Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Alleged synagogue vandals in Pennsylvania praised Rep. Lee’s anti-Israel advocacy

Talya Lubit and Mohamad Hamad have been charged with spray-painting a Hamas triangle and anti-Jewish slogans; they also donated to House reps and signed a letter pushing for a ceasefire.

Tree of Life Synagogue
A memorial outside the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue following the mass shooting that left 11 worshippers dead at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Oct. 27, 2018. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Two individuals charged with vandalizing Pittsburgh Jewish organizations have expressed support for Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—members of the progressive, anti-Israel “Squad” in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

Pennsylvania law enforcement says that Talya Lubit and Mohamad Hamad spray-painted an inverted red Hamas triangle with “Jews 4 Palestine” at the Chabad of Squirrel Hill and “Hate Zionists” at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

On Nov. 20, 2023—one month after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people—Lee published an open letter calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza signed by more than “130 members of the Pittsburgh Jewish Community.” It included Lubit’s name.

Records through the Federal Election Commission show that Hamad donated $10 and $5 to ActBlue with directions to send them respectively to Omar and Tlaib.

An online profile for Lubit uncovered by the Free Beacon characterized her as an agnostic Jew who studies international relations and Arabic. Prosecutors say Hamad, a U.S. and Lebanese citizen, calls himself a “Hamas operative” and planned to buy explosives for an attack.

The U.S. president said that Mosss “has been tremendous as deputy staff secretary and, before that, as policy director to the vice president.”
“They don’t really care where you went to school,” Marc Rosenberg, vice president of diaspora partnerships at the nonprofit, told JNS. “People often have a second career when they come here.”
The armed officers allegedly entered an area under Israeli security responsibility, seized the soldier’s weapon and drove him into Area A near Ramallah.
“I know that the only way that I can have some measure of success is with God’s blessing, providence, direction and wisdom,” the rabbi, of Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim in Baltimore, told JNS.