An anonymous source sent violent threats to Brown-RISD Hillel leaders on Sunday morning via email, according to the organization’s executive director, Rabbi Josh Bolton. According to a campus police report, the emails were sent from a Swiss IP address. Brown University president Christina Paxson and RISD president Crystal Williams said campus police responded to the call from Hillel on Sunday morning alongside Providence Police.
According to Bolton, the threats were specific to him, the assistant director of Brown RISD Hillel, Molly Goldmeier, their families, and the Jewish community. Bolton also said he believes the threatening email was not sent “in a vacuum.”
“Whether it’s Hillel or us as professionals, we’ve been on the receiving end of successive waves of vitriolic angry emails from the left, from the right, certainly connected to the wave of anti-Israel activism that has been kind of washing over the campus,” he said.
Kristen Setera, a Boston-based spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would not confirm whether or not the FBI is investigating the alleged threats to the Brown-RISD Hillel. Setera wrote in an email that similar incidents are happening to Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities all over the country.
“As the conflict continues, the FBI has seen an increase in reports of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions, raising our concern that violent extremists and lone offenders motivated by or reacting to ongoing events could target these communities,” wrote Setera.
In Providence in mid-November, a man wearing a turban and a robe was shot while selling Muslim religious garb outside a mosque off Broad Street. In October, a man allegedly called in what authorities believed to be a false bomb threat to a synagogue on the East Side of Providence, Temple Beth-El.
In a joint letter sent to students on Sunday following the incident, Paxson and Williams decried the email threats. The presidents also said their campuses have seen an uptick in “reports of antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hate targeting national origin and identity” since Oct. 7.