Cornell University police dispatched to kosher dining hall after antisemitic threats

The Cornell University Hillel in Ithaca New York is advising Jewish students to stay away from a building housing a kosher dining hall, after threats and antisemitic slurs were posted to an online student forum.

Police have been dispatched to the building, the Hillel statement says, and the school says that the FBI is investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

My alma mater ⁦@Cornell⁩ just posted this advising students to avoid the Kosher dining hall. pic.twitter.com/IVWGdRoYzy

— Jamie Weinstein (@Jamie_Weinstein) October 29, 2023

According to the Cornell Daily Sun, the alert was prompted by comments to a student forum including a threat “to bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews,” from a user named hamas soldier. Other threats and antisemitic slurs, including a call to follow Jews on campus and slit their throats, were posted on the forum as well, though some posts have since been removed, the paper reports.

The Cornell police department says it is “investigating posts located on a website that contain threats of violence directed at religious groups across the campus.”

Cornell President Martha Pollack sent a statement to students saying that “we will not tolerate antisemitism at Cornell,” the Daily Sun reports.

The incident comes days after anti-Israel graffiti was discovered on campus, and amid an alarming uptick in antisemitic attacks on US campuses thought fueled by the Israel-Hamas war.