On Sept. 24, 2025 two Syracuse University students were arrested after one allegedly entered the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity house during a Rosh Hashanah dinner and threw a plastic bag of pork against an interior wall, splattering its contents across the room. Authorities quickly charged both men with burglary as a hate crime and criminal nuisance, signaling that prosecutors are treating this as more than a late-night prank.
Local reporting and Jewish community outlets identified the two suspects and described the scene: one student allegedly ran from the house and was picked up by a companion who is accused of driving the getaway car. The targeted timing—during a sacred holiday at a historically Jewish fraternity—made the act unmistakably calculated to wound and provoke.
Onondaga County prosecutors and Syracuse University officials have condemned the incident, emphasizing that it will be treated as a hate crime and may result in university disciplinary action up to expulsion. Campus administrators who reflexively excuse conduct as “teens being kids” should be held to account; when religious students are assaulted inside their own house of worship, the state must step in and punish with the full force of the law.
This episode is yet another warning shot about the permissive climate on many campuses where anti-Jewish hostility has been allowed to fester. Voices like Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz have repeatedly warned that universities have, in recent years, tolerated and even incubated antisemitic sentiment, and that question—whether this was a juvenile prank or raw hatred—demands a sober answer from university leaders and law enforcement alike.
Conservatives should not shy away from calling evil by its name: deliberately bringing pork into a Jewish religious celebration is an attack on faith and community, plain and simple. At the same time, America’s justice system must ensure proportional, even-handed consequences so that punishment addresses culpability rather than serving as political theater for campus show trials.
Parents, alumni, and donors ought to demand accountability from Syracuse and every college that tolerates this kind of behavior—cutting checks and remaining silent while students are targeted is complicity. If universities want to be sanctuaries of learning and safety, they must start acting like it: protect religious liberty, expel those who violate it, and refuse to treat sacred days as acceptable moments for harassment.
