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In her first week at Barnard College a decade ago, a student asked Mazelit Airaksinen, then known as Toni, to sign a petition against Israel.
She considered herself politically liberal and knew virtually nothing about Israel or Judaism. Rather than sign something she did not understand, she asked for time to research the issue and form her own opinion. After examining the information provided by the petition organizers, she declined to sign, sensing that “something was being left out of the picture, and I wasn’t being told the full story.”
Her decision would lead to years of harassment and isolation. Yet it also brought her into the lives of Jewish families whose kindness inspired her to convert to Judaism.
The Price of Thinking Independently
By her sophomore year, she said, the majority of students in her dorm belonged to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), including its co-president and its communications manager. Because she would not take part in their activism, she recalled, they ostracized her and she was forced to move to another dorm during midterms.
She was neither Jewish nor a supporter of Israel at the time, Airaksinen noted, but others assumed she was both. She remembered being branded a “Zionist white supremacist” in a Facebook group for her graduating class. People banged on her door at night and followed her through grocery stores, pressing her to condemn Israel, she said. In class, some moved away when she sat beside them.
She told her resident adviser about the harassment. The adviser’s response was to ask whether she had “read more about what’s going on in Palestine.”
“I didn’t even know any Jews or Palestinians, really, at that time,” Airaksinen said.
Finding a Home in the Jewish Community
As the harassment continued, Airaksinen sought advice on social media about whether to transfer to another college or remain at Barnard. Among those who reached out to support her were people she would later discover were Jewish.
Airaksinen was the first in her family to graduate from high school and attend college. “I had no parents to call,” she said. “I had no family members to call. I was completely on my own.”
“Jewish people everywhere were inviting me to their Shabbats,” she said. During her last three years of college, she spent much of her time outside class with Jewish friends and their families. She scheduled her classes for Tuesdays and Thursdays to spend more time with them in Brooklyn and New Jersey. When she had nowhere to go over winter, spring, or summer breaks, “all my Jewish friends would let me stay with them.”
“They basically saved my life,” she said.
Choosing Judaism in the Shadow of October 7
Within a month of meeting those friends, Airaksinen wanted to convert. “I fell in love with Judaism,” she said.
The Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, became a decisive turning point.
“I told myself, if I’m going to live as a Jew, I want to die as a Jew,” she said, adding, “If I have to die as a Jew, that means I absolutely have to convert.”
Following October 7th, she says she printed and distributed 8,000 flyers in her Virginia community, featuring Israelis who had been taken hostage or were missing and providing information about the attack. She also began posting tributes on X multiple times a day, sharing the stories of those murdered that day. One post drew about 350,000 views in less than a day, she said.
A few months after the attacks, she moved to South Florida and joined a Reform congregation. When she converted in 2025, she changed her name to Mazelit, a name she chose with the help of her rabbi and the congregation’s Israeli-born cantor. It was inspired by the Hebrew word mazal, meaning good fortune.
Targeted With Antisemitic Death Threats
Airaksinen began receiving death threats from accounts subscribed to her Substack newsletter. She reported the threats through the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Report It app and provided six screenshots documenting three Substack exchanges and three emails sent between August 25 and September 17, 2026. She estimates she has received seven or eight death threats in total.
The first Substack exchange, at 4:23 a.m. on August 25, opened with “Kill All Jews” and “Kill All Jews Kill All Zionist.” It continues, “Maybe as a courier, maybe as a postman, we will show up in the houses of you damn Jews and blow their brains out… This world is not comfortable for you.”
At 8:02 a.m. the same day, a second account wrote, “Im gonna kill you.” Its next message read, “Kill all jews and kill all zionist.”
At 11:25 a.m., a third account mocked Airaksinen for reporting the threats to police and claimed, “I know ur location.” It also threatened to approach her home disguised as a courier and shoot her in the head.
The first of three emails, all from Proton Mail addresses, arrived five days later, at 9:54 a.m. on August 30, under the subject line “Zionist Toni.” It read, “Don’t worry, we are following you 24/7, as I said in the previous messages, you will be killed when you least expect it.” It added, “Be careful of the couriers who will come to your house, one of them will not be a real courier.”
A September 9 email, sent at 4:40 p.m. under the subject line “Loser Jews,” was addressed to several recipients, including Airaksinen. It warned, “Be careful of those who come to your homes, we will cause increasing damage to the vehicles you get in. The police, FBI or MOSSAD will never find us. We will reach you again and when we do, you will understand that we are following you in real life.”
The most recent message she provided, sent at 7:28 p.m. on September 17 under the subject line “Mazelit Airaksinen[murder case],” said, “I’m going to pay people to smash your head in with a hammer or burn your house down.” It then turned to a broader threat. “Forest fires and arson attacks will begin in many parts of the United States, particularly in Florida.”
The Substack accounts and Proton Mail addresses carried similar names, but the materials did not establish whether one person or several wrote them.
While messages in three of the screenshots claimed that whoever wrote them knew her location or was following her, Airaksinen said none revealed private information about her. “I don’t think I’m being followed,” she said.
Airaksinen called the threats “psychological terrorism designed to weaken us into silence.”
One threat particularly disturbed her. One sender’s profile picture showed a facial reconstruction of an unidentified deceased man. When she conducted a reverse image search, she discovered what appeared to be an old FBI notice seeking help identifying him. She recalled being terrified throughout the night.
“It is not safe to deal with it on your own,” she said. “You need someone to talk to.”
Airaksinen reported the threats to Delray Beach police, who she said arrived within five minutes and took a report. She also submitted a tip to the FBI and said its agents have called her about three times. She forwards them each new threat. Both agencies have assured her they are doing what they can, but neither has provided details or a timeline. No suspect has been identified, she said.
The Fear of Bringing Danger to Synagogue
After the threats began, Airaksinen stayed away from synagogue for about three weeks. Although she knew of no specific threat against the congregation, she worried that her presence might put fellow worshipers, many of them elderly, at risk.
“We weren’t sure the level of the threat,” she said. “We didn’t want to bring a threat to the temple.”
The fear shapes her mornings. “The first thing I do when I wake up is I check all of my emails to see if I’ve gotten a new death threat,” she said.
Airaksinen said she continues to wear a Star of David every day, despite the threats. “I wore the yellow ribbon, I wore my star, I still wear it,” she said.
“Jews should not live in fear,” she emphasized.
Airaksine believes combating antisemitism also requires showing people the beauty of Jewish life beyond politics and the hostile portrayals they encounter on social media. She calls for “more spreading of Jewish joy” and encouraging Jews to share their traditions, from preparing for Shabbat to the importance of Jewish education.
“People think we are the enemy, when in reality, most people who hate us have never met one of us,” she said.
Take Action
CAM has launched Report It, a secure app to report antisemitic incidents anonymously and in real time. Don’t stay silent. Download it today on the Apple App Store or Google Play. See it. Report it. Stop it.
