update deskAntisemitism

Arizona man arrested for threatening to execute rabbi, other Jews

The 50-year-old allegedly referenced the war between Israel and Hamas as well as antisemitic conspiracy theories.

The sign outside of the Robert F. Kennedy Building, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Credit: Tada Images/Shutterstock.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Arizona charged Jeffrey Mindock, 50, of Tempe, Ariz., with threatening to commit mass murder against Jews.

Mindock allegedly emailed a local rabbi asking him to sway a Utah judge to drop charges against him. “If you do not use your influence to right this wrong,” wrote Mindock, who evidently subscribed to the conspiracy theory that Jews have widespread power, “I will execute you and every other Jew I can find tonight at midnight of your Sabbath.”

The email subject line read: “Hitler was right, rabbi,” per the criminal complaint, which referred to the war between Israel and Hamas, ABC reported.

“As I have watched the atrocities unfolding in Palestine, I have come to the realization that you people are to blame for everything evil in this world,” he wrote allegedly. “Zionist Jews control everything from the courts to the banks to the media. We both know that you are in control.”

Mindock was arrested on Saturday morning.

“We have no tolerance for those who send threatening communications to Jewish faith leaders or to any other people in America,” stated U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino. “We will continue to exercise our prosecutorial discretion and deploy our resources to charge threats cases here in Arizona.”

“The FBI and our law-enforcement partners must take people who make threats at their word and intervene because protecting human life is our absolute priority,” added Chad Alvarado, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix field office.

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