FBI probes potential hate crime near college

John C. Drake, Boston Globe - March 17, 2008

Two Molotov cocktails were hurled at the off-campus apartment of an Israeli emissary who works with Jewish students at Brown University early Saturday, an attack the FBI is investigating as a potential hate crime.

No one was hurt in the attack. One of the devices crashed through a window but did not explode, and a second one glanced off the side of the building and ignited a small fire in the yard, police said.

The apparent target of the attack is one of 500 emissaries worldwide of the Jerusalem-based Jewish Agency for Israel, a nonprofit whose goal is to connect Jewish people with Israel, said a spokesman for the organization. The victim is also the Israel fellow on the staff of Hillel, a Jewish student group serving Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design.

Brown University said it was providing support to the employee. In a statement released yesterday, university officials said authorities had no suspects and no motives for the attack.

"This is the first time that a Jewish Agency emissary has been attacked in America, either criminal or political," Michael Jankelowitz, a spokesman for the organization, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

"There's no nexus to terrorism," said Gail Marcinkiewicz, a spokeswoman for the Boston field office of the FBI.

"We would look at it as a potential hate crime."

Posted on 20 March 2008 @ 02:41 GMT