Alaska bill making church and synagogue vandalism a felony is signed into law

Vandalism of houses of worship and other religious sites is now a felony, under a bill that was signed into law on Tuesday by Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

The measure, House Bill 238, was signed in a ceremony at the Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska, a campus in Anchorage that is home to an Orthodox Jewish congregation, a preschool and a museum devoted to Alaska’s Jewish history.

It was also the site of recent antisemitic vandalism, part of a national trend of increasing attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions.

Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, the bill’s sponsor, spoke about that trend, as well as a pattern of attacks against Muslims, mosques and Muslim institutions. The Council of American Islamic Relations reported that complaints of discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians increased by 56% from 2022 to 2023, he said.

“So you can see the need for this kind of bill,” he said.

The new law, which classifies such vandalism and desecration as a class C felony instead of a class A misdemeanor, addresses intentional acts, Josephson said. “This requires more than an accident. This is not the soccer ball errantly kicked through a window by a child next door. This is something more knowing than that. It requires a substantial probability that someone knew that what they were doing would harm a religious education or a place of worship,” he said.

He acknowledged some concerns about potential “overreach,” but noted that defendants in these cases would remain eligible for suspended sentences.

A class C felony in Alaska is punishable by a jail term of up to five years and a fine of up to $50,000. A class A misdemeanor in Alaska is punishable by a jail term of up to one year and a fine of up to $25,000. The new law defines attacks on religious sites as felony criminal mischief.

Also speaking at the event were three rabbis: Yosef Greenberg, Levi Glitsenstein and Mendy Greenberg.

Rabbi Yosef Greenberg spoke about a 2021 incident at the Jewish campus in which swastika stickers were affixed to the museum, as well as bomb threats that forced preschoolers to evacuate the building. “Other communities have suffered as well,” he said, mentioning recent incidents at churches.

Rabbi Mendy Greenberg drew a parallel between physical illness and destructive behavior of vandalism against religious property. “Society can have illnesses, so people can make negative choices, bad decisions.” said the younger Greenberg, who is Yosef Greenberg’s son and leader of a congregation based in Palmer. The new law addresses such illnesses once they break out, he said. “Hopefully, this bill will be a deterrence for people that have such ideas, such ill ideas in their mind that they will not go ahead and do this knowing that there’s a more severe punishment,” he said.

Beyond deterring the behavior, there is “a more successful way of dealing with illness, which is to make sure people don’t get ill in the first place” by ensuring that people are moral and tolerant, he said.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.