A pair of pranksters in the UK were just arrested after sharing video of themselves spraying Orthodox Jews with water pistols on their social media channels.
The videos, which have since been deleted from Facebook and Instagram, included the disclaimer: “This video was made purely for humorous purposes. It is just a joke and not hate speech in any way. Please do not take it the wrong way.”
But police aren’t seeing it that way. The men are being questioned for the crime of racially aggravated common assault, and police say they could be charged for committing hate crimes.
The Water Gun Attack
The video, scored to Jewish folk tune Hava Nagila, depicts the two men driving around and spraying Orthodox men with water guns. The video was widely condemned by Jewish groups, who say that pranks like this can perpetuate violent attacks against Jews.
Community Security Trust, a registered pro-Jewish charity in the UK, decried it as "an appalling antisemitic video," and a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism explained that harassment like this go far beyond what some may consider a harmless prank.
“Targeting Jewish people for harassment is not a prank but anti-Semitic abuse,” they stated. “And doing so from the comfort of your car is particularly cowardly.”
“We are treating this incident with the utmost seriousness and have acted swiftly to make arrests,” said Chief Inspector Simon Ashcroft. “Greater Manchester Police has a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime, and we are committed to ensuring our communities feel safe and supported.”
When is Harassment a Hate Crime?
Does spraying someone with a squirt gun rise to the level of abuse? Jewish advocates say yes — and the numbers may be on their side.
Last week, the FBI released new hate crime statistics showing that hate crimes against Jewish people hit record highs in 2024.
17% of all reported hate crimes in the United States last year targeted Jews. Perhaps even more striking, attacks on Jews made up 70% of all religiously motivated hate crimes. That’s a sharp rise since Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel.
Most of these incidents were vandalism, followed by intimidation, and more than 250 took place at synagogues.
While a water gun attack might seem trivial compared to violent assaults, Jewish groups argue that it’s part of the same spectrum of harassment, one that erodes community safety and emboldens more serious offenders. Whether this should be considered a hate crime or just an act of idiotic cruelty is now for the courts to decide.
What do you think? When does a “prank” cross the line into hate?
3 comments
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Reverend Paula Copp
Totally morally and socially unacceptable! Why would someone do that? What, exactly, is the point?
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Clive Hessing
A clear insult to Hebrew culture in the modern day. Even the music in the background creates a bit of a suggestive theme in people’s mind. Not only a disrespect to the inherently Jewish community, but also to the recent tensions between Israel and the Middle East, it is quite disrespectful. It is a clear promotion to a suggestive theme “attack jews” with the theme being middle eastern music in the background 🫤. It is quite disappointing this is what they find as a “harmless joke”. To even try to convince you of such a thought creates a mind bending idea in the minds of others of either frustration or irritation. Such behavior publicly viewed taking places upon innocent individuals promotes violence in the environmental state of the world, as well as social media. With the United States already struggling with antisemitic protesting outside the very walls of our Colleges/Universities meant to tutor the youthful community on being productive, sound thinking citizens of society trying to find their way in the world. It is gimmicks like this that promote these type of loose reactions from individuals, and cause “the right to protest” to become not only a ministerial issue creating struggles for ministers trying to spread the full Word Of God, but it is also a legal back a forth in the minimal nature of the law when it comes to simple tolerant behavior across the communities of the world. It is not good on the influence of our mind. Better for us to seek peaceful interactions and humorous discussions to bring a smile to others even if it is recorded and quite literally only appropriately completely. Better behavior is the cure of the world. Everyone knows how ill misleading nature is in the modern day. To act as if misleading even a few people is a joke, it is also literal in truth and proven time and time again, no matter how minute, it is punished every time, time and time again. Clear advise for these type of acts “Do not do it”.
It is inappropriate, just like spraying a Catholic priest in his robes, or any other religious figure would be . Very sad