Zoe Bell | Staff Writer
A Maryland man was arrested on Monday and charged with mailing “numerous” threatening communications to Jewish organizations in several states since March 2024, according to a press release.
Clift “Andy” Seferlis admitted to the FBI on Monday that he had sent “at least three dozen letters or postcards to Jewish organizations across the Northeast over the last several months,” federal authorities said in a criminal complaint.
In his letters, Seferlis, 55, referenced Israel, Gaza and events in which Jewish people were killed or otherwise attacked, prosecutors said. The letters suggested that acts of violence would occur at the unnamed Jewish institutions.
Written on a typewriter, many of Seferlis’ letters contained newspaper clippings of articles about the war in Israel and Gaza. Some included references to Kristallnacht, the 1938 antisemitic attacks across Nazi Germany and parts of Austria, prosecutors said.
In one letter sent in May to a Philadelphia-based Jewish institution, Seferlis wrote, “The hatred toward you all, your [institution], and especially the nation of Israel is at an all time high and is only getting worse.” He asked the institution’s staff if they really care “about what is going on in Gaza,” and inquired if it would take “something happening” to their “beloved” institution to “make that happen.”
The same institution received several additional messages, totaling about seven since April 1, 2024, including a threat to physically destroy the institution, prosecutors said.
Other threatening letters to the institution and its employees, thought to be sent by Seferlis, referenced the institution’s “many big open windows,” Kristallnacht, “anger and rage” and a future need to “rebuild” the institution after its destruction.
Seferlis was arrested on June 16 in Maryland and awaits a June 18 arraignment in Philadelphia, where his case will be prosecuted, according to the press release. As of the evening of June 17, he did not have an attorney listed in court documents.
Prosecutors added that Seferlis — a self-described tour guide — told the FBI that he had led tours of the institution in the past and had been planning to do so again later this week.
About one week after Seferlis began sending threats to the institution, in April 2024, the Philadelphia Police Department was made aware of a “number of mass emails and alleged bomb threats” sent to various synagogues and Jewish institutions in the Philadelphia region.
An April 9, 2024, email sent to Jewish federations in Pennsylvania threatened to blow up synagogues and other facilities across the state. Law enforcement responded to the bomb threat with bomb-sniffing dogs, according to CBS News, before determining that the email was a hoax.
Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia was the target of an attempted burglary and arson in October 2024, according to a memo circulated by Sen. Judith Schwank.
