Torah scroll
Torah scrollIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Anti-Semitism is alive and well in the United States too.

Four American teenagers and a 21 year old were arrested last week for terrorizing a Jewish camp in Pennsylvania. The gang went racing through Camp Bomin in a white Ford pickup truck while shouting vicious anti-Semitic epithets, according to a police criminal complaint. 

In one incident, the gang also allegedly shot Jewish campers and staff with a paintball gun. One 18-year-old camper was hit while leaving a synagogue, according to the rap sheet.

Mark Trail, 21, Tyler Cole Spencer, 18, Cassandra Robertson, 18 and the two juveniles   – whose names could not be published because they were ages 17 and 16 – damaged fields, yards, buildings, and fences while “narrowly missing several campers and staff” according to the complaint.

A number of campers told police they were “scared for their lives.”

Rabbi Dovid Presser, director of the camp, made an effort to minimize the impact of the attacks, telling The Philadelphia News that although the incidents were at first the “talk of the camp” that most of the camp’s 300 children, ages 6 to 20, did not appear very concerned for their safety after a number of days had passed.

The camp’s administrators, however, took the incidents very seriously, he said.

Spencer, from Linden, Tennessee, allegedly hit a camp counselor before fleeing with his pickup truck on July 16. His bail was set at $200,000. Trail and Roberston and both from Wayne County, Pennsylvania, and bail was set for both at $20,000. The three older gang members were charged with ethnic intimidation, terror threats, recklessly endangering others and institutional vandalism. Some of the charges are felonies.

Pennsylvania authorities were prompt in condemning the violence and direct in pointing out the trauma it caused. "The vicious, cruel and obscene nature of the language hurled at the campers is unspeakable,” said Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards in a statement to media. "Luckily none of the children suffered serious physical injury. However, the emotional damage that was done is immeasurable.

"This was outrageous conduct and will not be tolerated.”