On Sunday evening, hours after Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his family concluded their second Passover Seder, a man broke into the Governor’s residence and hurled incendiary devices inside. Shapiro and his family fled the mansion in an apparent arson attack.
The suspect, identified as Cody Balmer, later surrendered at the Pennsylvania State Police headquarters in Harrisburg. Police described him as having “a troubled past and a history of mental illness,” he now faces charges of attempted murder, aggravated arson, burglary, reckless endangerment, terrorism, aggravated assault, and other related offenses. Authorities stated that Balmer “harbored hatred toward Governor Shapiro,” but did not immediately label it as a hate crime or antisemitic attack.
“I know that there are people out there who want to ascribe their own viewpoints as to what happened here and why,” Shapiro said after the attack. “I choose not to participate in that.”
Since then, more details have surfaced, including the attacker’s motives. Balmer called the police less than an hour after the incident, telling dispatchers the governor needed to know that Balmer “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.” Balmer said his “people have been put through too much by that monster.”
In response to the incident, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi that the attack “raises serious concerns about antisemitic motivation.” He cited the suspect’s statements “in conjunction with the timing of the attack during Passover, Governor Shapiro’s visible embrace of his Jewish faith, and the context of rising antisemitism globally and across the country.”
The arson highlights a continuous rise in antisemitism in America, with attacks spiking after Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel. The Anti-Defamation League reported nearly 9,000 incidents in 2023 — the highest total in its history since it began recording. Similarly, a recent report from the American Jewish Committee suggests that nearly four in ten Jews now feel less secure than a year ago, with one in five considering hiding their Jewish identity in public.
