A gang of teenagers accosted members of the Pittsburgh Jewish community in the Greenfield section of the city, demanding to know if they were “fake Jews,” the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle reported.
The teens also harassed and swore at the Jews, Shawn Brokos, the director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, told the news outlet.
Greenfield borders Squirrel Hill, a longtime heavily Jewish neighbourhood in Pittsburgh, where 40 percent of the population is Jewish, according to recent data.
The teens were implicated in two different incidents of harassment but Brooks said that charging them with a crime may not happen due to their age.
The suspects are allegedly members of the Black Hebrew Israelites, which according to the ADL are a ”fringe religious movement that rejects widely accepted definitions of Judaism and asserts that people of color are the true children of Israel.” The ideology of extremist sects of Black Hebrew Israelites is “explicitly hateful when coupled with racial superiority and accusations against white individuals and specific hatred towards the Jewish community. Extremist Black Hebrew Israelites assert that white people are agents of Satan, Jews are liars and false worshipers of G-d, and Blacks are racially superior and the only true ‘chosen people.’”
Brokos reminded the community that it is important to report all incidents to the police, even if the harassment was only verbal and not a physical assault.