Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson was torched, causing extensive damage. The synagogue’s library and officers were destroyed in the fire. Many books and two Torah scrolls went up in flames, and the building is currently inoperable.
One Torah scroll, which had survived the Holocaust, was behind glass and survived the blaze. The scroll was brought to the synagogue by the only concentration camp survivor in Mississippi, Gilbert Metz. Metz’s entire immediate family was killed in the Holocaust, and he moved to Mississippi after relatives who had settled in the state sponsored his immigration to the United States.
Security camera footage showed Stephen Spencer Pittman, the suspect arrested in the case, walking through the synagogue and pouring what appeared to be gasoline around the building before setting it ablaze. According to court documents filed by the FBI, Pittman laughed as he confessed to the crime in a conversation with his father and said that he “finally got them.”
After his arrest, Pittman admitted to the arson, calling Beth Israel the “synagogue of Satan” during questioning.
Christian fitness and ‘TheoBros’
Pittman ran a Christian fitness site and posted frequently about Christianity and fitness on his social media. His site featured several phrases in Hebrew, including God’s four-letter name, the tetragrammaton.
His friends told the local news outlet Mississippi Today that he had undergone significant changes in recent years, becoming increasingly online. His content, which had focused mostly on baseball and friends, started to shift to posts about fitness, masculinity, and Christianity.
A large community of online users — sometimes referred to as TheoBros — combines content that is hyper-fixated on masculinity and fitness with hyper-conservative religious content. Many of these accounts feature antisemitic content, even while expressing interest in Jewish practice and the Hebrew Bible as a way to draw nearer to Jesus.
Pittman posted antisemitic content on his social media shortly before the arson attack. One post featured an animated character telling a short yellow figure with a long nose, “A Jew in my backyard, I can’t believe my Jew crow didn’t work. You’re getting baptized right now.”
On Tuesday, Pittman was indicted on the charge of first-degree arson of a place of worship, with a hate-crime sentencing enhancement attached to the charge. In Mississippi, first-degree arson of a place of worship is punishable by up to 30 years in prison. The hate-crime sentencing enhancement could increase that sentence to up to 60 years.
A statement by the local district attorney noted that “this case arises amid a documented increase in attacks on houses of worship across the United States, including arson, vandalism, and other acts of targeted violence. Such crimes are intended to intimidate entire religious communities. Violence directed at any place of worship, regardless of faith, will not be tolerated in Jackson, MS.”
Determined to rebuild in the face of hate
Beth Israel Congregation, founded in 1860, is one of Mississippi’s oldest Jewish institutions and the only synagogue in Jackson. The congregation was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1967. The rabbi at the time, Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, was a civil rights activist who helped raise funds for Black churches destroyed by arson or bombs. His home was bombed two months after the synagogue was attacked.
Beth Israel is also home to the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which supports, connects, and celebrates Jewish life in 13 southern states. The synagogue has made it clear that it intends to rebuild and reopen, and is gathering donations for this purpose on its website.
Rabbi Benjamin Russell, spiritual leader at Beth Israel, made clear in comments to the local WLBT3 news that the building is “cracked, but we’re still standing.” He stressed that there has been an outpouring of support from the local community and beyond.
“Justice is the reverse of what this person wanted to do, which is to make us feel unsafe and unwelcome,” Russell said. “And the irony is that all of the communities in Jackson, all of the faith traditions in Jackson, every single faith tradition has reached out to us.”
“What this person did, actually, the poetic justice is that it has brought us together,” he added. “And so, rather than singling us out and making us feel afraid, it has actually made us a stronger community and a stronger city, faith-wise.”
Abram Orlansky, a congregant at Beth Israel for over 40 years, told WLBT3 that “The only thing that this horrible act succeeded at was bringing Jackson’s Jewish community closer together and making us more determined than ever to be proudly and defiantly Jewish here in Jackson, and the only thing that it’s done is bring us closer together with our Christian neighbors.”
In the aftermath, the Jewish communities of Memphis, Tennessee, and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, sent Torah scrolls and prayer books to Beth Israel to replace the ones damaged in the fire.
Arson attacks in Germany
On Tuesday evening, a man set garbage cans on fire next to the Beith-Jaakov Synagogue in Giessen, while making a Nazi salute. The fire damaged the entrance gate of the synagogue, but was extinguished by passersby before it could spread to the building. No injuries were reported.
The man was arrested shortly after the incident on suspicion of aggravated arson and the use of banned extremist symbols. Local police say they haven’t yet determined the motive behind the attack, as the man showed signs of mental illness. The suspect has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital since his arrest.
Lawrence de Donges, a member of the European Jewish Association and Vice-Chairman of the Jewish Community of Giessen, stressed after the attack that “this was never a question of if, but when. For those of us who are visibly Jewish and who confront antisemitism every single day, life has changed radically over the past years.”
“We are grateful to have a dedicated Chief of Police who provides every possible means of support. However, this cannot end there. The responsible ministry must urgently rethink and strengthen personal security measures for Jewish representatives and communities. The current reality demands immediate and decisive action,” de Donges added.
The attack came a little over a week after the home of Andreas Büttner, the antisemitism commissioner of the German state of Brandenburg, was targeted in a suspected arson attack. An upside-down red triangle, used by Hamas to mark targets in its propaganda videos and to show solidarity with the terrorist movement in protests around the world, was drawn next to his shed.
This wasn’t the first attack to target the antisemitism commissioner. In August 2024, Büttner’s car was defaced with swastikas.
International crime boss linked to firebombing of Australian synagogue arrested
Iraqi and Australian authorities announced that Kazem “Kaz” Hamad, a kingpin in the black market tobacco trade who was also implicated as a suspect in the Iran-linked firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, had been arrested on Tuesday.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett described Hamad as a “national security threat” last year. On Wednesday, she stated that Hamad’s arrest is “a significant disruption to an alleged serious criminal and his alleged criminal enterprise in Australia.”
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation (NCIJC) announced that Hamad had been arrested in coordination with the General Directorate of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Affairs at Iraq’s Interior Ministry. The NCIJC described Hamad as “one of the most dangerous wanted men in the world.” They pointed to Hamad’s work smuggling drugs into Iraq and Australia, along with his ties to gangs responsible for “murders, shootings, money laundering, fraud, assaults, arson, and drug trafficking on a global level.”
In August of last year, Australia announced that an investigation had uncovered that Iran was behind the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue, an arson attack against the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney, and possibly other antisemitic attacks as well. In response, Australia decided to expel Iran’s ambassador to the country and list the IRGC as a terrorist group. Hamad is suspected of working with Iran to organize the attack on the synagogue in Melbourne.
Antisemitism continued to spike globally in 2025
All of these attacks come amid a global spike in antisemitism in recent years, especially after the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. Complete data on the number of antisemitic incidents in 2025 still hasn’t been published, but from the information available, the numbers remained high.
In July 2025, the Campaign Against Antisemitism movement recorded 554 antisemitic incidents worldwide, a 21.2% increase compared with July 2024.
In the U.S., 9,354 antisemitic incidents were reported in 2024. Before October 7, the annual average was about 2,485 incidents. In New York City alone, antisemitic incidents accounted for 57% of documented hate crimes. (Not all antisemitic incidents get recorded or categorized as hate crimes under the law)
Germany experienced a spike in antisemitism in 2024, and local Jewish leaders claim that the numbers indicated 2025 had an even higher level of antisemitic incidents. Germany’s Federal Association of Research and Information Centres on Antisemitism (RIAS) documented 8,627 incidents in 2024, a 77% increase compared to 2023.
In an interview with dpa in December, Dr. Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, explained that the core issue in Germany is that “We have reached a level of desensitization to antisemitism so high that political measures often amount to little more than protecting Jewish life.”
“It is widely accepted that Jewish life is only possible with immense protective measures,” Schuster added. “What we are experiencing is treating the symptoms, nothing more. Despite the protective measures, for which I am grateful, I must therefore say: These conditions are untenable. Politics and civil society must work together to finally address the root causes of antisemitism. Then, and only then, is the vision of Jewish life without protective shields conceivable. And I continue to advocate for this vision with all my strength.”
In Australia, 1,654 antisemitic incidents were reported from October 2024 to September 2025, a sharp increase from the average of 342 annual incidents in the decade before the October 7 attacks. In December, Australia was shaken by a deadly shooting attack on a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach, in which 15 people were killed.
