Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Fired Worker Threatens To Blow Up U. of Washington Hillel Building

A former employee of the Hillel at the University of Washington threatened to blow up the building with a mix of toxic chemicals.

Image by hillel

The former employee, who was recently fired as a maintenance worker at the Hillel UW, on Monday was arrested after he mixed the chemicals in a supply closet in the basement of the Karen Mayers Gamoran Family Center for Jewish Life building, according to the Seattle Times.

Employees and students, up to about 30 people, evacuated the building in Seattle’s so-called U-District and called police.

A police SWAT team entered the building and found the man, who has not been named, overcome by fumes from the mixed chemicals, which included ammonia and bleach.

Police closed roads to traffic around the building during the incident. The Hillel, which is located about two blocks from the campus, was set to reopen on Tuesday, according to the Seattle Times.

Hillel Director Rabbi Oren Hayon told the Los Angeles Times that he did not believe that the attack was anti-Semitic.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.