Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Hasidic Jew Who Converted to Islam Admits Making Anti-Chabad Threats

A Jewish convert to Islam pleaded guilty to inciting violence, including a call to leave Chabad headquarters in New York “a message from Islam.”

Image by courtesy of vozisneias

“Yousef Mohamid Al-Khattab (a.k.a. Joseph Cohen), 45, of Atlantic City, New Jersey, pleaded guilty yesterday to using his position as a leader of the ‘Revolution Muslim’ websites to use the Internet to place others in fear of serious bodily injury,” said an Oct. 31 statement from the Alexandria, Va., office of the FBI.

Al-Khattab pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court. He faces a sentence of up to five years when he next appears in court, in February.

Many of his incendiary calls were made during Operation Cast Lead in 2009, among them a call to seek out leaders of Jewish federations “and deal with them in their homes.”

He also posted a map with directions to Chabad headquarters and, according to The Washington Post, called on his readers to “make EVERY attempt to reach these people and teach them the message of Islam or leave them a message of Islam.”

The Post said al-Khattab was a dual Israeli citizen.

A before-and-after photo on the Vosizneias news website showed a younger al-Khattab when he was a haredi Orthodox Jew.

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.