SPECIAL REPORT: Jewish Idahoans face record hate over Gaza War

BOISE (KIFI) - Idaho’s Jewish community says a war half the world away is creating hate at home.

Many Jewish Idahoans have never been to Israel or even speak Hebrew, but say they’re being blamed for the War in Gaza regardless. Watchdogs say they’re facing the worst antisemitism in more than half a century.

There is only one synagogue in East Idaho - Temple Emanuel in Pocatello.

“This has been an incredibly difficult year,” lamented its rabbi, Sara Goodman. “Just knowing that we’re pretty isolated, and nobody really cares how we feel. Or, at least, that’s how it feels.”

The State of Israel is at war. Whenever there’s a skirmish in the streets of Gaza, Jewish Idahoans often feel caught in the crossfire.

“Because there is a tie between Judaism and Israel,” Goodman explained, “if you are somebody who does not want Israel to exist, it’s very easy to say, ‘Well, let’s get rid of Jews.’”

Local News 8 joined Rabbi Goodman on October 7th, one year after the largest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, as she traveled to Boise for a memorial at the Egyptian Theatre.

“There’s so much hate and vitriol,” she conveyed through tears.

Idaho’s Jewish population is incredibly small. There are only 2,000 Jews in the entire state - not even enough to fill the average high school football stadium. Yet the Anti-Defamation League says they have been targeted by 51 anti-Jewish incidents in just a six-month span.

The fear of intimidation did not waver at the October 7th memorial. A protestor waved a large flag on the State Capitol steps, just two blocks from the theatre.

It should be noted the protestor was waving the flag of Sudan, which is identical to the flag of Palestine but with two of its colors swapped. The protestor left before Local News 8 could verify if they intended to fly the flag of Palestine on the terror attack’s anniversary date.

Meanwhile, Idaho Rep. Ilana Rubel (D-Boise), the House minority leader, was a featured speaker at the memorial. She is one of just two Jewish members of the state legislature.

“My father’s family came here in the late 1800s fleeing the pogroms,” she explained, “when their village was routinely burned to the ground, women raped, and the men beaten.”

“My mother’s side came here fleeing the Holocaust,” she added. “My grandfather was the only member of his family to survive.”

While the protestors have certainly scared the Gem State Jewish population, Rabbi Goodman does believe many of them are good people.

“You cannot look at the war, even in an unbiased way, and not feel something,” she asserted. “There’s no way.”

However, there is a Jewish religion and a Jewish ethnicity. While Israel is the ancestral homeland of both, neither is explicitly Israeli. Goodman believes many protestors don’t understand the difference.

“Harassing Jewish students and not letting them into certain parts of a college campus is totally reasonable,” she said with a sarcastic shrug, “because you don’t support one side of the war.”

Carson Winter, the vice president of Boise State University’s Jewish Students Union, has seen that harassment first-hand.

“Being handed a flyer about a pro-Palestine lecture on campus, which I respectfully declined,” he recalled to the memorial crowd. “As I simply told the man that I was Jewish, he scoffed and looked at me with blatant animosity.”

“A grown man yelled a religious slur at my brother upon seeing his Star of David necklace,” he added.

“When I post on social media, it’s met with a wave of antisemitism,” Rubel asserted. “I can post something completely benign, like saying, ‘Hey, we’re having a picnic tomorrow, come on out.’ And people will respond with, y’know, ‘Go back to Israel, you ugly Jew,’ or some horrible antisemitic bile.”

The FBI says anti-Jewish hate crimes have jumped 400 percent since October 7th, 2023. It’s the highest rate since at least 1991, the limit of the available data. The ADL has not seen a higher rate of anti-Jewish incidents since it began tracking them in the 1970s.

Protestors may not be targeting Jewish people or institutions, but that is the end result.

“Certainly these things have been happening in Idaho going back to the 80’s,” Rubel said, “when we were the headquarters of the Aryan Nation.”

White supremacy has not left the state, either. The ADL reported hate group propaganda over the past year in nearly every sizable Idaho city. 

White supremacists hijacked public comment at a Sandpoint city council meeting a month after the war began. One of them even claimed to be Jewish.

“We are the rightful rulers of this planet,” the anonymous male voice said over Zoom. “So I’d like everyone to raise a hand for Jewish supremacy. Thank you, and God bless Israel.”

A second white supremacist read from “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a 120-year-old fabricated plan for Jewish world domination. It was assigned reading in Nazi German classrooms and formed the basis for many modern “new world order” conspiracy theories.

“Six Jewish corporations own 96 percent of the media,” this second male voice also said over Zoom. “They have done this by placing their agents and helpers everywhere, and appointing puppet leaders who can be controlled by blackmail.”

“Come get some,” they continued before repeating an unprintable anti-Jewish slur. “That’s how the Jew acts - the Jew cries out in pain as he strikes you.”

It was only at this point that either speaker was cut off from speaking by a city councilor.

Just across the state line, in Jackson, WY, it happened again two months later.

“What about a safe space for European descended Americans?” another anonymous male asked over Zoom. “White European-Americans - the most important race on Earth!”

The ADL connected these incidents to a hate group called the Goyim Defense League. “Goyim” is a mildly pejorative Hebrew term for non-Jews.

“So it’s not just what’s going on in Israel,” Rabbi Goodman explained. “It’s what’s going on here. And just not feeling safe in the places that we love.”

These examples are only scratching the surface. Local News 8 spoke with some Jewish Idahoans who did not want to come forward out of fear for their safety. 

“This isn’t how our world is supposed to work,” Goodman said. “And yet we’re here.”

So the question naturally becomes: what can the State of Idaho do about it?

“In the state legislature, every morning,” Rubel said, “every legislator is required to recite a prayer thanking our lord Jesus Christ.”

The rules of the state legislature say every session must begin with a prayer, but Local News 8 did not find a statute mandating specifically Christian prayer. However, video does show the legislature’s chaplain concluding his prayers “in Jesus’ name.”

“I don’t know if people realize, but that is not consistent with Jewish religion,” Rubel said with a laugh.

“That is not helpful if we want to defeat antisemitism in Idaho,” she continued. “We need to not have our government speaking out from on high, telling everybody that they need to be Christian.”

While Rubel is concerned with the legislature, other Jewish Idahoans are asking everyday Idahoans to consider how they can help. 

“We don’t need monuments to the past,” said Boise-based Rabbi Mendel Lifshitz. “We have too many of those littering our history, unfortunately. We’d rather see all of you standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jewish people.”

“We’re dedicated to building bridges and standing with you,” declared Pastor Dave McGarrah of Deerflat Church, “and making noise at the appropriate times, without expecting any theological change on your part.”


“You make a difference,” Rabbi Lifshitz said. “One good deed, one voice of support, one mitzvah [a Hebrew term meaning “good deed” or “commandment”] can tip the scales and make this place a better world.”

“There are a lot of people in Idaho who have never met a Jewish person, or who don’t realize that they’ve ever met a Jewish person,” Rubel explained. “And I think it’s good for them to meet us, see that we don’t have horns, and see that we’re reasonable people.”

Rabbi Goodman concluded with a simple message for those concerned about the war.

“If you actually stand for peace,” she said, “then you need to come together and make it happen.”