(Emily Elconin/Getty Images)
Law enforcement vehicles are seen in the parking lot of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, following an active shooter on March 12, 2026. According to authorities, a suspect is dead after ramming a vehicle into the Detroit-area synagogue.
At least 18 physical attacks have been committed at synagogues in the United States in the past decade, with over 50 total incidents recorded worldwide, according to data compiled by ADL. This compilation documents notable incidents, including mass-casualty events, across the United States, Canada, and the globe.
These incidents reflect a documented pattern of violent antisemitism targeting Jewish communities worldwide that has accelerated sharply since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel. While the documented attacks vary in form, including vandalism, arson, shootings, stabbings, and bombings, they share common features of ideological extremism, hate-fueled violence, and the deliberate targeting of Jewish institutions and visibly Jewish individuals.
Whether rooted in white supremacist ideology, Islamist extremism or linked to conspiratorial antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric, the attackers often target Jewish people and their places of worship as both tactical and symbolic acts of violence. Several incidents have also been linked to foreign state actors, including Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
These attacks have had profound implications for Jewish communities and underscore the need for enhanced security measures, increased funding for protective resources, community vigilance, and a comprehensive societal response to combat antisemitism in all its forms.
March 2026, West Bloomfield, Michigan: Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen, rammed a car into Temple Israel synagogue on March 12, 2026, in West Bloomfield, Michigan, which includes a preschool, injuring one security officer. Local reports say the vehicle was intentionally rammed into the synagogue, and gunfire followed. Live news helicopter footage showed smoke coming from the building. The suspect was killed in the incident.
January 2026, Brooklyn, New York: Dan Sohail, a New Jersey man, allegedly rammed his vehicle repeatedly into the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn on January 28, 2026, causing damage to the building's entrance. The NYPD charged Sohail with reckless endangerment and attempted assault, all treated as hate crimes. Law enforcement sources said Sohail appeared to be emotionally disturbed at the time of the incident. Federal authorities also charged Sohail with intentionally damaging religious property.
(Emily Elconin/Getty Images)
Law enforcement escorts families and their children to their cars following an active shooter near Temple Israel on March 12, 2026, in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
January 2026, Jackson, Mississippi: Authorities arrested and charged suspect Stephen Spencer Pittman with an arson attack on January 10, 2026, at Beth Israel Congregation in the pre-dawn hours of Shabbat. No congregants were hurt in the incident, but the synagogue sustained extensive damage, and multiple sacred Torah scrolls were either damaged or destroyed. The suspect allegedly confessed to setting a fire inside the synagogue “due to the building’s Jewish ties” and referred to it as "the synagogue of Satan," according to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in southern Mississippi.
December 2025, Los Angeles, California: Police arrested two people at Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Koreatown for disrupting an event on December 3, 2025, by physically entering the synagogue while shouting at people inside. One person was arrested for vandalism after allegedly smashing a vase during the disruption. Four members of a group that allegedly helped organize the disruption at the synagogue were arrested days later in a separate plot to bomb targets belonging to two unnamed LA companies on New Year’s Eve.
September 2025, Punta Gorda, Florida: Local and federal authorities charged Blake Hoover with arson in connection with the September 19, 2025, hate crime attack on the Chabad of Charlotte County. Police reported heavy damage to the synagogue, including a burned classroom, shattered front door, and spray-painted vandalism. A review of Hoover’s social media by the ADL Center on Extremism found that he posted antisemitic and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories. In February 2026, a federal judge ruled that Hoover was not competent to stand trial and ordered him hospitalized until he could be deemed competent for legal proceedings.
October 2024, Chicago, Illinois: Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi shot a Jewish man walking to his synagogue and then opened fire on responding police and paramedics. Local authorities later filed felony hate crime and terrorism charges against Abdallahi, saying that evidence from his phone indicated that the suspect planned the shooting and intentionally sought to target Jews. Abdallahi was found dead of apparent suicide in his jail cell in November 2024.
April 2024, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against three Pittsburgh residents, Mohamad Hamad, Tayla Lubit, and Micaiah Collins, on charges of conspiracy, defacing and damaging religious property (Chabad of Squirrel Hill) in July 2024, and making false statements. The indictment alleges that during this same period, Hamad and Collins manufactured and possessed destructive devices. Federal authorities charged Hamad, a citizen of the U.S. and Lebanon and a former member of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, with making false statements about his loyalty to the U.S. and with conspiring with Collins “to manufacture and detonate destructive devices.” Lubit was sentenced to five years' probation and agreed to pay restitution of over $10,000 to Jewish institutions.
August 2024, Brooklyn, New York: Vincent Sumpter allegedly carried out a stabbing attack in front of the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Sumpter allegedly yelled, “Free Palestine,” and “Do you want to die?” at the victim, a member of the Orthodox Jewish community, before stabbing him in the chest. Sumpter was charged with second-degree assault as a hate crime. In October 2025, Sumpter was sentenced to five years in prison.
May 2024, Brooklyn, New York: Asghar Ali was arrested after allegedly attempting to ram several Orthodox Jewish men with his car by a yeshiva in the Canarsie neighborhood. Ali reportedly shouted antisemitic slurs during the attack. He was charged with 10 crimes, including attempted murder as a hate crime.
March 2024, Fort Lauderdale, Florida: An arson attack on March 16, 2024, targeted the Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center, causing damage. Police arrested a suspect, Scott Hannaford, and charged him with two counts of arson, criminal mischief and possession of cocaine, but declined to charge him with a hate crime, citing apparent mental illness.
December 2023, Albany, New York: On August 12, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Mufid Fawaz Alkhader, of Schenectady, New York, had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to illegally straw purchase a firearm, obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs with a dangerous weapon, and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. In December 2023, Alkhader was arrested in Albany after firing a shotgun twice outside of the Temple Israel synagogue on December 7 and then yelling, "Free Palestine." After failing to fire the shotgun a third time, Alkhader tried to rip down an Israeli flag from a flagpole on the synagogue's property.
February 2023, San Francisco, California: Dmitri Mishin was convicted of six counts of interference with religious worship, “with hate crime allegations found true in each count,” in connection with a shooting at the Schneerson Center, a synagogue in San Francisco’s Richmond District. In September 2025, Mishin was sentenced to over seven years in prison.
January 2023, Bloomfield, New Jersey: Nicholas Malindretos was arrested for allegedly attempting to firebomb Temple Ner Tamid. Footage of the attack shows a masked man approach the building, set fire to a glass bottle, and toss it at the synagogue’s doors. The bottle broke but failed to damage the building.
January 2022, Colleyville, Texas: British citizen Malik Faisal Akram took four people hostage at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, claiming to have weapons and bombs. He subsequently demanded that suspected Al Qaeda courier Aafia Siddiqui be released from the nearby federal prison where she was being held. After a day-long ordeal, the suspect released one congregant, and the rest were freed by law enforcement. Akram was pronounced dead at the scene. Akram apparently chose the location because, he claimed, " America only cares about Jewish lives."
(Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Mourners visit the memorial outside the Tree of Life Synagogue on October 31, 2018, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where 11 people were killed in a mass shooting on Saturday, October 27.
October 2021, Austin, Texas: Franklin Barrett Sechriest pleaded guilty in November 2023 to a 2021 arson attack on Congregation Beth Israel, which caused $25,000 in damage. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Authorities say Sechriest had stickers with white supremacist propaganda and symbols in his possession, as well as journals containing racist and antisemitic writings.
April 2019, Poway, California: White supremacist John T. Earnest opened fire at a synagogue in Poway, California, killing one person and injuring three before fleeing. He was apparently emulating white supremacist Brenton Tarrant's March 2019 killing spree at two mosques in New Zealand. Shortly after Tarrant’s spree, Earnest set fire to a mosque in Escondido, California, leaving behind graffiti that referenced Brenton Tarrant's attack. People inside the mosque were able to extinguish the fire. In September 2021, Earnest pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder, and a firearms charge and received life plus 30 years in prison.
October 2018, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: White supremacist Robert Gregory Bowers carried out a deadly shooting spree at the Tree of Life synagogue, killing 11 and wounding seven more. In the summer of 2023, Bowers was found guilty on 63 counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death, which were potentially punishable by a death sentence. On August 2, 2023, a federal jury in Pittsburgh recommended that Bowers receive the death penalty for the attack. Bowers has since remained on death row.
September 2018, Mandeville, Louisiana: The Northshore Jewish Congregation (NJC) was vandalized with graffiti including multiple swastikas, the hate symbol 14/88, and the words “Synagogue of Satan.” Suspect Caine Zander Brown from New Orleans pleaded guilty to the hate crime and criminal damage to property in April 2022.
March 2026, Toronto area, Canada:
(Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
Multiple bullet holes can be seen along a series of windows at Temple Emanu-El, which was shot at late Monday night, March 2, 2026, in North York. No injuries were reported.
The three incidents were condemned by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as “criminal antisemitic attacks.” Law enforcement is examining a possible connection between the two March 7 attacks.
November 2025, Toronto, Canada: The Kehillat Shaarei Torah synagogue in Toronto was vandalized on November 4, 2025, with security video capturing a suspect smashing the synagogue’s windows in multiple areas. The synagogue had been targeted on multiple occasions.
September 2025, Halifax, Canada: Two Halifax synagogues were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti, and a building associated with the Chabad movement was also defaced with the words, "Jews did 9/11."
August 2025, Victoria, Canada: Death threats and violent antisemitic messages were scrawled on the front doors of Congregation Emanu‑El, one of Canada’s oldest synagogues, in Victoria, BC, on August 2, 2025.
March 2025, Toronto, Canada: Suspect Amir Arvahi Azar was charged with 29 criminal counts for an alleged hate crime spree spanning eight months that targeted five Toronto synagogues and a Jewish community center. The charges included advocating the genocide of Jews, inciting hatred, arson, and property damage. Azar was arrested on January 11, 2025, for alleged attacks between April 2024 and early January 2025, including arson of signs at Temple Sinai and Tiferet Israel Congregation on July 31 and August 3, 2024, property damage at Pride of Israel Synagogue on June 30, 2024, and damage and later arson at Kehillat Shaarei Torah Synagogue on June 30 and July 31, 2024. He’s also under suspicion of setting fire to a United Jewish Appeal sign on April 26, 2024, and property damage at the Jewish‑owned eatery, Café Landwer, on December 20, 2024. The suspect was also charged with possession of three either prohibited or restricted loaded handguns.
December 2024, Toronto, Canada: The Kehillat Shaarei Torah synagogue in Toronto was vandalized, with decals of “genocide” placed on two signs on the property.
December 2024, Montreal, Canada: Overnight on Dec 18, 2024, Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal's Dollard-des-Ormeaux area was firebombed for a second time, following a similar attack in November 2023. The synagogue sustained some fire damage and a door and window were broken. There were no injuries. B'nai Brith Canada said a suspect named Mohamed Ilyes Akodad was arrested in the incident and was denied bail in May 2025.
July 2024, Calgary, Canada: "Free Palestine," “the flood is coming,” and an inverted red triangle were graffitied near a synagogue and Jewish day school in Calgary in late July 2024.
May 2024, Vancouver, Canada: A suspected incendiary device was launched at Congregation Schara Tzedeck in Vancouver, BC, on May 30, 2024, while some congregants were nearby. There were no injuries. The door to the synagogue sustained damage.
May 2024, Toronto, Canada: The windows and doors of Kehillat Shaarei Torah in Toronto, Canada, were smashed in a second vandalism attack on the synagogue in less than a month, on May 17, 2024.
April 2024, Toronto, Canada: The windows of Kehillat Shaarei Torah in Toronto, Canada, were smashed in a vandalism attack on April 19, 2024.
November 2023, Montreal, Canada: Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal's Dollard-des-Ormeaux area was first firebombed on November 7, 2023, shortly after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks. The building sustained some damage. According to subsequent media coverage, no suspects had been arrested.
December 2017, Canada: At least 14 synagogues across Canada received antisemitic letters calling for the death of Jewish people. The letters read “Jewry must perish” alongside a bloodied, yellow Star of David with a swastika in the center. The letters were received by four synagogues in Toronto, three in Montreal, and one each in Ottawa, Hamilton, and Kingston, Ontario, Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, and Victoria, British Columbia.
April 2026, London, UK: The Kenton United Synagogue in Harrow, London, UK, was targeted in an attempted arson attack on April 19, 2026. A little after midnight, patrolling Metropolitan Police noticed damage to a window and then smoke coming from inside a room. They found a bottle, alongside some sort of accelerant, that had been thrown through the window. The Islamist extremist group Ashab al-Yamin (or HAYI) claimed responsibility for the attack. The group has claimed several attacks on Jewish sites in the UK and Europe in 2026, including the March firebombing of a synagogue in Liège, Belgium.
April 2026, London, UK: The Finchley Reform Synagogue in London, UK, was targeted in an attempted arson attack on April 15, 2026. Law enforcement said it was seeking two suspects in the overnight attack in which two bottles, believed to contain fuel, and a brick were thrown at the synagogue, according to the Metropolitan Police. The building sustained no damage, and no injuries were reported. The incident was being treated as "an antisemitic hate crime," police said. Two people, a 47-year-old woman and a 46-year-old man, were arrested on suspicion of arson endangering life
April 2026, Skopje, North Macedonia: The only synagogue in North Macedonia was targeted in an attempted arson attack on April 12, 2026, according to local reports cited in the Jewish press. The Beth Yaakov Synagogue and Jewish community center in the North Macedonian capital of Skopje sustained damage to its front doors and courtyard in the incident. No injuries were reported. The country's foreign minister condemned the attack in a post on X and said an investigation was underway.
March 2026, Salzburg, Austria: A storefront window of a building with a Chabad sign was defaced with stickers of swastikas and Palestinian flags in Salzburg, Austria, on March 18, 2026. The intended target appeared to be the Chabad house, according to Austrian media. The vandalism was denounced as "antisemitic actions" by the city's deputy mayor.
March 2026, Rotterdam, Netherlands: A synagogue was firebombed in the early hours of March 13, 2026. No injuries were reported. A video was released by the same group as described in the Liège, Belgium, incident below.
March 2026, Liège, Belgium: A synagogue was damaged in an explosion caused by an incendiary device on March 9, 2026, in what the city mayor described as “an antisemitic act.” The attack occurred overnight. No injuries were reported. A video that appeared to be of the explosion circulated on social media several days later and was still being verified by police. The stylized clip shows an explosion and a fireball at the synagogue, as well as a masked person walking by, and includes the logo and name of a group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyyah (Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right), described by Belgian media as a pro-Iran jihadist group.
February 2026, Brisbane, Australia: A suspect was charged with a hate crime after he allegedly deliberately rammed his vehicle into the gates of a synagogue in the city. No injuries were reported.
January 2026, Giessen, Germany: A suspect was arrested on January 14, 2026, by German police under suspicion of arson at the Beith-Jaakov synagogue in the city, north of Frankfurt. Security footage captured the suspect performing a Nazi salute, which is illegal in Germany, before setting a fire outside the building, according to media reports. The fire caused some damage to the entrance of the building. No injuries were reported.
(Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Congregants are seen as police and other emergency services respond to a car-ramming and stabbing attack that killed two people and injured others at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester, UK, on Yom Kippur, October 2, 2025.
October 2025, Manchester, UK: On the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, Jihad Al-Shamie allegedly drove a car into pedestrians outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, before getting out to carry out a stabbing spree. A congregant was killed in the attack, and another was likely mistakenly shot and killed by police as they tried to intercept the perpetrator. The attack was declared a terrorist incident by UK police. The suspect had reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State after the car-ramming.
July 2025, Melbourne, Australia: A fire was set to the front doors of East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation on July 4, 2025, while congregants were inside eating a Shabbat dinner. The incident was later ruled as motivated by “mental illness” rather than antisemitism.
January 2025, Sydney, Australia: Two Sydney synagogues were targeted for vandalism and attempted arson on consecutive days.
December 2024, Melbourne, Australia: Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne was significantly damaged during a December 6, 2024, firebombing that Australian authorities later linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The resulting fire injured one member of the synagogue and caused significant damage to the building.
June 2024, Dagestan, Russia: At least 15 police officers and four civilians were killed in attacks on two synagogues and two Orthodox churches in Dagestan on June 23, 2024.
June 2024, La Grande-Motte, France: Two cars outside a synagogue were set on fire by a suspect who was caught on security footage with a Palestinian flag wrapped around his waist and a red and white keffiyeh obscuring his face. French President Emmanuel Macron called the incident an “act of terror.” The suspect, El Hussein K., was charged four days later with "terrorist conspiracy," "attempted assassinations committed due to race or religion in connection to a terrorist organization," and possession of incendiary products with intent to harm, among other offenses.
May 2024, Rouen, France: An Algerian national was killed by police after he allegedly threw a firebomb through the synagogue’s window and threatened police with a knife on May 17, 2024. The resulting fire caused significant damage to the synagogue.
May 2024, Warsaw, Poland: Molotov cocktails were thrown at the entrance of the Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw on May 1, 2024. The building sustained some damage. No injuries were reported.
April 2024, Oldenburg, Germany: An unknown perpetrator threw a Molotov cocktail against the door of a synagogue in Oldenburg, Germany, on April 5, 2024. The fire was discovered quickly and caused only minor damage.
(David Hecker/Getty Images)
A general view of the Oldenburg Synagogue following an attempted arson attack on April 5, 2024, in Oldenburg, Germany.
November 2023, Yerevan, Armenia: An unknown vandal poured fuel on the door of a synagogue in Yerevan on November 15, 2023, setting the building on fire. No serious damage was reported.
November 2023, Mainz, Germany: A suspect was arrested after throwing fireworks at a Mainz synagogue, where Kristallnacht was being commemorated, and shouting “Free Palestine.” The incident occurred on November 9, 2023.
October 2023, Lyon, France: The gate of the Duchère synagogue was vandalized with graffiti reading "Victory to our brothers in Gaza," in Arabic, and spray-painted by two hooded individuals in the middle of the night on October 20, 2023.
October 2023, Berlin, Germany: Molotov cocktails were thrown at the Kahal Adass Jisroel synagogue in Berlin on October 18, 2023. No injuries were reported in the attack.
October 2023, Concepcion, Chile: A young suspect, who was allegedly part of a group calling itself the Latauro Youth Movement, spray-painted “Free Palestine. Overthrow Zionism and imperialism” on the walls of the city’s synagogue on October 19, 2023.
October 2023, Porto, Portugal: A synagogue in Porto was vandalized with "Free Palestine" and "End Israeli Apartheid" on October 11, 2023.
October 2023, Madrid, Spain: Madrid’s main synagogue was spray-painted with graffiti that read “Free Palestine” next to a crossed-out Star of David on October 8, 2023.
May 2023, Djerba, Tunisia: Wissam Khazri, a national guardsman, killed five people during a shooting attack at the El Ghriba Synagogue.
October 2019, Halle, Germany: During the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur on October 9, 2019, Stephan Balliet, a far-right extremist, tried but failed to enter the synagogue in Halle with firearms. He fatally shot two people near the entrance to the cemetery next to the synagogue. Balliet repeatedly shot at the synagogue’s door lock and set off an explosive device, but the door was not breached.
December 2017, Gothenburg, Sweden: A group of people threw at least six firebombs at a synagogue in the city where about 40 people were gathered inside on December 9, 2017. No injuries were reported, but nearby vehicles and a yard sustained fire damage. Three people were arrested and charged in the incident.
