A masked group of minors rode bicycles near a synagogue in Parkland on Saturday afternoon as people left services, screaming antisemitic slurs, officials say.
Congressman Jared Moskowitz, D-Parkland, belongs to the synagogue.
A little after 12 p.m., Broward Sheriff’s Office Parkland District deputies responded to a call about a disturbance near the 6700 block of University Drive, according to Gerdy St. Louis, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, where Congregation Kol Tikvah, a reform synagogue, is located.
Witnesses told investigators that five minors in face coverings rode their bikes through the area, screaming the slurs, St. Louis said. Se did not say what the group was screaming.
Congregants were leaving the synagogue when the minors yelled “kill the Jews!” according to a statement from Moskowitz’s office.
Deputies canvassed the area but did not find any of the people involved, St. Louis said. The investigation remains active.
“Day after day, week after week, we continue to see chants for mass genocide of an entire religion,” Moskowitz said in a statement. “No doubt “kill the Jews” is something these kids on bicycles saw on Tik Tok or Instagram. From viral videos of people denouncing the Jewish Community to demonstrations on college campuses of people wanting to “fulfill Hitler’s mission,” our country has been infiltrated by antisemitism and hatred.”
The incident comes amid heightened tensions over the Israel-Hamas war. Antisemitic incidents have increased dramatically since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, according to groups that track them.
Between Oct. 7 and Oct. 23, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism has recorded a 388% increase in “reported incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault” over the same period last year.
The group also recorded a close to 1,000-percent increase in the “daily average of violent messages mentioning Jews and Israel in white supremacist and right-wing extremist channels” on Telegram.
Islamophobia has also increased globally and in the U.S since Oct. 7, reports and groups say. The Council on American Islamic Relations says it has received over 700 complaints of bias incidents since Oct. 7, the largest wave of incidents since Dec. 2015, when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.