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Police, FBI probe reported antisemitic attack on Jewish Pitt student

Justin Vellucci
| Friday, September 27, 2024 5:26 p.m.

The FBI and Pittsburgh police are investigating an off-campus attack early Friday on a Jewish student at the University of Pittsburgh by a group of six to eight men who used antisemitic language, authorities said.

Pitt confirmed Friday evening that the victim, who suffered a bruised lip and was not named, was a student.

The student told police he was walking about 2 a.m. near Semple and Ward streets, a few blocks from campus in the city’s Oakland section, when he encountered the group.

An argument started and the group “saw his Star of David necklace and hurled insults about Israel,” Pittsburgh police said, citing the student’s account.

At least three people punched and kicked him, bruising his lip, before a bystander intervened, police said the victim told them.

The Star of David is a Jewish symbol that also appears on the Israeli flag.

The man reported the incident to Pitt police, but Pittsburgh police are handling the investigation because the incident occurred off campus.

Pitt police called the incident a “hate crime/assault” on Pitt’s website.

A hate crime includes crimes committed on the basis of race, color and religion, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“The University of Pittsburgh unequivocally condemns antisemitism,” Pitt said in a statement. “Any violence or antisemitic acts against our community will not be tolerated.”

The school said it was providing resources and support for the victim and other community members impacted by the incident.

Last month, two Jewish Pitt students wearing yarmulkes, or skull caps, were assaulted

Their alleged attacker was wearing a keffiyeh, a Middle Eastern scarf often associated with Palestine, a police complaint said. Buta authorities declined to label it a hate crime.

Pitt police charged Jarrett Buba, 52, of the city’s West Oakland neighborhood in connection with the attack.

Police also have charged Buba for assaults near Carnegie Mellon and Point Park universities.

A Point Park student was running in Downtown Pittsburgh around 2 p.m. on Aug. 29 when, he said, Buba hit him with “a bag of glass or a bottle that shattered on impact,” according to a complaint in the case.

The student suffered a gash in his lip and chipped teeth.

Video surveillance around 3:20 p.m. — about 90 minutes after the Downtown incident — showed a man fitting Buba’s description throwing a glass bottle at two people at South Craig and Winthrop streets, Carnegie Mellon University police said in a criminal complaint.

Buba on Friday remained in the Allegheny County Jail without bail, court records show.

He faces preliminary hearings in all three cases and has been ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation.

As of Friday, 220 antisemitic acts or incidents in the Pittsburgh area were reported to the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, a security official there said. That’s up from 204 last year at this time.


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