‘Beware Jews, Jihad is Coming’: FBI Investigates Cornell University Message Board After Vicious Anti-Semitic Threats Made Against Students

The FBI is investigating a Cornell University message board after vicious anti-Semitic threats were made against Jewish students.

The Ithaca, New York-based Ivy Institute has already seen anti-Semitic graffiti on its walls and a professor was forced to take a leave of absence after calling the attacks “exciting” and “energetic.”

Authorities investigated the school’s Center for Jewish Life on Sunday evening after disgusting anti-Jewish threats were discovered online.

Some of the disgusting comments threatened violence – including rape – in the most grotesque terms. The word “pig,” an anti-Semitic slur, was used repeatedly.

Cornell President Martha E. Pollack wrote a letter to students announcing that she had contacted the FBI about “a possible hate crime.”

Among several messages left on the school’s Greekrank page — a forum intended for fraternity and sorority reviews — were messages headlined “Eliminate Jewish Life from the Cornell Campus” or “Israel Deserved 10/7.”

One member wrote: ‘Beware Jews, jihad is coming.’

Another was even more disgusting, writing, “I will bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig Jews. Jews are human animals and deserve a pig’s death.’

The commentator, who used the username “hamas” and also made threats of sexual violence against female students, added: “Liberation in any way. From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!’

One specific message focused on the Center for Jewish Life, which includes the school’s Kosher dining hall.

“Earlier today, a series of horrific, anti-Semitic messages threatening violence against our Jewish community and specifically mentioning 104 West – home of the Center for Jewish Living – were posted on a website not affiliated with Cornell,” President Pollack wrote in a statement.

She added that “the police were immediately notified.

“Threats of violence are absolutely intolerable, and we will do our best to ensure that the person or persons who posted them are punished to the full extent of the law. Our immediate focus is on keeping the community safe; we will continue to prioritize that,” Pollack added.

Cornel’s Hillel organization told students in its own statement to stay away from the Center for Jewish Life.

“Cornell University administration has been notified regarding the language, and Cornell University Police are monitoring the situation and are on scene at 104West! to provide extra safety as a precaution. We currently advise students and employees to avoid construction out of an abundance of caution.’

Cornell police said the “target locations were deliberately selected” in a threat alert for the entire city of Ithaca Sunday evening, according to the Cornell Sun.

They reported parents trying to convince their students to leave campus and others trying to find different places to stay overnight to feel safe.

Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, issued a lengthy post on Sunday decrying the attacks.

“The disgusting and hateful messages on a message board about Jewish @Cornell students are the latest in a series of troubling incidents on college campuses. While it is unclear if these are credible threats, @nyspolice is committed and we will take all steps necessary to keep students safe,” she wrote.

She notified several state universities that state police were being called to monitor any threats as she sought to reaffirm her commitment to “free speech” on campus.

New York Attorney General Letitia James also condemned the comments in a post on X on Sunday evening.

“These threats against Jewish students at Cornell are absolutely abhorrent. There is no room for anti-Semitism or violence of any kind. Campuses must remain safe places for our students.”

Cornell, like many liberal campuses, has been a hotbed for anti-Israel demonstrations in the wake of the state’s response to the Hamas terrorist attacks that killed 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7.

The school was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti reading “f**k Israel”, just days after a professor who had described a Hamas attack as “exciting” and “energetic” took leave.

Spray-painted messages such as “Zionism equals racism” and “Israel is fascist” appeared on the sidewalks of the Cornell University campus in upstate New York on Wednesday morning.

The vandalism occurred amid a heated controversy on campus surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, following the leave of absence of professor Russell Rickford following his comments on the brutal Hamas attack.

The graffiti, with messages such as “Israel is fascist,” “Zionism equals racism,” “Free Palestine” and “F**k Israel,” was first spotted just before 9 a.m. but has since been cleaned up by university staff.

It is unclear who painted the hideous messages in red and white on Campus Road, which is known to see heavy foot and car traffic throughout the day.

The aggressive graffiti comes after Rickford told a rally in the downtown New York shopping district of Ithaca Commons on October 15 that he was excited about Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, in which 1,400 Israelis were killed.

His words were met with anger, and Rickford tried to explain – and doubled down on his outrageous views, before taking a leave of absence.

He said he condemned the killing of civilians, but said he was angry about “the injustice and hypocrisy of Western support in celebrating Israeli war crimes, and the equating of any form of Palestinian resistance with terrorism.”

Rickford later apologized, saying on October 18 that he regretted “the terrible choice of words I used,” calling his language “reprehensible.”

It later emerged that Rickford had withdrawn from teaching his history class for the remainder of the semester the Cornell Review confirmed that he has gone on leave.